That is quite the pipedream.
I agree it was indeed a hawk pipedream.
Can you provide sources? Not cited, just the book or books you took that from.
Pipedreams are not normally written down.
Furthermore proclaiming it would have undermined the hawk lie line to the doves that
Germany had to attack France because they did not have a plan to go to war with
just the Russians and they could not improvise a plan because of railway timetables.
Yeah, so there's no way that is what the Germans were planning.
Stage 1: happened,
Stage 2: do you deny the existence of the Schieffen Plan for Stage 2?.
Stage 3 to 7: was subject to success with Stage 2 and required german and
austo-hungarian politicians and diplomats to deliver, and even then the timetable
of that pipedream was obviously not determinable; so it was necessarily
outside the scope german general staff planning until Stage 2 succeeded.
The Germans also predicted that the Italians would join the Entente side in 1914, hilariously before the actual Italian military knew.
The triple alliance between Germay Austia-Hungary and Italy was renewed
only two years earlier in 1912. The concept that Italy would join on the sides
of Germany and Austo-Hungary was not unreasonable. Why they did not
and why they joined the Entente side instead is a separate story.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Triple-Alliance-Europe-1882-1915
The Anglo-Japanese alliance was also a known thing, thus preventing the idea of some kinda German-Japanese anti-Russia effort. Wrong war man.
The German hawks probably hoped that Great Briatin would remain neutral or would sign a
ceasefire if France was defetaed, in whichg case the Anglo-Japanese alliance would not kick in.
Some extensive modern research has argued that the Germans were REALLY hoping to keep the Austro-Serbian conflict a regional one, which it should've been.
I am sure that the more sensible Germans did indeed hope to keep out.
My opinion is that the German leadership was divided and the hawks
lied to the doves to obtain a false consensus for initiating a major war.
The "Blank-Cheque" blew up in their face
I agree.
because they didn't have the kind of allied coordination which has become the norm in the modern world. Berlin was flabbergasted by how slow the Austrian political and military elements handled the situation.
I am not sure I understand you. Did the Hawks expect Austria-Hungary to have completed
the annexation of Serbia before the Tsar got out of bed?
Insofar as "the old equilibrium" meant "Britain, France, and Russia could make any aggressive actions they liked with very few diplomatic consequences" then I suppose that's not wrong.
Surprisingly, EnglishEdward, well-known proponent of Little English nationalism on these here boards, subscribes to the standard British propaganda myths about the Great War, and even extends them somewhat. The post as a whole is not good, and there's no particular reason to take it seriously. The quoted section also imbibes in the usual British mythmaking about their allegedly contemptible little army, but is particularly egregious because it inflates the military value of the BEF and repeats the claim that the German war plan relied on a speedy end to the war when there is in fact no evidence that this is true; the "forty days" and "six weeks" claims that are often repeated (although not in the quoted post) are pure invention.
All of the Entente armies in the West in 1914 indulged in some fairly epic mythmaking to explain their disastrous defeats in the initial battles of the war (just as the Germans later found scapegoats for their defeat at the Marne), and the British came up with the most ludicrous stories. The BEF was defeated very badly from 24 to 26 August 1914 in the battles of Mons and Le Cateau in ways that showed severe flaws in British training, doctrine, and troop leading. In order to erase these defeats, the British made up casualty numbers, created military myths like "rapid rifle fire" and mowing down blocks of German soldiers advancing in close order, and accused the Germans of not fighting fair.
The reality is that in 1914 the BEF was not ready for a continental war against a Great Power. Its soldiers were brave and in some ways they were reasonably well-trained, although generally not as well-trained as the Germans were. But despite the Haldane reforms they were largely unaware of how modern warfare worked and how to coordinate fire and movement to generate maneuver. Most of the army was comprised of troops that had been deployed for counterinsurgency operations in Ireland and had not trained in many months (and were therefore undeployable by modern standards) and of reservists who were not even marching fit. The BEF's commanders at the operational level ranged from barely competent to worthy of court martial. They were not the architects of victory on the Marne, regardless of patriotic myth. There is in fact every indication that the Germans took the British about as seriously as they deserved. German accounts of the fights against the BEF in the summer of 1914 were full of praise for the old colonial mercenaries who were crack shots and adept at using terrain to gain cover...but they were also critical of British combined-arms coordination and positioning, while simultaneously fully aware of how most German units were better at all these things than the BEF of 1914 was.
It took a long time for the BEF to develop into a well-trained and -equipped fighting force capable of engaging in modern warfare. In that, perhaps, the imaginary Germans in the quoted post were not wrong.
I did NOT mention the BEF in my post yesterday.
What actually happened is a separate story from
what was then imagined would happen.