"charles" wrote in message
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In article ,
Rod Speed wrote:
David P wrote

QUORA: Was WWI avoidable?

by David Lipman, former 1st Cavalry Division (1983-1987)
Answered Oct 22, 2018
The fact that the Great War was avoidable is one of that wars
many tragedies. When dealing with jealous, competetive, and
powerful nation states, a deft diplomacy is mandatory. But wise
diplomacy was gone from Germany, the young and foolish Kaiser
dismissed the masterful Bismark. It took a diplomat of Bismarks
skill to balance the jealous rivals Germanies nationhood had
created. With his ouster, the diplomacy of Germany became erratic.

The real problem was that they didn't realise that that
conflict could turn into anything like a 4 year world war.
They expected that it would just be another local war
like the european wars before that.

The French were burning for the return of Alsace and Lorraine.
Provinces taken in the final of three wars Bismark had instigated
to form the German nation in 1870. France knew she would need
powerful allies to defeat the new German colossus. Bismark had
kept Russia tied to Germany. The Kaiser threw this "Three Emperors
League. away. France quickly filled the void. The Kaisers stupidity
had lost Russia to France.

Britain was finished with "Splendid Isolation..

There was never that with the wars against the french and waterloo etc.

That was 100 years in the past.

But there was the Boer War and Egypt etc much more recently than that. And
the colonial wars too. Nothing even remotely like splendid isolation in
fact.