Germany's preventive-war logic

Germany bears a leading share of responsibility in this account because Berlin sought an Austro-Serbian war while trying to conceal its encouragement of Vienna. German leaders believed that delay favored Russia as its rail network, Baltic Fleet, and military reforms matured. Their argument assumed a future German-Russian war was inevitable and sometimes cast it in racial terms as a Teutonic-Slavic struggle. Contempt for democratic powers also encouraged the belief that parliamentary states could not sustain a major war, echoing Napoleon's misreading of Britain. Fear of future weakness and confidence in authoritarian strength made war in 1914 appear preferable to restraint.