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Well, it actually started with the Franco-British staff talks, the 1904 Franco-British agreement on naval responsibilities in the Mediterranean and North Sea vis. the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy, and the fear of the Liberal cabinet in 1914 that failing to take a hard line on Germany would result in the fall of the cabinet (the PM and FM were both implicated in secret back-channel negotiations with the French which, had the UK not supported France against Germany, would have been immensely personally and politically damaging to them and probably required resignation) and the likely installation of the Tories, who would be bellicose anyway and (in the view of the liberals) also likely spark civil war over the Irish question. The Belgium question was just the tripwire.
No, they bungled what should have been a decent and defensible position in support of an ally who had been the subject of an organized assassination plot from a rogue state sponsor of terrorism. Frankly, the Russians and Austrians both bear at least as much guilt for the onset of general war as the Germans, and probably more.
Ironic, because at the time Germany was arguably the leading light of the west, at least in scientific and cultural matters.
If Belgium was a tripwire, it was a pretty substantial one. There was real doubt all the way through the process. Zero reason for England to back Serbia. Almost none to back Russia. More to defend France, but abstaining was seriously on the table. It was only preemptively occupying Belgium that said, hey, one of these pieces of paper has to mean something!
I've heard historians argue that the british government's legal counsel had advised that the 1839 treaty could be worked around. And in any event the UK went in before the invasion of Belgium - Grey's famous speech to parliament is all based upon assumptions and diplomatic insinuations, not any concrete actions by the Germans. Once the Brits were in, there was no incentive for the Germans not to go through Belgium.
The German war plans offered limited flexibility - not NO flexibility as the General Staff pretended - but once the decision was made to go in against France, Belgium was done for regardless. As units on the Belgian frontier were activated they were already moving across the border to secure the way for those coming behind them. The German deployment schedules which were so rigorously developed in the pre-war period required either a conquered Belgium or a pliant one. There were no alternatives.
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Are you trying to argue that the invasion and occupation of Belgium in 1914 was somehow accidental?
Debatable but even so, ironic does not mean untrue.
I'm trying to argue that it shouldn't have come to a general war in the first place.
It probably wouldn't have if Germany hadn't violated Belgium's neutrality.
Germany wanted a general war and they got it.
I disagree; the diplomatic and political maneuvering in the weeks and months leading up to the initial declarations of war - let alone the actual first acts of armed hostility - are much more complex. I recommend Christopher Clark's The Sleepwalkers and Sean McMeekin's July 1914: Countdown to War. They reach different conclusions, but are both magisterial overviews of the subject.
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