Post 9/28 - 10/4

During the discussions and lectures about World War I, there was one thing I couldn't stop thinking was "How could the Germans be so stupid?" From the beginning it seems like they were destined to lose the war, mostly due to their inability to plan correctly. The Schlieffen Plan in particular is kind of stunning in how shortsighted it was, requiring a speedy defeat of the French and a lack of participation by the British. That said, I do feel like the overconfidence has a very logical explanation, the Germans increase in industrial and economic power made them feel like they were above the rest of Europe. It seems that military and industrial technology had grown faster than anyone expected, and they were left to fight a war using what was then high-tech equipment, but without a strategy that could take advantage of these advances. Then, you've got the German navy, which was probably an even bigger failure than the Schileffen plan due to its inability to do much of anything. While I'd already known that there was still a Prussian influence in Germany during this time, due to the lands that had been Prussia making up the majority of the Germanic Empire, Germany's failures in WW1 seem to be directly due to this influence. Still, I'm left wondering how anyone involved thought this could be a good idea, unless they were so blinded by Germanic pride that they couldn't imagine anything less than a total victory.