What you're taught in school is BS. The real reason is that every country on the European continent relied upon mobilizing conscripts, which required 30-60 days to call up their soldiers so that they'd be better defended than a Swedish nunnery. There was no way to rush this. This created a perpetual tinderbox in Europe because everyone was afraid that their neighbor(s) would start mobilizing in secret and then steamroll them while they were defenseless. This was very similar to certain parts of the Cold War where anemic second strike capabilities escalated tensions. The Germans came up with the Schlieffen Plan to mobilize in secret, get the jump on France, and knock the French out of the war before they could mobilize. This would have left Germany in a much better position of only fighting a one front war. It very nearly worked, and would have succeeded if the Low Countries had rolled over as expected.
What you're taught in school is BS. The real reason is that every country on the European continent relied upon mobilizing conscripts, which required 30-60 days to call up their soldiers so that they'd be better defended than a Swedish nunnery. There was no way to rush this. This created a perpetual tinderbox in Europe because everyone was afraid that their neighbor(s) would start mobilizing in secret and then steamroll them while they were defenseless. This was very similar to certain parts of the Cold War where anemic second strike capabilities escalated tensions. The Germans came up with the Schlieffen Plan to mobilize in secret, get the jump on France, and knock the French out of the war before they could mobilize. This would have left Germany in a much better position of only fighting a one front war. It very nearly worked, and would have succeeded if the Low Countries had rolled over as expected.
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