But Russia was the object of Germany's diplomatic activity rather than
of her military preparations. It was thought that Russia could not
mobilize in less than six weeks or strike effectively in less than two
or three months, and that that interval would suffice for the crushing
of France, who was bound by treaty to intervene if Russia were
attacked. The German mobilization was therefore directed first against
France, defence against Russia being left to second-line German troops
and to an Austrian offensive. The defeat of France was not, however,
regarded by Germans as a mere incident in a war against Russia; for it
was a cardinal point in the programme of the militarists, whose mind
was indiscreetly revealed by Bernhardi, that France must be so
completely crushed that she could never again cross Germany's path. To
Frenchmen the war appeared to be mainly a continuation of the national
duel which had been waged since the sixteenth century. To Great
Britain it appeared, on the other hand, as the forcible culmination of
a new rivalry for colonial empire and the dominion of the seas. But
these were in truth but local aspects of a comprehensive German
ambition expressed in the antithesis Weltmacht oder Niedergang.
Bismarck had made the German Empire and raised it to the first place
as a European Power. Europe, it was discovered, was a small portion of
the globe; and Bismarck's successful methods were now to be used on a
wider scale to raise Germany to a similar predominance in the world.
The Serbian plot was merely the lever to set the whole machinery
working, and German activities all the world over from Belgrade and
Petrograd to Constantinople, Ulster, and Mexico were parts in a
comprehensive piece.

But while the German sword was pointed everywhere, its hilt was in
Berlin. Prussia supplied the mind which conceived the policy and