[eddie10101]

Hi there. I'm having a bit of trouble on the question 'Why did the Germans believe they could win a war in 1914, but not later?' Thank you!

[MrJohnDClare]

Hi Eddy-o (io-io)!

Firstly, when you join the forum, your posts are for a while queued for moderation.
That means that - until we get to know and trust you - your posts don't immediately appear on the forum.
They have to wait until a member of the Admin team (such as ME!!!) reads and OKs your post.
That's why it was a little while in appearing - there was no need to re-send it.

Secondly, what a precise question.

The specific answer is that in 1914 their army was the biggest and best in the world, but they knew that the Russian army was growing faster and they (wrongly, as it turned out) thought that if they left it a couple of years the Russian army would have caught up and passed theirs.
You need specifically to know about the Naval 'War Cabinet' of 1912 (Source B on this webpage on my site: http://www.johndclar...causes_WWI2.htm, which also includes figures of army /navy size etc.

If your teacher has set you this as an essay, however, I think probably that he wants you to develop your answer in more general terms, setting it into the context of militarism and alliances at the time (all of which you can find out about if you read the whole of the webpage above), and the Schlieffen Plan (see the information in section 3 of this webpage: http://www.johndclar...causes_WWI4.htm).