It was an inevitable expression of the national mentality, the Prussian mentality in particular which was famously described by Voltaire as "An army with a state". Germanywas openly talking about "Der Tag" long before WWI and those who think it was some sort of accident should know that tens of thousands of German reservists were called back from overseas earlier in 1914. We know this because many who had been in North America openly talked about it after they were captured in the war. I expect a study of the shipping records would certainly confirm the fact.
No one should be surprised that the true origins of events were often successfully hidden; they are still successfully hidden from most of the population to this day.![]()