WWI: Origins and Causes

Around 1912 General Friedrich von Bernhardi penned a little ditty called The Next War in it he argued, among other things, that he

must first of all examine the aspirations for peace, which seem to dominate our age and threaten to poison the soul of the German people, according to their true moral significance. [He] must try t prove that war is not merely a necessary element in the life of nations, but an indispensable factor of culture, in which a true civilized nation find the highest expression of strength and vitality.

 It's easy, if you ignore what actually happened, to argue that things in the past happened because of impersonal forces and the like. When, in fact, it happened because a sufficiently powerful group of people thought that what they were about to do, start a war say, was in the world's best interests.