Chapter Four - Russia Trips Over Itself

CHAPTER FOUR

Russia Trips Over Itself

IF GERMANY WAS overconfident and trigger-happy, Russia was…
Big.
And slow.
And not really sure what it was doing.

Tsar Nicholas II wasn’t built for this.
He wasn’t built for anything, really. He was a soft-spoken guy with a royal complex, a weak chin, and a complete inability to say no to bad ideas. His advisors were a mess. His military leadership was disorganized. His infrastructure was falling apart.

But damn it — he was a tsar.
And when Serbia was threatened, he couldn’t just sit there knitting.

So Russia mobilized.

Kind of.

Russia had the biggest army in Europe — on paper.
But on land, paper catches fire quickly.

Troops were spread out across vast distances.

Trains were scarce and badly coordinated.

Generals disagreed on what to do.

The government couldn’t decide if they were just defending Serbia… or planning a full war.

It took days for orders to go out.
More days for troops to move.
And even more days for anyone to realize this was spiraling.

Germany, watching this trainwreck unfold, didn’t wait.

On August 1, Germany declares war on Russia.
Two days later, on August 3, they declare war on France.

Why France?

Because Germany’s entire war plan — the Schlieffen Plan — assumes that if Russia mobilizes, France will mobilize too. So Germany’s strategy is to pre-emptively punch France in the face, knock them out quickly, then turn around and deal with Russia’s slow-moving army later.

It’s not a plan built on diplomacy.
It’s a plan built on railway schedules and wishful thinking.

France didn’t want this war. Not really.
But they’d spent the last forty years stewing over their humiliating loss in the Franco-Prussian War. They wanted Alsace and Lorraine back.
They’d allied with Russia precisely to contain Germany.
And now Germany was saying: “You’re next.”

So France mobilized.
And the German war machine creaked into motion.

But there’s one problem:

To get to France, Germany has to go through Belgium.

And Belgium?

Well…