Dan Carlin’s hardcore history podcast covers this pretty well and is a great listen. But basically the idea is that everyone knew a straight-up fight between m

Dan Carlin’s hardcore history podcast covers this pretty well and is a great listen. But basically the idea is that everyone knew a straight-up fight between major powers would be an ugly grind. But national armies take time to mobilize. So you want to mobilize early and try to win before everyone else catches up. This means that once it looks like things might kick off, everyone immediately goes all in. But if your sucker punch fails, buckle up for WWI.