Instead of 1914 war plan of Schlieffen/Moltke plan of attacking west first through Belgium or the often discussed here a "Germany attacks in the east" ATL, how about Germany just adopts a "completely on defence" strategy.
Germany just sits back and lets France and Russia mobilize first if they want to, makes them do the declaration of wars, and invade neutral Belgium if they need, making them look the the aggressors instead of Germany.
Sure, the Russian army would be completely mobilized when war starts but if Russia actually invaded Germany (or Austria) in strength, they might be able to defeat it in a place where Germany could actually get at it easy, instead of trying to defeat a Russian army retreating before a German advance into the interior of Russia.
In OTL Germany had been building a huge navy to do its aggressive global policy, its big enough in 1914 to handle anybody but Britain and the USA and probably big enough to handle any other two powers combined. So Germany should be able to use the several weeks before Russia can mobilize and any DOWs happen to buy up strategic supplies, dump supplies in the colonies and bring home any important merchant ships.
if 1914 Sarajevo went as OTL, and Austria attacks Serbia, and Russia mobilizes as OTL, but if then Germany waits several days before mobilizing, but not declaring war, what's Russia gonna do!, Austria is between Serbia and Russia. Russia doing anything means commiting their army to a major attack which could easily be defeated by Germany and Austria not attacking in the west.
Germany just sits back and lets France and Russia mobilize first if they want to, makes them do the declaration of wars, and invade neutral Belgium if they need, making them look the the aggressors instead of Germany.
Sure, the Russian army would be completely mobilized when war starts but if Russia actually invaded Germany (or Austria) in strength, they might be able to defeat it in a place where Germany could actually get at it easy, instead of trying to defeat a Russian army retreating before a German advance into the interior of Russia.
In OTL Germany had been building a huge navy to do its aggressive global policy, its big enough in 1914 to handle anybody but Britain and the USA and probably big enough to handle any other two powers combined. So Germany should be able to use the several weeks before Russia can mobilize and any DOWs happen to buy up strategic supplies, dump supplies in the colonies and bring home any important merchant ships.
if 1914 Sarajevo went as OTL, and Austria attacks Serbia, and Russia mobilizes as OTL, but if then Germany waits several days before mobilizing, but not declaring war, what's Russia gonna do!, Austria is between Serbia and Russia. Russia doing anything means commiting their army to a major attack which could easily be defeated by Germany and Austria not attacking in the west.