German ruling circles looked to shore up their one ally, a beleaguered Austria, while being fundamentally insecure about an inability to win the arm’s race against the great powers on either side of Germany, especially with the growing military prowess of a weak Russia, and therefore developed a defensive plan that entailed the conquest of Europe.47 Russia risked everything, not over a dubious pan-Slavic interest in Serbia, but over what a failure to defend Serbia would do to Russia’s prestige.
