"If there is no change in the political situation in Europe, Germany's central position will compel her to form a front on several sides. We shall therefore have to hold one front defensively with comparatively weak forces in order to be able to take the offensive on the other. That front can only be the French. A speedy decision may be hoped for on that side, while an offensive against Russia would be an interminable affair. But if we are to take the offensive against France, it would be necessary to violate the neutrality of Belgium. It is only by an advance across Belgium that we can hope to attack and defeat the French army in the open field."
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Memorandum (December 1912), quoted in Erich Ludendorff, The General Staff and its Problems. Volume I (London: Hutchinson, 1920), pp. 61-62
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Helmuth_von_Moltke_the_Younger
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Helmuth von Moltke the Younger
Helmuth Johannes Ludwig Graf von Moltke (25 May 1848 – 18 June 1916), also known as Moltke the Younger, was a German general who served as the Chief of the German General Staff from 1906 to 1914. He was a nephew of Field Marshal Helmuth Karl Bernhard von Moltke who is commonly called "Moltke the Elder" to differentiate the two.
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