Italy was in alliance with Germany and Austria, although there was no greater hate before the war than that between Italians and Austrians; and the Great General Staff believed that Italy would remain in this unnatural alliance, would fight in order to give the Germans and the German-Austrians the domination of Europe. The victory of the Central Empires would have placed Italy under that Austrian influence from which in her struggle for freedom under the leadership of Cavour, Garibaldi and Victor Emanuel she had liberated herself.
Prince Buelow, who early in his career romantically married a charming Italian of good family, was sent to Rome to keep Italy neutral. But he failed.
Error Number Two.
Germany's belief that because of the Carson movement Great Britain was immobilised and could take no part in the war.
Error Number Three.
The theory cherished especially in military circles that because the Japanese army had been trained by Prussians Japan would join Germany. Indeed, at the moment when the Japanese were packing their trunks and preparing to leave their Embassy, a German crowd with flags and torches was assembled in front cheering Japan, the latest ally of the Entente.
Error Number Four.
The belief by the General Staff that the British Colonies would render no assistance to the mother country.
In the first days after England entered the war many German statesmen said to me, "Of course, now Canada will be incorporated in the United States." The Germans believed that the practical thing, for the moment, for the Canadians was to avoid war, to disavow all their obligations and ties of blood and permit Britain to be destroyed. The General Staff thought that because the world did not have actual proof of the German designs of world conquest, because that design had not been publicly proclaimed, that no people or nation would either know or understand the vast enterprise of conquest on which Prussian autocracy had embarked.
Error Number Five.