On This Day - What happened 1 August 1914 AD

On 1 August, Wilhelm ordered General Helmuth von Moltke the Younger to "march the whole of the army to the East" after being wrongly informed that the British would remain neutral if France was not attacked. Moltke told the Kaiser that attempting to redeploy a million men was unthinkable, and that making it possible for the French to attack the Germans "in the rear" would prove disastrous. Yet Wilhelm insisted that the German army should not march into Luxembourg until he received a telegram sent by his cousin George V, who made it clear that there had been a misunderstanding. Eventually the Kaiser told Moltke, "Now you can do what you want."

Germany entered into World War I on August 1, 1914, when it declared war on Russia.