Some Traits of Bismarck (1882)
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
If the "Marshal Vorwaerts" bit of this seems obscure, it's a reference to a common nickname for one of the German generals who had fought against and eventually defeated Napoléon, Gebhard von Blücher (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gebhard_Leberecht_von_Bl%C3%BC...).
Blücher was an aggressive, the-best-defense-is-a-good-offense general, so his troops, whom he was always urging to move forwards, forwards, nicknamed him "Marshal Forwards."
Think of the average 72 year old today.
He got injured and pushed back, only to later save Wellington from defeat. Wellington later called Waterloo the "the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life."
Two world wars would later be fought because Bismarck's successors did not understand this fact as well as he had.
Also I think it was more a case of William II being a moron, and his advisors just not being very good.
And I don't think for WW1 (unlike WW2) anybody's goal was to expand. It was more a case of everybody being too fearful of each other, creating a vicious circle of more and more armament, which eventually developed its own dynamic and finally spiraled out of control, leading to the war.
Still, as a thought experiment, imagine what Germany could have done to avoid WW1. I think it would be hard - but I also think it would have been pretty much the opposite of what Bismark did. A good start would be to abolish or at least weaken the monarchy. Monarchy is like playing high-stakes poker where every round you take an unknown class-A drug. Another good start would be to pursue a internationalist foreign policy, try and build coalitions, trust, etc.
Wilhelm II deliberately set the German Empire on the path of building a navy strong enough to challenge Britain's command of the seas and support an overseas colonial empire. The British, quite correctly, saw losing command of the seas as an existential threat to their survival as an island nation, and felt forced into a ruinous naval arms buildup in order to maintain their position (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-German_naval_arms_race). German naval expansion also drove the British to forge alliances with the French and Russians (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Entente) to try and contain the German threat. These alliances would end up dragging them all into World War I.
It was quite counterintuitive that the British and Germans should end up at each others' throats in this period -- the British royal family was ethnically German, after all; in the 19th century both countries had seen themselves as rooted in a common Northern European, Anglo-Saxon civilization; and there was no real economic logic in the idea of essentially landlocked Germany as a colonial power. If Wilhelm had been willing to live with Germany's status as the dominant land power in Europe and leave Britannia ruling the waves, it's unlikely they would have ever come to blows. But he wasn't, he wanted battleships and colonies and all the other trappings of world empire ("weltpolitik": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weltpolitik) as opposed to Bismarck's more cautious policy of realpolitik (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realpolitik). And in reaching for all that he made enemies that would end up destroying Bismarck's empire.
Germany didn’t need battleships and colonies; she wanted them, because they were how Great Powers measured themselves in those days.
In 1914 Germany had the largest and fastest-growing economy in Europe. They produced twice as much steel as Britain; 63% of their exports were finished goods (see https://www.britannica.com/place/Germany/The-economy-1890-19...). All this prosperity came from the industrialization of continental Germany, not from their few tiny colonies. And all Wilhelm’s navy ended up accomplishing was soaking up absolutely mind-boggling amounts of money and making more enemies than even Germany could afford to fight.
... Sustainability is a requirement soetimes, sure, and worth considering even when it's not. At some point you have to ask if the thing isn't worth doing even if it's not sustainable, yes?
Look at a baby. It's not sustainable but most of us agree it's worth enough to support while it exists, and that's been working out well for some time. That bet usually pays of quite well.
One salient thing that the article touches on in various ways that would become extremely relevant about 30 years later is that Bismarck spun an extremely complicated web of alliances and relationships that arguably he perhaps uniquely could hold together.
And he wasn't around any longer when things ultimately broke down.