The Imbalance of Civil-Military Relations Before the First World War and The Effects of the General Staffs in the Process Leading to War: The Case of Germany

World War I, which was referred as the “Great War” during the years of the conflict has been an important problem in the field of social sciences on why it broke out. Within this framework, the study in hand focuses on the imbalance between civilmilitary relations during the outbreak of the First World War and suggested that the internal structures and institutions of the states which were the leading actors of the international system, were in disorganized flux in pre-1914 decades. The paper placed Germany, which has become the dominant power of Europe both economically, militarily and geopolitically with its rapid development rates since the middle of the 19th century at the center of analysis in terms of being the country that deeply experienced the above-mentioned contradictions. The inability of institutionalization in Germany which has led the formation of power vacuums regarding political structure in face of rapid industrial, societal and economic development resulted in German General Staff to fill these administrative vacuums. In this study, the originality of the German General Staff and the role it played in the outbreak of war were discussed via David Singer’s levels of analysis approach.