World War I’s Origins

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William Anthony Hay, Ambition in the East; Germany is the traditional villain in the story of World War I's beginnings, but what if Russia played an even greater role?  Wall Street Journal, Dec 23, 2011
(book review on Sean McMeekin, The Russian Origins of the First World War. Harvard University Press, 2011)

Quote:

"When the war finally came, Germany, allied with Australia-Hungary. turned the fighting into a European cinflict by adopting a strategy called the Schlieffen Plan, which aimed to knock out France and Russia (France's ally) with two quick campaigns. Germany wanted to break out of its perceived encirclement, but the Germans also wanted power within Europe commensurate with the country's growing wealth and industrial capacity.

"Officials in St Petersburg , then, felt no less encircled in 1914 than Germany did, the author [McMeekin] says

Note:
(a) Schlieffen Plan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlieffen_Plan
(The Schlieffen Plan was created by Count Alfred von Schlieffen and modified by Helmuth von Moltke the Younger after Schlieffen's retirement; it was Moltke who actually implemented the plan at the outset of World War I)
(b) The "salient" in vulnerable Polish salient" is a noun that means:
"something (as a promontory) that projects outward or upward from its surroundings; especially : an outwardly projecting part of a fortification, trench system, or line of defense"
www.m-w.com