During WW1 who were the germans afraid of and why?

If you are doing A level history this is not the place to be looking, get a book and read it – it will be far more productive than skimming through the opinions of a group of well-intentioned strangers.

‘Afraid’ does not describe the state of a nation, or its population.

Mainly the Russians due to the started modernization if the divisions and the higher rate of growth so that any war in the future would be harder to fight. The Russians had not been able to put a new mobilization plan into effect after the plan of 1910 because of the constant threat of war. Artillery was a serious weak point. By 1915-16 the weaknesses of the Russian divisions would have been made good - on paper that is. As history came to play out the Russians had to act on plan 18 from 1910 instead of plan 19 due to be in effect from early 1915 at the latest.

http://www.vlib.us/wwi/resources/archives/texts/t0...

The main problem is that action against one - France or Russia - would bring in the other into the fight. The main enemy was France for political and historical reasons but in terms of threat the Germany Russia was the main target.

They were afraid because they were trapped between France and Russia. France, Russia and Britain had formed an Alliance, so they would help each other if one came under attack. Germany decided to attack France but there was a huge defence system, so they used the Schlieffen Plan.

The plan meant that they would go through Belgium and attack France from behind before Britain had time to do anything, but Belgium held them up for several weeks, which they hadn't been expecting and gave British troops time to cross the Channel.

Russians.

They feared Russia's huge land mass, endless resources, overwhelming population, rapid modernization and large conscript armies in a major war.

I'm studying the same thing ATM. these are my notes:

The Germans feared encirclement, they had genuine fear of Russia and France. The fact they were afraid of these 2 were because they were surrounded.

That's all I have on Germany. Hope that helped. :)

they were worried about the russians- because of the massive manpower reserves. After the first campaign (russian attack on Prussia) they no longer worried because it was obvious the russians were completely incompetent.

late in the war they became worried about the prospect of US joining the war- and the massive inflow of reserves. This is why they launched the "Michel" offensive and tried to end the war before any US troops arrived.

The Russians mostly

they were afraid of trenchfoot and rats in the trenches that carried diseases

They stated that the Queen - (Elizabeth the Queen Mother recently died) - was the most dangerous woman in Europe because of the way she opposed them and supported the Londoners in the blitz. Similarly they feared Churchill because of the way he rallied the English to fight them.

they afraid of my Grandpa