"Britain had no choice but to resist the German onslaught;
- meaning: no justified choice. This amounts to praising the British leaders for doing the right thing"

Over the distance of 100 years yes and now fully armed with the facts relating to perspectives and aims of all the combatant nations yes I can now state my opinion that Great Britain (The normal way of referring to the country and the actions taken by it's legitimate Government - If however in order to pander to your pedantry you expect me to prefix "The Government of" every time I refer to a country you are going to be sadly disappointed) did do what it felt that it had to do - i.e. Justified - and yes they did do the right thing, after all clear warnings had been given. At any time through the course of July 1914 Germany could have prevented the escalation by making a U-turn (Unacceptable after the assassination of the Archduke), they deliberately chose not to and the major powers of Europe paid the price - On the other hand at no time at all did Great Britain seek a conflict, but having made the commitments it had to its allies and considering the obligations solemnly made under long standing treaties Great Britain had the integrity to stand by them.


"Unlike the war plans of the other powers, for Germany to mobilize was to go to war. Both Moltke and Falkenhayn told the government that Germany should declare war even were Russia to offer to negotiate."

Now I do not understand what part of that that you do not understand, but to me the meaning is quite unequivocal it meant that on the 1st August 1914 when Kaiser Wilhelm II signed the orders for the mobilisation of German troops that there was going to be a war and the Germans knew that full well - The German invasion and occupation of Luxembourg commenced at 19:00hrs that evening.

There was only one chance to avert this war and German diplomats did try extremely hard to make it succeed. That period did not as you rather foolishly image span from 1904 to 1911. The window of opportunity lasted and was open for only four days in July 1914 between the 28th July and the 31st July inclusive. The effort centred round diplomatic exchanges between Germany and the Austro-Hungarians - Since the Austro-Hungarian declaration of War on the Serbians on the 28th July, the Serbians caved in and accepted Austrian terms more or less unconditionally, the Austro-Hungarians wanted Serbia destroyed, they prevaricated and deliberately delayed responding to German appeals for peace negotiations and Russia gave the orders for full military mobilisation of its forces. In all this both Great Britain and France were powerless to act.

Irrespective of what you believe and think a comprehensive and solid case can be made for stating that the European alliances dating back to 1883 right up to 1911 actually kept the peace in Europe through what were extremely turbulent times.