Teribus,

I had no idea that British and French newspapers of the early 1900s had such such a wide circulation and enjoyed such popularity in Germany. Were they translated and printed in German?

You do not seem to know much about the Continent at all, neither about the history of mass media. For centuries, there have been hosts of so-called correspondents in all capitals, who read all the local newspapers and journals, and also had/have their own sources of information, to report them to their home media, translated or summarized. Furthermore, many international travelers were able to spread factual news quickly, so that these could not be censored effectively. Such news included statements from foreign statesmen, and the opinions of the leading foreign media. (Publishers' own opinions were a different matter: consistently socialist propaganda in print was indeed forbidden in Germany, as opposed to France.) Non-nationalist press products existed in all countries and had many readers, but in the end, they caved in without being forced physically. The same applies to the powerful Social Democratic Party of Germany, as you have read.

All countries involved had factions of differing goals and priorities, often not really thought through (- "sleepwalkers" and "donkeys"). The only autocrat was the tsar, and in the end his power proved very limited as well.

Your ideas about international politics are from the 19th century altogether. Of course, everybody has her or his own agenda; the art of civilization is to make people cooperate. Progress exists, because it is seen to be necessary, as I elaborated. Whenever it lags behind the other aspects of human interaction, disasters like the WWs are imminent.