political course, neglected the alliances and his irrational expansion of the Imperial Navy triggered an arms race and seriously damaged the relations with France and Great Britain. By 1907, France had established an alliance with Great Britain and Russia. The German Empire found itself encircled and isolated. German military strategists had to adapt to the new strategic situation and developed the Schlieffen Plan. A series of military operations, that were to counteract being surrounded and, if exacted ruthlessly, will lead to victory. Under the Schlieffen Plan, German forces would invade France via Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands (the idea to go through the Netherlands was abandoned because of its neutrality), quickly capturing Paris and forcing France to sue for peace. The Germans would then turn their attention to the East before the Russian army could mobilize its massive forces. The Germans failed to achieve the plan's objectives. Austria In 1866 the Austro-Hungarian Army was left with no other option but to divide its armed forces and disperse them on two fronts during the Austro-Prussian War against Prussia to the North and the Kingdom of Italy to the South in the Third Italian War of Independence. The Prusso-Italian alliance was agreed upon an initiative of the Prussian Minister President Otto von Bismarck. In 1914 Austria-Hungary commenced the First World War by attacking Serbia at the Balkan front. After just a few weeks Austria-Hungarian troops clashed with the numerically far superior Russian imperial army in the Battle of Galicia at the Eastern front. When Italy joined the conflict in May 1915 on the Allied side and deployed in strength at the Alpine front to the south, Austria-Hungary was already critically undermanned and faced serious recruitment shortfalls, which diminished the chances to exact an early defeat on any of the opponents, instead be confined to struggle in a two-front war at the periphery of its own territory. Consequently, the Austro-Hungarian Army lacked the initiative and the contributions at the Macedonian front (Salonikifront) were marginal. Nonetheless, when Romania entered the war on the Allied side in August 1916 at the southern tip of the Eastern front, Austria-Hungary acted promptly and concluded this stage in late 1916 and occupied large areas of Romania. The greater two-front war only ended after the separate peace with Russia in March 1918, which, after all, did not forestall the collapse of the imperial army in the course of summer