A General Sketch of the European War by Hilaire Belloc

At this point it is well to pause and consider an element of the vastest consequence to the whole conduct of these great campaigns -- I mean the element of German confidence.

Here we have a nation which has received within a fortnight of its initial large operations, within the first five weeks of a war which it had proudly imposed upon its enemies, the news of a victory more startlingly triumphant than its most extreme expectation of success had yet imagined possible.