One decision can change the course of history, but would the results be so dramatically different if, simply, Kaiser Wilhelm II had persisted against the advice of his military commanders and ordered his troops already massed at the Belgian border in 1914 to re-deploy to the east against Russia instead? It nearly happened. The Kaiser did order the invasion of Belgium halted, and yet it went ahead, bringing Great Britain and the rest of the British Empire into the war. This book explores what would have happened if the Kaiser's decision had not been reversed and his troops had not crossed the Belgian border. It is fiction, of course, but the characters are real and, most of them, precisely where they were and where they would have been fulfilling their historical roles at that time. The story is vivid, realistic and exciting, following the action, the intrigue, the political upheavals as well as political apathy and inertia, meticulously researched and accurate in military and historical detail.