Before and during World War I, Prince Eulenburg was strongly in favor of German expansionism.Röhl, John 1914: Delusion or Design? Elek: London, 1973 page 57. As he aged, Eulenburg had come to embrace the goal of Weltpolitik as a goal in and of itself while at the same time as the Anglo-German naval race continued to express concern about how the Tirpitz Plan was destroying the German budget as the state continued to pour and pour more money into building warships. In an essay he wrote in April 1912 entitled "The German Fleet", Eulenburg wrote that he believed "that the Kaiser nor the German government want the war" (emphasis in the original), which he held to be inevitable.Röhl, John 1914: Delusion or Design? Elek: London, 1973 page 59. But he wrote that Germany was the principal cause of international tensions, writing that:
