How the fuck does a single man's death lead to a "Great

The Germans wanted to remove Russia as a regional power, because it was rapidly industrializing, and due to Germany's appalling diplomacy, the French, Russians, and English were all hostile towards them.

The assassination was an excuse to execute military plans that had been on the drawing board for a decade leading up to the war.

>>2869876

Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the most consistent and powerful voice for peace within Austria. Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf had gone to the Austrian government many times before, asking them to declare war on Serbia. And each time, who was it who talked them out of it? Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The assassination was like the perfect storm. It gave Austria-Hungary casus belli against Serbia (although there was zero evidence of Serbian involvement) and simultaneously removed the guy who would have had the best chance of maintaining the fragile peace. Hötzendorf immediately recognized the opportunity and took full advantage of it. His biggest obstacle was dead, and he now had an excuse to declare war. Perfect.

>>2869876
https://www.thoughtco.com/causes-that-led-to-world-war-i-105515
Basically, the bismarckian alliance system combined with the age of colonialism provoked an unstable period of relationships between European powers. The murder of Franz Ferdinand was simply the fuse of the war.

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>>2869876

It was autism all the way down in every royal family in Europe.

Franz Joseph was kind of glad that his stupid heir died, but autist Willie goaded him into declaring war on Serbia saying he would back them up against Russia.

Autist Nicki went "Muh Serb brothers!" despite the fact Serbia murdered a royal family member and thought it was a good idea to invade the nation with the most powerful military on earth despite the fact he got BTFO by the Japanese a few years earlier.

Willie goes into a two front war thinking they can beat France with the stupid Schleifen plan. Britain gets involved. Chimps out on the Turks and has the disaster in Gillopoli.

Now Italy was totally retarded when they joined the war and got BTFO by the fucking Austrians. The fucking Austrians...

Basically Willie gets over thrown, Nicki gets shot for being stupid, and Austrian Empire breaks up.

Total shit fest. Totally avoidable if it wasn't for autism.

>>2869914
Note that the Second World War was, if anything, more predictable and avoidable than the first one.

Even a remote modicum of competence, either during the Treaty of Versailles, or during German rearmament, would have prevented a general European war.

>>2869876
I believe posts like this, that can be answered by literally 20-second search on wiki, should be bannable

Tensions were high, but it was more because there was this huge clusterfuck of alliances across Europe. So when a Serbian nationalist killed Archduke Ferdinand it led to Austria-Hungary using it as casus belli to invade Serbia. Serbia though had an alliance with Russia, so Russia declared war on Austria-Hungary. This was exactly what Germany wanted because they were looking for an excuse to go to war with Russia because they were growing increasingly nervous of Russia's growing power and knew that if they wanted to check their power it had to be sooner rather than later, because they might grow too powerful to defeat in the future. But, Russia was also allied with France, and Germany figured France would be easier to beat so they should take them out first with a quick strike and then turn all their might against Russia without having to worry about their rear. So Germany decides to invade France... by way of Belgium. This pisses off the UK who has declared their intention to defend Belgium from aggression. Now, the Ottomans had an outstanding alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, plus historical interests in the Balkans and Caucuses, so they were more than happy to war with Russia after the whole thing kicked off and also harass British holdings in Africa and India when they joined the fray.

And that's not starting on Asia.

>>2869876
Jingoism is a helluva drug

>>2869876
Because the subsequent rightful Austrian ultimatum and declaration of war caused an Entente chimpout.

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>>2869891
That's a myth though. Germany wasn't even ready for war and Kaiser Wilhelm went on vacation during the July Crisis. Hardly what a man would do who's plotting to plunge Europe into war. In particular if we consider how afraid Germany was of the two-fronts war against France and Russia.