WWI was a little relevant in one of my critical analyses of a

So, like anything else, define your terms.

If by WW1 you mean the alliance of Russia, Britain, and France getting into a war with Germany and Austria-Hungary over the death of the Austrian Archduke from Serbian irridentism then, yes, no assassination means no war. If, however, you define the first world war as a global, albeit primarily European, conflict between involving all of the significant imperial Western states, then no, that ship started sailing years if not decades before Franz Ferdinand's visit to Sarajevo was ever planed.

Personally, I blame Bismarck and I also wrote a paper on it for a 4th year university course a few years back. The tl;dr version is that Bismarck didn't read the tea leaves that Germany would, inevitably, come to blows with Russia and that France was never going to get over losing Alsace & Metz. There are anecdotes from French & Russian ambassadors in the 1830's discussing what would happen if Germany united, and how it would end up with them getting stomped on.

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Austria-Hungary clearly was unstable at this time. Could they have resisted the rising tides of ethno-nationalism? It's definitely hard to say. Archduke Ferdinand was ironically a moderating voice in regard to self-determination. He was somewhat well-received, and was warned again and again by the mayor of Belgrade that something was likely to happen. So maybe he was kind of thick? Maybe in every timeline he dies in some ridiculous way, eventually leading eventually to a civil war.

One cannot discount the hysteria in France about Germany's growing population and influence either. Or Russia's fawning over it's demi-Slavic "brothers" in the Balkans.

>>3310041
>Archduke Ferdinand was ironically a moderating voice in regard to self-determination.
This was the issue. If the "Serbs" in Bosnia and Dalmatia are happy as Austro-Hungarian subjects, they'll never be part of Greater Serbia; Franz Ferdinand was an existential threat to the Serbian nationalist agenda.

>Or Russia's fawning over it's demi-Slavic "brothers" in the Balkans.
Ironically, Germany caused this. While Russia was building their Siberian railway and worrying about Manchuria, A-H needed something to keep busy with, and it was Bismarck who suggested they get their own half of the Balkans as a sphere of influence.