Was World War 1/The Great War really inevitable?

>>420393
a conflict involving all the powers that were involved was probably not inevitable

nearly every power was able to cooperate/reach agreements with every power in opposition blocs only years before the war broke out, except perhaps austria/russia but even then the dreikaiserbund allowed germany to tether both powers

by 1911 you had the existence of some pretty strong power blocs but it looked like things were shifting as russia had recovered from the russo-japanese war, but some angry serbian teenager had to let one off before the power blocs could break down/change

Nothing is ever inevitable.

However, seeing as Austria was set on a reckoning in the Balkans, and that the leaders of Germany had all but decided on a war 'soon' a few years prior (and to a lesser extent that Russia embarked on a massive military rearmament programme), then yeah, chances are some sort of a war with more than one of the great powers was coming.

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>>420393
yes, conflict between large and powerful imperialist powers always happens, modern technology just made it much more destructive

It was inevitable only because everyone wanted it to be inevitable.

Europe got the war it wanted. And boy was it a shitty war.

>>420535
>implying Germany wanted a war with the West
Against Russia maybe but everybody wanted to fuck up Russia. Germany was a rising power in peace times surpassing England in key figures. They sure is hell didn't want to fight them (yet).

>>420538
Well Germany might not have wanted war with the western powers - Russia indeed being its target - but they still felt the need to war dem anyway.

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>>420393
with this memelord in charge of Germany yes it was

>>420543
Literal beta. Modern works agree he was never really in charge.

>>420538
>implying Germany wanted a war with the West

Why did they attack France then?

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>>420564
he fired Bismark

that was just retarded

>>420570
Well they didn't "want" a war with France in that their main goal was a reckoning with Russia.

Ultimately they "had to" - or at least felt that way - pick a fight with France because they thought they couldn't afford a two front war and they thought France would definitely get involved if they attacked Russia so they wanted to knock it out first.

So yeah they ultimately "wanted a war with the west" but not in the same way they "wanted a war" (this specific war with Russia) if that makes any sense. One being a subset of the other, so to speak.

>>420575
You are forgetting that France and especially England wanted a war with Russia too.

>>420598
To my understanding France and England always treated Russia as a distant threat and Germany as the dangerous immediate threat since Germany neighbored both. We can see the results of this kind of politics after ww2 where the soviets take half of europe as their own.