I think it's amazing because, like you guys are saying, "Franz" was not really all that significant in the grand scheme of things.
His death was used as a pretext for Austria to steal land.
Austria stealing land was a pretext for Russia to mobilize, because THEY wanted more land.
Russia's mobilization was a pretext for Germany to mobilize, because they'd been scheming for global domination for decades.
And Germany's mobilization scared the French into counter-mobilizing, and also perhaps as a pretext to regain Alsace and all those places they'd been fighting Germany over for how long...
So, in the end, everybody bluffed to get what they wanted, and they each called each others' bluffs, and.......
Truly an unbelievable series of messed-up politics.
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