Quote Originally Posted by Fenring View Post
To be fair...

I'm a little rusty on the details, but even with AH's gung-ho approach to dealing with Serbia, it's unlikely that Russia would have supported them to the hilt if Austro-Hungary had acted immediately after the asssasination when the whole world was still in shock about what had happened. But they were overly concerned and didn't dare to act without Germany's support.
Russia's decision to back the Serbians was based on a romantic notion of pan-slavism rather than national interest and even if AH wasn't fair in dealing with them, Serbia was still well within their sphere of influence.
As far as I know France didn't particulary care about the fate of the Serbians and the underlying reason for their pact with the Russians was that if Germany went to war with them, France might be able to snatch away Alsace-Lorraine and deliver their revenge for the 1871 humiliation.
Once Germany realised that war with Russia was inevitable despite the Kaiser's honest attempts to defuse the situation, they reached the completely rational conclusion that they either had to attack France first (the Schlieffen plan) or make sure that they stayed uninvolved. Thus they gave the French an ultimatum; wich the French couldn't accept for reasons of pride if not for the reason mentioned above.
I think that these three powers are all equally responsible for WW1. Germany's invasion of Belgium was completely unjust and the British were fully in the right when they declared war even if it was used as a pretext to hide more pressing geopolitical motivations.
Well, that's not entirely right. Russia felt humiliated when Austria-Hungary was allowed to annex Bosnia and feared than not supporting Serbia would leave them isolated. After all, Serbia was their most important ally in the Balkans and if they didn't do something, Serbia would have either been overrun or would lose faith in alliance with Russia and switch alliances. Certainly, the romantic notion of panslavism didn't hurt, but the main reasons were very practical.
The world wasn't that much in shock because of the assassination but because what it may lead to. Political assassinations weren't that uncommon back then. After all, in 1898, Franz Joseph's wife Elizabeth (Sissi) was killed in Switzerland by Italians, and Austro-Hungary didn't seek war with either Italy or Switzerland. Franz Ferdinand, although an heir wasn't that important figure. His children were excluded from the line of succession because his wife wasn't of noble enough origin. Franz Ferdinand brother was next in line. Also, for the those involved in the murder it was a symbolic act of protest. They had plans to assassinate Oscar Potiorek and switched to royal couple in the last minute.
So assassination itself was trivial. It was its significance for Austro-Serbian relations that mattered.