I think that’s a questionable assumption. War and nationalism was glorified across Europe at the time. And it’s pretty clear that the Austro-Hungarian empire made demands of Serbia after the assassination of the Archduke that they clearly could not meet. While they might not have “wanted” war, they certainly wanted what they thought it could bring, which was a new advantageous political position. Contrast that with the US who literally did all they could to stay out of the war up to they “had to”… mainly based on the American public’s caginess after the questionable way we got into the Spanish American war (but even then, the US was seen as gaining from that conflict).
Historically speaking, it’s pretty clear that war, whatever the personal and human costs, can be profitable for the states that wage them in a number of ways.
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Also, can I say that I humbly suggest we might ALREADY be in the midst of WW3? Why should it look like the wars of last century. Is there a part of the world not somehow involved in the events of war across the middle east and western asia? Just because the previous world wars too place on the western and northern most corner of Afro-Eur-Asia, doesn’t mean the next WW will be held in the same place.
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There’s also an argument that Germany was terrified by the thought of a fully modernised Russia, and that their military leadership deliberately kicked off the conflict as a pre-emptive “defence”. Plus the Russians were a bit trigger-happy themselves when it came to prewar army mobilisation, and the Bulgarians and Romanians voluntarily jumped in mid-war in the hopes of pinching land from their neighbours. Ditto for the Italians. And while the Serbs may not have wanted war, they were ready to fight for their independence.
Really, pretty much everyone except the non-Russian/Italian bits of the Entente were actively pushing for war. And Belgium and the UK could have stayed out if they’d been willing to let the Germans get away with their Belgian detour en route to France.
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Yep, pretty much. Let’s face it - Europe has a long history in the modern (since the reformation) era of continental warfare. The Cold War era was the most peaceful period in modern European history.
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