OK, the discussion:
But nevertheless I do have to make some corrections:
1. Bismarck wanted Russia as ally to isolate France. That´s why he had to be the trustable broker in Berlin 1878. He couldn´t do anything else than making the conference how it ended: All parts of his alliance should get a portion of the cake, not forgetting the smaller nations. Russia was disappointed. They wanted the whole Balcan as protectorate. So Russia as ally was nearly lost. But Russia was needed as long as France did not accept a united Germany and the peace of 1871. This alliance was nearly as frangible as silk instead made of iron. This was the main reason of Berlin 1878.
Yes, as I mentioned France was isolated until Wilhelm II dropped Bismarck's Russian alliance (along with Bismarck) in 1890. I'm not finding fault with the 1878 conference in my narritive, BTW; I am merely describing it from a Russian perspective. History is not often about what happened, it's about what people
think happened; what the Russians
believed about the 1878 conference played a major role in their view of Germany, the West, and what it would take to achieve their goals in Europe. It colored their judgement in 1914 - which is why I included it. It was a major source of frustration for Russia, and they saw the events of 1914 through that lense.
2. Serbia´s government knew of plans of assainating the Arch Duke. They didn´t do very much to warn the Austrians. So the Austrians had the right to get to know what the Serbian government knew and why it didn´t act. The whole reasons are unknown until now since some files are in Russia restricted even now.
Partial correction: The Serbian government as a whole did not know of the coming assassination. The prime minister Nikola Pasic was a realist and would never have authorized such a bold and stupid act. As I mentioned, he foresaw exactly what happened in the World War - great calamity and suffering for Serbia - if such an event were to take place. That Serbia emerged from the war with most of the nationalists' goals achieved is due entirely to Allied efforts and is something of a miracle for Serbia. This is why I have such unkind words for Princip in my essay, though he is still seen as a hero in modern Serbia. Pasic did discover a month prior to the assassination news that some members of Crna Ruka (or Narodna Odbrana) had slipped across the Serbian border into Bosnia and he had tried to warn Vienna through a message but because he knew that members of the Serbian military and possibly even his own government might be complicitous (they were) he was afraid to be too blunt. Vienna did not understand the significance of the warning and did not connect it to the upcoming highly-publicized review visit by the archduke.
Throughout the crisis itself, Vienna did not uncover direct evidence of Serbian complicity other than through the confessions of the captured terrorists, though as we've seen their confessions were strangely inaccurate on several accounts - for reasons I do not yet understand. They admitted to their criminal deeds - what you'd expect them to lie about - but gave inaccurate details about aspects of their organization. Vienna, Berlin, and well just about everyone assumed at the time that Serbia was responsible so that wasn't an arguing point but as it would turn out later when a more forensic analysis of 1914 Serbia could be done it was realized that the Serbian government itself did not create or support the terrorists, but it was also helpless to stop them. That is where my comparison to 1990s Afghanistan comes in; both 1914 Serbia and 1990s Afghanistan were ruled by a group with an extremist ideology but both groups only held a tenuous hold on their country and constantly feared military challenges from without and within. Both sheltered terrorist organizations driven by the extremist ideology, both had important members of their governments connected to these terrorist organizations but both also had important members trying to distance themselves from them. Both countries paid the price for the actions of the terrorist organizations that resided within them, though neither as a matter of state policy actually practiced terrorism.
3. Germany gave indeed a declaration to help the Austrians. But the Germans at first thought a war with Russia might be possible, but not inevitable. When the signs of war growed more and more, the Germans retreated from this declaration, but now it was too late...
Also the Germans thinking of Russia in the east and France in the west as foes was not paranoid but a fact. You must see during the 7 years war Prussia had to fight at all directions against enemies and the odds were strongly against them. Having Russia and France as foes and inbetween them there is no paranoia but fact.
There was a period of "Willy's" weak-kneedness towards the end of July and he did hope that strong pronouncements of German-Austrian unity might deter Russia but as I explored Russia was acting out of a very genuine sense of desperation. This is the point of my essay really, that through each stage of the process leading to war you can see the major players fundamentally misunderstanding each others' interests and motivations.
As for the Franco-Russian alliance, you are correct about Germany's very real fear of this alliance and that is why I mention it - but you are only describing it from a German perspective. The question you need to ask yourself is what drove France and Russia, and eventually Britain, together? These were three states that had throughout the 19th century often far more conflict in their relations than cooperation, so what pushed them together? The answer lies in their perception of German behavior and goals - it scared the hell out of them. This is the point of the essay, that it wasn't just a matter of conflicting interests, it was sometimes a matter of how potentially legitimate interests (for the era) were
presented and
understood by others. Wilhelmine Germany, especially under Wilhelm II, developed a very aggressive stance in its political, economic and diplomatic relations with other states that, when coupled with an unusual level of militarisation of its society, made its every move in 1890-1914 Europe seem aggressive and threatening to other powers.
4. France was eager to go for war with Germany. They didn´t hear on the British as well as the Austrians were not willingly to hear on the Germans. The French wanted the war.
No, this is not true, at least not in the sense that France was aggressive. France post-1871 assumed there would be another war with Germany and many in France hoped there would be another opportunity to recover Alsace-Lorraine but France was accutely aware of its weakness vis-a-vis Germany. There was also a much larger contingent of socialists and socialist sympathizers in France opposed to the war, as indeed they demonstrated repeatedly against war in Paris during the June-July crisis. (Germany also feared its own socialists and in July von Moltke even suggested rounding them up and arresting them all but Bethmann-Hollweg held off, and indeed he was correct as the socialists in the Reichstag faithfully voted the necessary budgets for the war and remained completely loyal - at least, until 1918.) France prepared for the coming war it assumed would happen and gathered allies (Russia, eventually Britain) but the allies were only interested in defensive war. They feared German intentions and found common cause with France in that regard, but they also exercised considerable restraint on France. Remember that during the 1914 crisis France had to bend over backwards to repeatedly assure the British (and to a lesser extent, the Russians) they weren't doing anything to provoke the Germans. They accepted nearly every call for mediation, though they did so confident the Germans and Austrians would not - and they were correct.
Also, you need to remember that France in 1914 was a democracy, with a fragile government in a country famous for its opinionated population. Clemenceau's government was under constant political attack from the socialists for any move that might appear as provocative to Germany since 1912, and indeed his government almost fell over the Madame Caillaux affair in July 1914. Germany however, while having some trappings of democracy in 1914 such as the Reichstag, still concentrated an enormous amount of power in the hands of the Kaiser and his appointees. If the Kaiser decided on war in 1914, there was little short of revolution the rest of Germany could do about it.
5. Russia was, as you pointed out, in a desastrous position: They had big internal problems and with the lost war of 1904 also on the foreign policy big problems. They backed now up a nation which was tolerating if not using terrorists. They couldn´t nearly not help them without burrying the plans of a Russian Balcan. Or they would not only risk another major foreign policy defeat but also getting more internal problems. And the Czar was unable or unwilling to reform his nation...
I took this even farther in my essay, saying that Russia believed its very status as a Great Power was at stake. Tsarist St. Petersburg looked upon the radicalized Serbs with distaste but Serbia was the last outpost of direct Russian influence anywhere in Europe.
6. Britain did not make the position clear and so encouraged the Germans to hold on that declaration so long. Together with Germany the British were the only who really wanted to prevent a larger war and really did something to prevent it. While Russia, Austria and France were preparing for war both tried to speak with their allies and foes. But in vain.
Modern analysis questions much more about every state's motives. A common refrain now is that while Britain and France behaved very much in accordance with their rights as sovereign states, the fact that they existed as massive world-wide empires with considerable more interests to protect than most other states made having a conflict of interest with them much easier than, say, Brazil or Albania. In the final closing episode of the very excellent
Blackadder series, Rowan Atkinson has his character, Captain Edmund Blackadder in the BEF in World War I France (
Blackadder Goes Forth, 1989), say the following in a discussion on the origins of the war in a trench on the Western Front:
Baldrick: No, the thing is: The way I see it, these days there's a war on, right? and, ages ago, there wasn't a war on, right? So, there must
have been a moment when there not being a war on went away, right?
and there being a war on came along. So, what I want to know is:
How did we get from the one case of affairs to the other case of
affairs?
Edmund: Do you mean "How did the war start?"
Baldrick: Yeah.
George: The war started because of the vile Hun and his villainous empire-
building.
Edmund: George, the British Empire at present covers a quarter of the globe,
while the German Empire consists of a small sausage factory in
Tangayika. I hardly think that we can be entirely absolved of blame
on the imperialistic front.
George: Oh, no, sir, absolutely not. (aside, to Baldick) Mad as a bicycle!
(From the Blackadder scripts site http://www.gazmac.freeserve.co.uk/blackadder_4-6_script.htm)
So I think regardless of the strategic thoughts of the hawks of each nation, the powers did slip into the war much more than several nations willingly started the war.
No state on 28. June 1914 intended to go to war the following month. However, as the crisis of the archduke's assassination unfolded some saw opportunity and some saw no choice - all through a prism of furious diplomatic activity, misperceptions and exaggerated desires.
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