First you have to understand the general political setup. The British "balance of power" agenda, Balkan politics, alliances guarantees and so on and so on.
What's important is to avoid Weimar era propaganda which is everywhere, even on this very board.
Germany, Austria, France and Russia all share a responsibility. All of them steered Europe towards war in a big game of chicken. They all had very good reasons for acting as they did, but in the end all of them refused to to find a diplomatic solution, unwilling to give in even an inch.
Poincaré gave Russia a carte blance, assuring them that they would honour their alliances even if it came to the worst, quite akin to how Germany acted towards Austria. Had he chosen different words, Russia possibly would have taken a more diplomatic stance.
naw, he's right. nationalism caused ww1 and democracy caused ww2. both ideologies harness 80 iq peasant anger and direct it outward more efficiently than any feudal system could possible do.
in feudalism you fight and die to protect your own land, and it was bad at motivating peopl to fight for somehting larger. nationalism gave normal people an incentive to kill each other that was more "rational," and democracy gave people a motivation bordering on religious strength to kill strangers.
I'm not in any way justifying anti-nationalist globalism. but nationalism did cause ww1.
The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman is quite good as well.
the eternal anglo sure is strong here
>germans hop on the colonialism train a bit late
>britshits crapping their pants
>germans want to build a railway from berlin to bagdad really bad
>connects tanzania (german colony) to a port relatively safe and close
>serbia is in the way
>for "some" reason they refuse to sell concessions
>germany needs a casus belli
Ah, one of my favorite internet lies, the "French blank cheque". While it is true the French affirmed their alliance with Russia, during the crisis they also quite literally told the Russians not to escalate hostilities with Germany. Can you spot the difference between this behavior and the one between Germany and Austria?
>France
>mentioned in the same breath as germany or austria (or even russia)
ebin
There areally alot of primary sources available. But if you hate reading the podcast "When Diplomacy Fail's" has two pretty good series about it.
But at its root WW1 was really a miscalculation
>But at its root WW1 was really a miscalculation
That's debatable - people at the helm in both Germany and Austria clearly wanted some kind of a conflict with Russia and Serbia respectively. Not to the degree they got it, and Austria might have not been primarily looking for a direct military confrontation if it could get its way with Serbia, but certainly in case of Germany an outright war.