History.com says you are full of horse hockey and I concur:

"The assassination of Franz-Ferdinand and Sophie set off a rapid chain of events: Austria-Hungary, like many in countries around the world, blamed the Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as justification for settling the question of Slav nationalism once and for all. As Russia supported Serbia, an Austro-Hungarian declaration of war was delayed until its leaders received assurances from German leader Kaiser Wilhelm that Germany would support their cause in the event of a Russian intervention–which would likely involve Russia’s ally, France, and possibly Britain as well. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe’s great powers collapsed. Within a week, Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Serbia had lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and World War I had begun."

Was editing my previous post to more clearly show it was the Germans while you were researching the mainstream lie agreed upon.

The Germans started WWI just like they started WWII. Attacking other nations for their own glory.

Can you post a credible source for this statement? I have never seen it but would like to if it exists.

In 1914 when a country mobilized its army on a border it was considered an act of war, as was a blockade. So one can say these parties were at war when Serbia mobilized followed by Austria-Hungary, who had backing from Germany. So any thing Nailer points to that happened after the mobilization of the armies, an event caused by the killing of the Archduke, as being the reason for the outbreak of the war is not really true. Plus most historians agree that Germany was punished too harshly by the reparations that the League put on the nation after the war. In other words might have been at fault but was not the only nation responsible for the war.

The Guns Of August by Barbara Tuchman is a good one volume history.

I guess the pundit who said you can't fact check crazy this week was right.

My studies have never shown Germany as the instigator of WWI. This is why I had to ask. I have often looked at that book, one day soon I will actually read it.

Europe stumbled into that meat grinder because of entangled alliances.

That is what I learned.

There was an arc of four Prussian/German wars of aggression beginning with the Austro-Prussian War and ending with WWII. The Great War was the third. Massie's Dreadnought provides insight into Imperial Germany being the aggressor that led to WWI. The first volume of Churchill's WWI history is also insightful. Nobody wanted to fight the Germans yet somehow the Germans stumbled into fighting a two front war and they even invaded France via Belgium knowing it would bring GB in. The Großer Generalstab was over confident and the German Emperor was a fool.

The tiny quibble is that the Oberste Heeresleitung was a wartime organization and did not come into existence until after the decision for war was taken, so you can't pin the war on the group of that name. The Großer Generalstab is what existed prewar. Of course, the Großer Generalstab 'staffed' the Oberste Heeresleitung when it was formed, so the distinction is not exactly stark....

The big quibble is that it's not clear to me that the Austrians only attacked Serbia with German permission/instigation.

Nonetheless, I do believe the Germans embraced the war in anticipation of a quick and glorious conquest of France....