mousethief,

Just one piece of geographic pedantry, Austria-Hungary was after Serbia, not Russia. Seriously, it has been argued that if Austria-Hungary had launched a quick punative campaign against Serbia in July 1914 and made it clear to the rest of the world that there was no intent to stay the situation might have been defused, but there were too many would-be empire buildiers (there were a lot in the upper echelons of government who did want to stay) and the whole system was too slow, by the time the ultimatum was rejected, the machine was moving and no on could see how to apply the brakes. By the way, the Austrians captured the assasin, Gavrio Princip, he died of TB in prison in 1918.

Regards

Walrus