It broke Germany its main rival. People at the time really wouldn’t understand the modern mentality of coexistence and working together like EU does nowadays. Germany is growing too close to our power therefore they need to be cut down before they overtake us. If they don’t act Germany becomes the continental hegemon.
But the thing with the British is that almost as soon as the ink was dry on the treaty, the British seemed to work against the logic of cutting Germany down, and fretted about France getting too powerful and aggressive. The British spent almost twenty of the interwar years systematically undermining the containment structure France was trying to maintain against Germany, leading to France getting conquered by Germany when the next war *did* happen.
I mean a country can feel all clever about it's diplomatic flexibility and justify doing a diplomatic about-face or reversal every generation, saying sagely, 'we have no permanent allies, only permanent interests,' but when the result is that there is a a major war every generation and you lose your empire at the end you can also that interpret as the country not knowing what the heck it needs or what it is doing in foreign affairs.
And distance from him to WW1 is about the same as from WW1 to us today. It was still fresh.
I think you meant to compare WWI to something else - Napoleonic era? Holy shit, that's true now. The German storming of Liege in '14 is now more distant from us than Waterloo was from 1914.
Essentially the British political system is moved forward a year, so we probably lose Asquith (or replacement Liberal PM) in late 1915 or early 1916 after the failures at Gallipoli & Loos to be replaced by Lloyd George, who would not be in as strong a position as late 1916 given the role as Minister of Munitions has run for 12 less months, and had less time to seduce his Conservative fellow ministers. Possible at that time someone might suggest Balfour as a former PM and someone who could be flexible on issues & so acceptable to the Liberal Imperialists.
This was a great description of how British politics might work out but you skipped the crucial part about how, why and when and which British government did the declaration of war. You referenced failures at Gallipolli bringing down Asquith early, so that presumes Britain gets in the war somehow.
That would be lose-lose result no matter who won.
Its either Germany and A+H dominates the continent, or France and Russia.
Neither is a good result for the UK
....and while some explanations, especially in retrospect, talk about the fear of German domination of the continent. (probably many contemporary explanations did too) Many contemporary explanations took the opposite tack and treated it as Britain expecting France and Russia to win, and thus needing to join them to get and stay on their good side. Or, the even more phantasmagorical fear that the Germans might beat the Russians and French, and the Russians and French, disappointed at lack of British support, might take revenge....on Britain (with what financial, naval, and military resources, I do not know, and never adequately explained. Yet this BS was peddled).
If Austria-Hungary took what it could reasonably get without war, or actually managed to maneuver so that it wouldn't be perceived as the aggressor even after the assassination, I think things are pretty likely to resolve themselves in their favor.
I wonder what was the most Austria-Hungary could "get" from the crisis if it turns into a high pressure situation but not an actual war?
Turnover of some suspects? How high up and how connected people would be turned over?
An indemnity? A compensatory peace of territory?
An up front alliance with other Balkan states like Bulgaria or the Ottomans or Albania?
Personally, I believe German support for a quick, authoritative "demonstration" against Belgrade would be Berlin's best course of action. Push the Austrians to strike whilst the iron is hot, knock Serbia down a peg or two in the eyes of the Slavs and the rest of Europe, satisfy their honour and 'gracefully withdraw' with some form of concession from Serbia. An undertaking whilst Europe was still feeling sorry for Vienna would give Austria a lot of leeway in what they did and provided it didn't expand past what could reasonably be described as a Police Action, foreign support for Serbia would be that much less likely. German honour could be assuaged by acting as the 'protector' of Austria as she deals with Serbia, the might of the Heer held in check in case things escalated.
This is probably a bit harder to accomplish in practice without great power collision than it sounds. And it doesn't sound that easy. I mean, it's a hopeful hypothesis. Maybe things work out, but most probable effect might be that Austria gets to be at war with Serbia for a week or two, or until it takes Belgrade, or until it seeks to dictate terms, and then Russia mobilizes to show that it is getting terms bargained down to something reasonable for its protege.