A world war in 1890s

Was possible a world war in we said 1890s,or is completely ASB?
( for world war i mean the involvement at least of all the great powers of Europe,if not the intervention of the United States).
 
The problem with Fashoda is the French bottle it every time. They couldn't get at the British because of the Royal Navy while the British chip away at all their colonial holdings at their leisure. The French might take the Channel Islands...

Who backs the French to give them courage (bearing in mind the Germans are at their backs as well)?
 
I prefer an Anglo-Russian confrontation of some kind: another Panjdeh incident or another c@ckup like the Russian fleet attacking British fishing vessels in the North Sea in 1905. Get the Japanese involved.
 
But over the casus belli,technically a war with the size of world war I was possible in 1890s?

Certainly but it is much harder without the alliance system. Perhaps a Spanish-American War broader in scale or a German intervention goes wrong in the Boer War.
 
1890s may barely a bit somewhat early for a WWI as we know it. Car technology limited so mostly we'd still see cavalry like previous wars, and no tanks. Also there were no airplanes yet so no aerial element (though marginal in WWI it's symbolic for technological achievement). Let's not forget limited machine gun knowledge as the Maxim Gun is only still a few years old.

Though for a global war like OP I think the Fashoda Incident would not really include all of Europe, particularly Germany and Italy would likely not intervene.
 
Possible a trench war in Europe?

As the ACW also saw trench warfare of some kind, I think it would probably be the way a war is fought. We have the Mitrailleuse (1850s) Gatling Gun (ACW) and the Maxim Gun (1885), so proud cavalry charges (even infantry) might be tried but soon abandoned.

In the 90s you have a French Russian Alliance against the German/Austrian one - but how to get a Conflict France (and or) Russia vs UK spreading is hard but not undoable.

Stronger Russian activity in the Balkans could also turn the table - we get the Serbian Bulgarian war of 1885 - lets assume the Peace is less favorable to Austria (Russia keeps its influence on Bulgaria). a conflicht a decade later coult turn first into a Balkans war and then spreading.
 
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