AHC: Keep Russia Out of WWI?

Unrest in Austria-Hungary and the rights of Serbia were just excuses.
It was all about the Turkish Straits - for rather strong geopolitical and economical reasons, I'm not saying that the Russian leaders wouldn't have had good and perfectly understandable reasons to act like they did.

But that doesn't change the fact that after the Treaty of Berlin Russians had been happy to keep Balkans on ice in full accord with Vienna while they focused on Manchuria. After the defeat against Japan Russia and Austria-Hungary continued their traditional cooperation until overly ambitious Izvolsky burned his fingers at the Bosnian Annexation Crisis, and the relations with Austria-Hungary were ruined for good.

Subsequently Russian diplomats acting more or less according to their own wishes orchestrated the creation of the Balkan Alliance, lost control of it, and alienated Bulgaria in the following wars that destabilized the region even further. By 1914 Russians were anticipating a complete breakdown of the moribund Ottoman Empire, and at the same time felt that their "national prestige" could not stand another humiliation at the Balkans. Hence the OTL politics. The Russian leaders were not hell-bent on setting Europe aflame, they merely pursued politics that they deemed vital to the strategist interest of the Russian Empire, but at the end of the day their actions played a large part in making the disaster that was WW1 happen anyhow.
 
Unrest in Austria-Hungary and the rights of Serbia were just excuses.

No doubt. Still, doing a thing for wrong reasons is not necessarily the same as doing the wrong thing.

Russia shares some part of the blame for the creation as well as breakdown of the Balkan Alliance, and the escalation of the July 1914 crisis. But it was far from the only power driven by dangerous prestige-based politics.

russian pan-slavism gave rise to all the unrest in the balkans, and they probably funded & supported the black hand (that assassinated F-F).

And one thing it definitely cannot be faulted for is the unpopularity of Austrian rule in Bosnia. (and blaming it for the assassination of Franz Ferdinand would make almost as little sense)
 
No doubt. Still, doing a thing for wrong reasons is not necessarily the same as doing the wrong thing.

By 1914 Russia had done things for dubious reasons for a decade and a half. Pevchevskii Most was never a strong foreign ministry compared to other major powers of the day, but after the death of Muraviev it entered to a period of infighting and weak foreign ministers. As a result the country was led astray by ambitious individuals and competing factions - first to the defeat against Japan, then to Balkan debacles, and then to WW1.

Naturally blaming a single power for the whole mess is both pointless and anachronistic, but IMO leaders of the Russian Empire were among the chief culprits for the outbreak of WW1.
 
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