Perhaps the more interesting point is that some kind of psychosis had gripped the German leadership on warships. Even when it became clear that it was impossible to catch up with the British, and the effort was consuming needed resources and arousing London's anger, it proved impossible to stop.
Abdul, when was the famous event where the British had to decide between four new dreadnaughts to keep the lead and six new ones to pull ahead, and finally compromised on eight?
Meanwhile, since Germany had no choice but to maintain a large standing army in peacetime, a problem London was spared, Berlin could never commit the same level of resources. Meanwhile England started to build a highly professional army of its own.
As an example, as late as 1911-1912 Germany assumed the maximum British involvment on the continent on a short notice to be six divisions, yet by 1914 London could send 12 and keep another 2 in reserve.
At 25,000 men per division, that means Germany managed to add 200K to the armies of France and Belgium while gaining no benefit of their own.
On the matter of Serbia, the key question is whether or not the Serbian government was linked to the assassination.
If it was, then A-H's behavior was reasonable, even moderate, and the question is about the hypocrisy of Russia or England, whose response to a small and violent nation murdering the Prince of Wales or the Tsarevitch can be confidently predicted.
I also recall that Winston Churchill predicted exactly when the war would begin to a period of @16 months, several years earlier. He stated it WOULD begin after the Kiel Canal was completed and before Russia's first stage in upgrading the railroad system was complete in spring of 1915.
