Until either nukes are invented or the European countries get much more friendly with each other?
I believe so. There
were trends toward a Great War:
- German militarism.
- The Anglo-German naval race.
- French revanchism over Alsace-Lorraine.
- Lots of pretty uniforms and martial fantasies in pop culture.
But there were also very strong trends
against war.
The nations of Europe were becoming prosperous democracies, which basically had no reason to fight each other.
The business class was becoming politically dominant, and businessmen were generally turning against war, especially modern "total war".
That kind of war costs huge amounts of money (they pay lots of taxes) and breaks stuff (they own lots of stuff).
Look at the previous hundred years (since 1815) compared to the hundred years before that. See how often the Great Powers went to war with each other. During the entire period of 1815-1914, there were only seven wars between European powers (including Turkey). Three of them ended after one or two battles; one was fought with small forces by nations that had no mutual borders; two were between Russia and Turkey, the most backward nations (with neither country's heartland touched). Only the Franco-Prussian War compared to the Great Power wars of the 1700s.
By 1914, there is a very strong
inertia against going to war in almost every country. The partial exceptions are the countries where power is in the hands of a monarchical clique or militarist cabal, which could initiate war without broad popular consensus. These were Germany, Austria, Turkey, and Russia. The governments of these countries were not really answerable to the people yet; but even there a declaration of war had become a very dangerous step.
200 years earlier, there was a declared war with Britain and France against Spain, which many history books don't even mention (the
War of the Quadruple Alliance).
In 1914, certain of the warmongers succeeded in provoking the conflict they wanted (primarily Austria and Germany).
If there was no 1914 crisis, the possibility of war would become more and more remote.
No.
And with no WW1 what would the world look like today?
Extremely hard to say. It's possible there would never be a Great War of any kind. No Bolshevik Revolution, no Communist or Fascist states, no arms races or Cold Wars. Which IMO means the world today would be much much wealthier. OTOH, because history would avoid the great ills we know of, doesn't mean history would not encounter other great ills.
Russia was potentially ready for a revolutionary convulsion, and Nicholas was not the man to head it off. Austria-Hungary was a political jury-rig, ready to fall apart at the death of Franz Joseph. Germany needed constitutional reform, but Kaiser Wilhelm would accept none, and he lived till 194o; something could burst.
Still, all of these were domestic problems, and not
likely to start international troubles, or bring more warlike regimes to power.
China was already breaking down. Some of the trends that led Japan into militarist insanity had had already started. But neither trend was IMO driven to go as bad as OTL, without OTL circumstances deriving in substantial part from WW I.
