Russia... yeah. If Russia was going to insist on turning a Serbian-Austrian dispute into a general war in pursuit of her own Balkan interests, she should've stayed undistracted in the East.
Meanwhile, the French essentially defeated themselves. After Victor Michel's agitation, the French became convinced that the Germans would swing through north of the Meuse. They weighted their far-left wing heavily, and grouped it around Lille. Then, when word came through of German violation of Belgian territory, bang!, off into the wild blue. Marching deep into Belgium (and finding no Germans to fight), they were beyond timely recall while the decisive battle was fought far to their right rear.
Perhaps if the reserves had been comprehensively integrated with the front line active armies -- Michel's other proposal -- the forces around Sedan would've possessed high enough quality to delay the Germans longer. With a little more time, the French armies in Belgium would've been able to fight through the German flank guard. They very nearly did anyway, despite the delay and confusion of reorienting from the Antwerp-Hasselt-Liege line to Liege-Marche-Givet.
As it was, one can only pity the mostly-reservist formations that found themselves in the path of the German offensive. They can hardly be blamed for breaking.
