That's fine as long as you give valid arguments to say why Lenin was wrong.
I'm not going to believe him because it's essentially propaganda. If the Germans had a report from WWI blaming the entire fiasco on the British and French wanting to enslave the German race, I also wouldn't believe it. It's the same reason I don't believe the Allied story that the war was to protect democracy and get rid of a vile regime. So no, I'm not going to accept Lenin's word on why WWI started.
[Wrong, I didn't say Austria went to war for Germany, I said that Germany used Austria's declaration of war as an excuse to invade France, or at least drag it, and Britain, into a war.
As for Austria, its declaration of war was the perfect pretext for a combined Austro-German invasion of France in hopes that such a combined army would conquer France or at least weaken it to steal its colonial empire.
That seems like you're saying that Austria was more concerned with German interests (which weren't interested in starting a European war over Africa, see Second Morocco Crisis
again) than their own. It also ignores that the Germans tried to keep France out of the war before they invaded. It also ignores that there were barely any Austrian troops on the Western Front, so they obviously didn't care that much about it. For a war about taking French colonies, they sure didn't put a lot of effort into it, what with Austria caring more about its own backyard and the Germans abandoning Africa as lost.
Again with the strawmen. I didn't say Serbia wasn't a cause of war, I said't wasn't a crucial part of WWI. And I only brought the Ottomans when Dominus stated that the war was mainly between Austro-Hungary and Germany against France and Russia which is not true as it disregards the Ottomans completely.
You
cannot say that Serbia wasn't a crucial part of WWI. It started the damn thing, the Allies sent loads of troops to protect it (that they got stuck in Greece is a different matter), and the Austrians were willing to go to war over them. To ignore the critical role Serbia played in the war is to completely reject reality in exchange for some ideological fantasy land.
Using mainly Africans to fight in Africa is the logical choice, simple as that.
Then why did the Allies insist on sending in non-African troops as the main part of their forces? It took until the last year of the at, when the situation in Europe came to a head. That the Germans did not put significant European forces in Africa shows that they did not plan on making it the focus of the war. If German war goals were actually about taking Africa, they would have built it up and deployed significant forces there rather than going "Let the British take it and try to be as big of an annoyance as possible."
, Austria-Hungary was just interested in the Balkans, but it turns out that obtaining control over them was crucial for controlling Africa, and the world at large, because it gave access to the African Suez Canal, one of the pivots of the British and French colonial empires.
Is that why the British had no footholds in the Balkans? Their closest was Greece, who was neutral thanks to pro-German and pro-Allied efforts, and their closest territory was Cyprus, which is most definitely not the Balkans. Is that also why they pissed off their best shot at Balkan influence, the Ottoman Empire, by not sending them two warships at the start of the war? Because destroying your influence in a region that is supposedly key to controlling one of the most important economic routes in the world does not sound smart.
why Germany used Austria-Hungary's declaration of war against Serbia, because it would give it access to North Africa and particularly the Suez Canal, that way dragging Britain and France into a war to defend said canal, giving Germany an opportunity to conquer their colonies.
How does the Balkans give access to North Africa? The only way that'd happen for sure would be if the Germans were able to get naval superiority in the Med, something that just would not happen. Remember that the Ottoman entrance into the war was neither assured or expected. The Germans merely took advantage of British fuckups and rogue Ottoman servicemen attacking Russia to drag them in. Even including the Ottomans, it leaves Bulgaria, a nation that didn't enter on the CP's side until 1915, and Greece in the way. All in all, attacking the Balkans to get at North Africa makes no sense. If anything, it should have been a German-Italian operation to use Libya rather than going over 1000 miles from German or Austrian borders, where supplies would have to come from. It also doesn't explain why the Germans never sent significant troops to the Ottomans if taking Suez was so critical to its plan to conquer Africa.
The third strawman in a row. I didn't say that Africa was the main cause of the war, only one of the main causes.
Yes, you did. You stated that Serbia, the cause of the war, was less important than Africa. If that's not allocating the bulk of responsibility to Africa, then I don't know what is. you're also contradicting your own statements that Africa was so important that the whole of Europe would join an anti-American alliance, which you conveniently scaled back to merely "anti-American sentiment", if they tried to expand in Africa. If Europe viewed Africa as important enough to become hostile to an enormous market, then surely any reason to go to war over Africa would be more important than a petty European dispute.
And Austria didn't care about the French conquering Morocco,
Then why did you describe WWI as an excuse for the Austro-German alliance to invade the French to "steal their colonial empire"? If Austria didn't care about French expansion in Africa, why would they care about Germany wanting more African territory?
Germany did and wanted to stop the French from expanding as soon as possible. It just didn't declare war or do anything at that moment because it knew that France wasn't violating anything by invading Morocco.
But surely German greed would be more important than international treaties? After all, didn't they start a general European war over Africa, and in a part of the world that hadn't cared about Africa for several hundred years?
The Serbian murder of Ferdinand, however, was indeed a violation of established alliances and thus the perfect excuse to drag France into a war and stop its expansion.
Then why did Germany offer France terms to keep them out of the war? Why did they view Russia as the more important target if they wanted to get at France? Why didn't Italy join the war if they could have gotten such supposedly important colonies out of it? But perhaps most damningly to your case, why did the Kaiser go on vacation and give every implication that he did not think war would break out? That certainly doesn't strike me as the actions of a man who is chomping at the bit to fight France.