WI/PC: Mediation Prevents WWI

World War I isn't really my strong area but this is a thought I've had since learning history in high school so I figured I'd see what you all think.

The spark that sets off the chain of events leading to world war is, of course, Archduke Franz Ferdinand getting assassinated. This leads to Austria-Hungary issuing an ultimatum to Serbia, Russia coming to its ally's defense, so on and so forth. But what if this chain could be broken, by way of Russia and Austria-Hungary negotiating directly with the Serbs to come to some sort of reparation? Obviously whatever comes of it will be rather unpleasant for Serbia, while I doubt Russia would let the Empire take any Serb lands they would probably be nearly bankrupted by the reparation payments demanded, but it averts a European catastrophe. Is this at all plausible? Can WWI be averted by any plausible means, once the Archduke is dead?
 
For a moment I thought the title was 'Meditation Prevents WW1'.

Highly un PC but get the crowned heads together to thrash something out face to face within the family. After all they head up most of the show and Franz Joseph knows them all too.

Then they can go home and give their governments a good kicking until they behave sensibly. Sometimes democracy means the mob rules.
 
For a moment I thought the title was 'Meditation Prevents WW1'.

I had the same thought when I saw the topic :). A possible answer to both question could be Karl Eugen Neumann finding enlightenment during meditation and becoming an influential pacifist figure and somehow being able to help negotiating a solution or something like that.
 
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Of course, the only figure who could pull of such a feat would be T.R. :p

I do think mediation could solve it, but you'd have to cut it off at the source, stop A-H and Serbia. Once that starts, it can't be contained.
 
I tend to agree, largely, irony/sarcasm set aside. Wilson offered to mediate but as an unknown quantity wasn't taken seriously by any of the powers. OTOH, TR was certainly known and had the chops to pull it off. Seems to me the whole mess would have been short-circuited with A-H getting about 90% of the demands of its ultimatum, and Serbia being happy with survival considering the bulk of the western world gave its sympathy to A-H as the victim of a regicide. Indeed, Serbia might have been considered a proto-rogue state until it did something to atone/earn reinstatement in the world's good graces.
 
The deal would be Serbia humiliated with some high officials subject to internation investigation trian and likely Danny Deaver dance
 
The biggest problem is that AH is not interested. They had a blank cheque from Germany.

Their ultimatum to Serbia was deliberately constructed so that Serbia could not possibly accept all the terms.

To get mediation to work, and mediation WAS offered, you'd have to get some reason for AH to back down, or at least slow down.

Hmmph. I could have sworn there were a couple of recent threads that discussed this, but Search isn't finding them for me.
 
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