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?