Franz Ferdinand's assassination as spark, not powder keg

How might events have changed if Franz Ferdinand had not been assassinated in Sarajevo?

The assassination was the immediate spark rather than the whole cause; Europe already contained a powder keg of accumulated tensions.

Franz Ferdinand's assassination does not by itself explain the First World War. It was the match that ignited a powder keg assembled over many years. The speed with which the crisis spread suggests that deeper political and strategic tensions were already present. The counterfactual therefore separates the immediate trigger from the longer causes that made escalation possible.