Why the July Crisis escaped political control

The assassination of Franz Ferdinand turned an Austro-Hungarian succession problem into an international crisis. Britain's Home Rule emergency, political disputes elsewhere, and summer absences among European leaders delayed sustained attention while demands on Serbia hardened. The first Austro-Hungarian position was more moderate before Kaiser Wilhelm pressed for a stronger line and supplied the blank cheque. Alliance labels also concealed tensions: Italy belonged to the Triple Alliance, while Britain's Entente relationships did not remove its hostility toward Russia. Military contingency planning also did not itself prove a political desire for war. Invading Belgium or moving the German fleet into the Channel would make British intervention far more likely because both threatened a longstanding British strategic interest in the nearby European coast.