Rigid mobilization plans turned a regional crisis into a continental war

Keegan emphasizes that the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand did not have to trigger a general European war; it became one largely because of prewar military planning that left almost no room for partial or delayed mobilization. Germany's strategic planning assumed a rapid two-front war against France and Russia and required mobilization to proceed on a fixed, complex timetable, once started, it could not easily be slowed or reversed without undermining the entire strategy. As Austria-Hungary moved against Serbia, Russia's mobilization to support its ally triggered Germany's own mobilization almost mechanically, since delay was seen as strategically catastrophic. Keegan argues that this rigidity, more than any single leader's malice, converted a Balkan crisis into a continental war within about a month, since the machinery of mobilization outran the diplomacy meant to control it. Takeaway: the war began less from deliberate intention than from military plans too inflexible to allow for last-minute diplomacy.