The First World War: How did it start?

The Cause

World War 1 was before known as 'The Great War' and 'The War to End All Wars'. This was obviously a very important event for many countries, but this war wasn't meaningless. However, the outcome was a little ridiculous compared to the cause. Here's a quick overview of what happened. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by a Serbian terrorist group named The Black Hand. Austria was obviously going to try and do something about it, so they decided to borderline declare war on Serbia by asking for various requirements for an apology. Serbia, being a small country couldn't meet these requirements and really didn't want to either. So why did WW1 come to fruition? It should have just been a two country feud, but almost all of Europe got involved. It was because of Alliances between the two. Despite Serbia being a mouse compared to Austria-Hungary, they were in an Alliance with the titan country Russia, which meant that if Austria was to declare war, Russia would get involved. So they turned to their ally Germany to help. Germany was small put next to Russia, but had military strength that was not to be scoffed at. Austria also asked to have Italy on their side, to which they accepted but did very little contribution because they were too busy eating pizza. Can't blame them to be honest. Now, this would have been all good, 3v2 was good. But these three members of the Triple Alliance were stuck in the middle of some other problems. These problems were called Britain and France, who were blocking their left and were big threats, being part of the other big Alliance, the Triple Entente. So basically there was a lot of heat before the fire anyway, and all from one slightly large event. It escalated drastically because of the allies that both countries had at their disposal.