I have been listening to "The Guns of August" by Barbara Tuchman on my commute. It is a history of the events leading up to Word War 1. It sounds to me like all the European leaders should have sat down at a table and said "Hey, let's go to war on 1 August. What do you say?" It would have saved a ton of money and labour if they had.

It looks like the whole continent was itching to go to war.