Was the assassination of archduke the main cause of world was one?

Answer 1

Europe at the start of the 20th century was a mixture of countries allying themselves with other European countries to ensure economic and military dominance.

Britain, France and Russia had the tri-entente cordial agreement of mutual support which concerned other European countries in particular Germany which began an arms race in response to British Naval dominance and its growing fleet of powerfull new battleships.

Combine this with the intense slavic rivalrys occurring in central Europe during the demise of the ottoman empire all in all made for a very unstable area.

The assasination of Archduke franz Ferdinand gave Austria-Hungary an excuse to flex its military muscle by dominating its neighbour Serbia. consequently Russia came to the aide of its ally Serbia. In response to this, Germany supported its ally Austria-Hungary by declaring war on Russia. France and Great Britain joined the war in support of Russia. So yes the assasination of the archduke was the catalist for World War 1. however.....

The political structure of Europe at that time was extremely fragile between the western European powers and a conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia was inevitable due to large scale ethnic rivalrys between the two countries. Therefore World war 1 would have probably happened without or without the assasination of the archduke.