If one takes the position that part of the issue was that various leaders and diplomats hadn’t appreciated the degree to which military plans with fixed mobilization schedules essentially made it very difficult to back down once mobilization has started, I suppose that it’s possible that some clever people could have figured that out and started a series of arms control treaties aimed in such a way as to provide “breakpoints”, where even once mobilization had started, the move towards war could be reversed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_World_War_I

Primacy of offensive and war by timetable

See also: Cult of the offensive

Moltke, Joffre, Conrad, and other military commanders held that seizing the initiative was extremely important. That theory encouraged all belligerents to devise war plans to strike first to gain the advantage. The war plans all included complex plans for mobilization of the armed forces, either as a prelude to war or as a deterrent. The continental Great Powers’ mobilization plans included arming and transporting millions of men and their equipment, typically by rail and to strict schedules.[citation needed]

The mobilization plans limited the scope of diplomacy, as military planners wanted to begin mobilisation as quickly as possible to avoid being caught on the defensive. They also put pressure on policymakers to begin their own mobilization once it was discovered that other nations had begun to mobilize.[citation needed]

In 1969, A. J. P. Taylor wrote that mobilization schedules were so rigid that once they were begun, they could not be canceled without massive disruption of the country and military disorganisation, and they could not proceed without physical invasion (of Belgium by Germany). Thus, diplomatic overtures conducted after the mobilizations had begun were ignored.[152] Hence the metaphor “war by timetable”.

Russia ordered a partial mobilization on 25 July against Austria-Hungary only. Their lack of prewar planning for the partial mobilization made the Russians realize by 29 July that it would be impossible to interfere with a general mobilization.[citation needed]

Only a general mobilization could be carried out successfully. The Russians were, therefore, faced with only two options: canceling the mobilization during a crisis or moving to full mobilization, the latter of which they did on 30 July. They, therefore, mobilized along both the Russian border with Austria-Hungary and the border with Germany.[citation needed]

German mobilization plans assumed a two-front war against France and Russia and had the bulk of the German army massed against France and taking the offensive in the west, and a smaller force holding East Prussia. The plans were based on the assumption that France would mobilize significantly faster than Russia.[citation needed]

On 28 July, Germany learned through its spy network that Russia had implemented partial mobilisation and its “Period Preparatory to War”. The Germans assumed that Russia had decided upon war and that its mobilisation put Germany in danger, especially since because German war plans, the so-called Schlieffen Plan, relied upon Germany to mobilise speedily enough to defeat France first by attacking largely through neutral Belgium before it turned to defeat the slower-moving Russians.[citation needed]

Christopher Clark states: “German efforts at mediation – which suggested that Austria should ‘Halt in Belgrade’ and use the occupation of the Serbian capital to ensure its terms were met – were rendered futile by the speed of Russian preparations, which threatened to force the Germans to take counter-measures before mediation could begin to take effect.”[153]

Clark also states: “The Germans declared war on Russia before the Russians declared war on Germany. But by the time that happened, the Russian government had been moving troops and equipment to the German front for a week. The Russians were the first great power to issue an order of general mobilisation and the first Russo-German clash took place on German, not on Russian soil, following the Russian invasion of East Prussia. That doesn’t mean that the Russians should be ‘blamed’ for the outbreak of war. Rather it alerts us to the complexity of the events that brought war about and the limitations of any thesis that focuses on the culpability of one actor.”[154]

If someone realized the implications of these war plans, they might have either placed more weight on pre-mobilization diplomacy or had some arms control agreement that reduced some of the time pressures and didn’t turn mobilization into an escalation spiral that led to all-in war.

I am not saying that that would have happened had Franz Ferdinand not been assassinated, but I could at least imagine that time a non-assassination might have bought might have made it possible.

https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-proud-tower-a-portrait-of-the-world-before-the-war-1890-1914-barbara-w-tuchman-s-great-war-series-barbara-w-tuchman/4a15abe6e5b54455?ean=9780345405012&next=t

The Proud Tower by Barbara Tuchman.

People forget that there were all kinds of giant changes in the years before WW1.

best thing to change the shape of europe would be going back and kill Alexander no Romen Empire = none of their bastard children going on multiple genocidal rampages over the centuries

i mean…they probabky would have happened under someone/thing else but it probably wouldnt have been as stiffeling in thought as catholicism

and if you kill the catholics in their crib then protestants/puritans never make it to america