Fascinating stuff. I loved history as a kid at school and the world wars were both fascinating (born British but having spent time in Japan and having met a few Americans in my life, I'm well aware half the countries in the world have significantly different accounts of what happened and who did what back then).

Regards the start of WW1 in 1914, it was always just a case of some Austrian duke named Franz Ferdinand visited Serbia where he was assassinated by the black hand gang. And that was that. That's all I ever got to hear of them. But their actions started the ball rolling so to speak. And the fact you say they sounded pretty inept - rather like 'keystone' radicals if you like - makes it even crazier, doesn't it? If they'd messed up one more assassination attempt the world could yet have been very different today. Saying that though, it could have turned out worse! We'll just never know.