Devon Adams's List: AcaDec 13

• jevo by a Bosnian Serb ['the cause']. In retaliation, Austria declared war on Serbia, launching the sequence of events that culminated in World War I ['the effect']." In fact, both the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and even Austria's declaration of war against Serbia are but two relatively minor variables within the far larger set of complex issues that contributed to the many causes of World War I. While Franz Ferdinand's assassination may have been the immediate catalyst of the war, it was certainly not the cause.
• • This refutes the generalized claim that FF's death was catalyst.
• This claim is highly doubtful: most historians agree that the rivalry between the major European empires, the power blocs that had been established among them, and the complex set of alliances that existed within each bloc had made war all but inevitable long before 1914.

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