Was the Bosnian Crisis the trigger to WWI and not the assassination?

Question

I've read that Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908, much to the dismay of the Serbs. Russia backed this action and was promised to have access to the Straits but were later denied. The Serbs were pressured by their Russian ally to give up their claims of Bosnia-Herzegovina (but why?). Before then, Austria had repeatedly threatened to go to war against Serbia if Serbia continued to refuse recognizing Austria's claims. The killer who murdered Archduke Ferdinand was a member of the Black Hand, the same group that is connected with the post-revolutionary government in Serbia, so the Serbian government was complicit. From a historical point of view, it seems that Serb nationalism was the trigger to WWI.

Answer 1

I would agree with this analysis. The assassination was just the most visible domino piece to fall that came from a larger chain of events, all orchestrated by some senior Serbian officers using their close ties to the Black Hand organization. What's truly stunning is how it then escalated into even more crazy rampant nationalism. No one has ever been able to rationally and successfully explain how millions of Germans, British and French agreed to line up to slaughter each other for the next 4 years, all over an obscure Austrian Archduke that nobody really cared much about. The textbook says it was a series of treaties and alliances which is true. However, on an average day, no head of state anywhere rushes off to war and sacrifices millions of their own countrymen over a single person in some other country who happened to be assassinated. The problem was the whole continent was just spoiling for a crazy fight. It was just an excuse to address other issues, which included misplaced ego, pride, out of control militarism and perceived national honor.