Illogical Route of Events

Suppose I compare mankind to an ocean of humanity do you think I could be far from wrong? Each human being as a drop of water and could be as lethal and powerful as water in its full force would demonstrate. The analogy is apt I dare say, since we are part and parcel of collective experience. How we singly as individuals and as nations corrode or build up our future can be well seen from our post WWI history. The Balkans was a powder keg made up of many ethnic groups, the Albanians, Macedonians, the Jews, Serbians and Moslems and what not. The weakening of the Ottoman Empire at the end of 19th century had made the past history of conflicts, pogroms and ‘ethnic cleansing’ freely waged by lawless bandits from these groups a very volatile situation. The assassination of the Austrian Archduke was a reason for the event that we now know as the First World War. One answer I can hazard to give is this: so many little wars or bloodletting on ethnic lines coalesced into one major war. Another, a historian, and with all his persuasive power of scholarship and insight shall give yet another. I do not dispute the validity of his arguments or verdict as much as I am also right.
As in the case of ice that I cited in the outset there cannot be any simple cut and dried answer to most of our experience.
Tailpiece: given the interplay of so many layers to any event as WWI, a single answer may be too simplistic. Reason is a good guide for anyone to hold in one’s personal conduct but rarely works in practice.
benny