There is a thought provoking book about how terrible the repercussions of WWI really were. The author claims the world was on the verge of a renaissance in technology, medicine, energy, music, trade, etc. The thought of a world war was incomprehensible at the time—no one believed it could happen. Who knows how the world would look today without WWI.

(If any one is interested in the book I will hunt it down as I don’t remember the name).

This was discussed shortly in: A Study of History by Arnold Toynbee

Another anecdote that speaks to the sentiment of the beginning of the war is Britain’s initial deployment of troops. The troops were literally marching towards Germany with music and percussionists that was supposed to motivate the troops and strike fear into the enemy. I imagine an army like you would see in Game of thrones (walking from point A to point B and making camp in between). Germany used their planes and promptly dispatched the British troops which suffered devastating losses. After this event Britain changed their tactics and took the war seriously.

(This event may have been WW2 which would make the story even more ridiculous).

I'm curious ^

Please do.

I think the point is that WWI was precipitated by a chain of events that could have, in theory, easily been interrupted if the belligerents had been sufficiently fearful of conflict.

The "August Madness" is sometimes how this gets summed up. Novels/movies like All's Quiet on the Western Front make this point, too.