Question

2. If there had not been a system of military alliances in place in Europe in 1914, would the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand have resulted in World War I? Explain your answer

Answer 1

The assassin was an anarchist. The anarchist movement had been committing all sorts of havoc throughout Europe trying to foment war. They thought that, given the opportunity, the people would rise up and over throw the established order.
That piece of information could be argued either way. First, the other acts of terrorism hadn't caused war, so why would this? Or, they just kept trying until it caused war. They're usual weapon was dynamite. This assassination was the highest profile act. It would have certainly caused some kind of response from Austria-Hungary.

Also consider, France and Germany had been fighting over Alsace for half a century. Germany was recently united as a nation and was looking to flex its muscle and France was resting on its laurels as an European power from way back. They had problems in their military they ignored. Germany had extensive plans for their next invasion of France. That was going to happen at some point.

Russia may not have entered the war without the alliances. But it to had a weakened system. They had just recently outlawed serfdom and were decades behind in technology in areas of agriculture and military.

WWI exposed flaws and weaknesses of the old system of nearly every country that participated. It could easily be argued that those systems would have crumbled evetually with out the alliances.

So would WWI have happened. Not the way that it did. But many of the components would probably have happened eventually.