Prinzip, employed as a tool to bring it about, is not so certain.

Several years prior to the war, the celebrated Russian, Tolstoy, gave
utterance to a remarkable prophecy. Tolstoy was a mystic, and it was not
unusual for him to go into a semi-trance state in which he professed to
peer far into the future and obtain visions of things beyond the ken of
average men. The Russian czar was superstitious and it is said that the
German emperor had a strong leaning towards the mystic and psychic. In
fact, it has been stated that the Kaiser's claim to a partnership with
The Almighty was the result of delusions formed in his consultations
with mediums--the modern descendants of the soothsayers of olden times.

Tolstoy stated that both the Czar and the Kaiser desired to consult with
him and test his powers of divination. The three had a memorable
sitting. Some time afterwards the results were given to the world.
Tolstoy predicted the great war, and he stated his belief that the torch
which would start the conflagration would be lighted in the Balkans
about 1913.

Tolstoy was not a friend of either Russian or German autocracy, hence
his seance may have been but a clever ruse to discover what was in the
minds of the two rulers. Germany probably was not ready to start the war
in 1913, but there is abundant warrant for the belief that she was
trimming the torch at that time, and, who knows, the deluded Prinzip may
have been the torch.

The old dotard Francis Joseph who occupied the throne of
Austria-Hungary, was completely under the domination of the Germans. He
could be relied upon to further any designs which the Kaiser and the
German war lords might have.