• Analyses & Alternatives
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.83-114
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• 2023

Previous studies on international politics dealing with World War I mainly pointed to the balance of power and alliance issues as the causes of war. This view saw the assassination of Sarajevo, the direct cause of the war, as a simple opportunity. As a result, these studies can explain 'what made war inevitable' but still need to fully explain 'why the war started in the Balkans and how it spread throughout Europe.' To compensate for the limitations of these preceding studies, this study aim to find the origin of World War 1 in the context of the Balkan, which began with the conflict between Germany-Austria and Russia-Serbia. To this end, this study analyzed the historical background of the Balkan crisis and the development of the crisis through the concept of Shoemaker and Spanier's patron-client relationship between states and crisis manipulation. As a result, it confirmed that competition between Russia and Germany and crisis manipulation attempts by their client states did not necessarily lead to war. But crisis manipulation has instilled a competitive mindset in patron states that will potentially and cumulatively work. Since then, unexpected crises have occurred, and rival patrons have suspected that their opponents are planning grand strategic conspiracies and challenges. As a result, they have become vulnerable to crisis manipulation by the clients. This situation was the cause of the outbreak of World War I in the context of the Balkans' patron-client relationship.