Gordon (1974) on historiography and his view of the causes

As far as German policy is concerned, its readiness to risk war for its own ends-either a local Balkan war fought by its ally in Vienna or a larger, continental-sized war in which it, France, and Russia participated-now seems unshakably established.  Albertini, Schmitt, Renouvin, and Taylor had already argued this point persuasively before 1961, and the debate sparked by Fischer has under pinned it with different sources of evidence and methods of argument. By either one of these two wars the German government thought its interests would be served: at a minimum, a successful localized war-kept limited by Russia’s backing off in fear-would in the German view probably break up the Franco-Russian alliance, shore up the tottering Austro-Hungarian empire, and clear the way in Central Europe for an eventual German breakthrough to success ful Weltpolitik. On a more ambitious level, the German government was convinced it could also secure these aims even more emphatically in a triumphant continental war. As for the world war that happened, German leaders did not consciously aim at it, not at any rate in 1914, and for that matter not even Fischer has claimed this. Michael R Gordon, Domestic Conflict and the Origins of the First World War: The British and the German Case. Source: The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 46, No. 2 (Jun., 1974), pp. 191-226