Otto von Bismarck famously predicted that the next major European war would be the result of "some damned foolish thing in the Balkans" well before it happened; how was he able to anticipate that this would be the flashpoint? What made it a natural candidate to set off a major conflict?

by td4999
PrimisClaidhaemh

I'd like to link to a previous thread. Not only because of usual reasons of relevancy, but also because user /u/Aleksx000 also tackles the question of whether Bismarck actually even said the quote:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8ax9vl/otto_von_bismarck_famously_anticipated_that_the/

There are also links to other previous forms of the question contained in the comments of the thread I linked above.

This is to take nothing away from any other surviving responses. I just thought the question of whether Bismarck actually said it was an interesting wrinkle to the usual question.