History Update: Was Germany To Blame For World War I?

I've written about this in greater detail in an earlier post, but my mind has drifted back to the issue because I'm listening to the audio version of Max Hastings' new book Catastrophe 1914. It seems when Germany's kaiser gave Austria the so-called 'blank cheque' to do what they saw fit in punishing Serbia over the archduke's assassination, the Germans were thinking the balkan crisis would be a local war. The Kaiser didn't start freaking out until the Russians started mobilizing their armies. That's the stage when the Kaiser started having second thoughts. Max Hastings characterizes Serbia as a rogue state that couldn't contain the violence radiating out from it.