What if Gavrilo Princip had failed at assassinating Prince Franz Ferdinand? [View all]

The first attempt had failed. It was purely bad luck that gave the assassins a second try.

Without Franz Ferdinand's death, Austria would have had no reason for military repercussions against Serbia and WWI wouldn't have happened.

Europe:
- Without WWI, Britain and Germany would have stayed on a rather neutral note. (Emperor Wilhelm II was a descendant of Queen Victoria, but the British didn't like that the german navy grew so strong.)
- Germany wouldn't have been forced to pay reparations and hand over its african colonies to other countries. No breakdown of monarchy, no democracy, no rise of Nazis, no WWII. No WWII, no Cold War.
- Without WWI, no economic and military pressure on Russia, no immediate communist revolution, but likely at a later point, because czarist Russia was a very repressive regime. The conflict between Stalin and Trotsky over Lenin's succession would have played out differently, most likely Trotsky would have won because he was friends with Lenin and Stalin would have stayed a mid-level executive. As a result, communism would have been less nationalist and violent and more of an international grassroots movement for socialism.
- Without WWII, no moment of sobering up and getting rid of nationalism in Europe. No EU.
- No civil war and genocide in the Balkan, because no animosities from WWII.
- Without WWI and WWII many monarchies in Europe still intact, because less movements towards democracy.

America:
- Without a global war, the US would have stayed with the isolationist Monroe-doctrine. No real diplomatic ties between America and Europe.
- Without a Cold War, no need for US to meddle in South-America. No anti-US sentiment in south-american countries. Very close relationship over time. Possibly eventually some pan-american alliance similar to the EU.
- With a later russian revolution, rise of socialist/communist regimes in Cuba and South-America would have happened in a different way.

Asia:
- With a later russian revolution, rise of communist China, Korea, Vietnam... would have happened in a different way.
- Without WWII, Japan would still be a monarchy and would not have subjected itself to a massive modernization movement. No japanese high-tech, no japanese whaling, some of those japanese sex-fetishes wouldn't exist.

Africa:
- Without WWI and WWII, there would have been colonies for a longer time in Africa, possibly eventually followed by bloody wars of secession, in which the Europeans would have had the better weapons. Peaceful secessions unlikely because of high nationalism in Europe.
- European rivalries possibly fought as proxy wars in Africa.

Middle-East:
- Without WWI, no breakdown of the Osman Empire, no fragmentation of the arabic/islamic community. No islamic radicalization, because the Umma would essentially still be intact.
- Without islamic radicalization and the fragmentation, the middle-eastern countries would look totally different and would be cleanly split along Sunni/Shia.
- No Zionism, because no coordinated racism against Jews. No state of Israel, instead a huge jewish community in Europe.

Technology:
- Without WWI, no invention of modern warfare like tanks, small machine-guns, bunkers, weaponized gases...
- No mass-emigration of scientists from Germany. Germany would have been the center of research on nuclear and quantum-physics. But no nuclear bomb, because no need for it.
- Space programs much smaller and more primitive without the rocket research of the Nazis.
- No german Autobahn, because no Third Reich with a taste for prestige-objects.
- Less cultural exchange in Europe because more nationalism, because no lessons learned from WWII.
- Globalization on a much smaller scale, because less trade between US and Europe, because european factories not destroyed in WWII.



To sum up:
Technology would be more primitive in general. Less cultural inter-mixing, except with the colonies.
America would be a peaceful and prospering alliance of nations.
Europe would still be a bunch of monarchies fiercely vying for influence and prestige, but Germany would be an international center of nuclear technology and research in general. Trade would enforce peace. But communists from Russia and Asia would infiltrate Europe and seek to topple the monarchic regimes.
The Middle-East would be one large community of moderate Islam, with small-scale rivalries between Sunnis and Shiites.
Africa would be split up between european colony-powers and exploited for resources. Small-scale proxy-wars. Closer political and economic ties to Europe in general. Possibly infiltration by communist agents.
Russia would be home to a slightly more liberal interpretation of communism, fixated on spreading communism in Europe by propaganda.
Asia would be communist to a large degree.

What a different world we would live in if Franz Ferdinand's driver had not taken a wrong turn.

EDIT: I guess, it would be pretty steam-punk, at least for the first half of the 20 century.