That's a bit naive. If you look at World War 1, you see a series of decentralized conflicts and power struggles that snowballed into a global conflict killing millions.
It snowballed because of treaties - many secret - that linked the nations into huge sides. It was a series of "conspiracies" which were mostly not democratically decided. If Austria-Hungary had gone to war with Serbia and maybe Bulgaria, it would have been terrible but it wouldn't have been WWI.
I think you're discounting the the interest the general public in Great Britain, Russia, and Turkey(Ottoman Empire) for score settling and imperial expansion. Treaties were only part of the issue. The power vacuum was a large driving force.
If you look at World War II you'd maybe see the point that was trying to be made.