While it is seductive to think that we reluctantly entered WW1 after the assassination of the Grand Duke, remember there was a naval arms race for much of the preceding decade. We built Dreadnought; they built more. The public voice was "coined the slogan 'We want eight and we won't wait!"
We were launching battleships in just 12 months.
The Germans had a series of Naval Laws.
German Naval Laws - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia but Britain adhered to a two-power standard.
You might say that we became involved in 1905 with the Moroccan crisis.
The German Navy was deployed world wide and undertook commerce raiding, attacking radio stations etc, and could well have begun offensive action against British interests even had we not declared was.