‘The Greatest Catastrophe the World Has Seen’
The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914
by Margaret MacMillan
Random House, 739 pp., $35.00
1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War
by Charles Emmerson
PublicAffairs, 526 pp., $30.00
The Russian Origins of the First World War
by Sean McMeekin
Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 324 pp., $29.95; $18.95 (paper)
July 1914: Countdown to War
by Sean McMeekin
Basic Books, 461 pp., $29.99
The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914
by Christopher Clark
Harper, 697 pp., $29.99
Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War
by Max Hastings
Knopf, 628 pp., $35.00
June 28, 1914, Sarajevo, Bosnia. The Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the multinational Habsburg realms, resplendent in the dress uniform of an Austrian cavalry general, but also absurd in his plumed headdress, was shot at close range by Gavrilo Princip, a local student dropout obsessed with the Serbian national cause. Sarajevo was one of history’s most purple passages: there was the drama of bungled security and hamfisted conspiracy; spectacle and gore; the play of intention and chance; the clash of generations and civilizations, of the old monarchical Europe and the modern terrorist cell.
But of course the Sarajevo assassination captivates posterity for its consequences. Piqued in its prestige and fearful of the threat to its status as a great power by subversion fanned from Serbia, the Austro-Hungarian government delivered an ultimatum to its obstreperous little Balkan neighbor, demanding a say in the management of its internal affairs.
Russia stepped in to protect its Serbian clients; the Germans supported their Austrian allies; the French marched to fulfill their treaty obligations to Russia; Great Britain honored its commitment to come to the aid of France. Within five weeks a great war had broken out. At the very least, this is a gripping tale. Sean McMeekin’s chronicle of these weeks in July 1914: Countdown to War is almost impossible to put down.
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