The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914

[davidbfpo]

A long article on a new(ish) book which starts with:

A new book throws startling new light on how Britain went to war in 1914, and how it published a deceptive document to try and explain the decision: what the author calls “a dodgy dossier”.

The day after Britain declared war on Germany on Tuesday, 4th August 1914, the Liberal government decided to issue a White Paper justifying its decision. In his new book, “The Darkest Days: The Truth Behind Britain’s Rush To War, 1914” (published by Verso), Australian historian Douglas Newton argues passionately that an interventionist minority in the Asquith cabinet—Prime Minister Asquith himself, Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, Lord Chancellor and former War Minister Lord Haldane, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Charles Masterman—manoeuvred the large neutralist majority into siding with Russia and France against Germany as the crisis in European diplomacy reached its climax, five weeks after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on 28th June 1914.

Link:https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkin...dodgy-dossier?

For the book (USA):http://www.amazon.com/Darkest-Days-T...To+War%2C+1914

For the book (UK):http://www.amazon.co.uk/Darkest-Days...To+War%2C+1914

[davidbfpo]

Professor Adam Roberts, of Oxford University, spoke at a conference in July 2014 @ Sarajevo and last week at a different conference @ St. Andrews, on terrorism, he referred to it. He draws uncanny parallels between the policy of Austria-Hungary towards Serbia, after the assassination and the demands made - which ended in an 'anti-terrorist operation'. And today the dangers of a repeat causing a wider war.

Link: http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/studio/multimedia/20140627e/index.html#section-30589

Author's bio:http://www.politics.ox.ac.uk/index.p...m-roberts.html

[davidbfpo]

Professor John Schindler wrote this column a year ago:http://20committee.com/2014/06/27/28...assassination/

A poignant reminder even today:

Despite its infamy, the Sarajevo assassination remains shrouded in some mystery, and that’s what I seek to cut through today.

[Firn]

The Economics of WWI is a great series of VOX with some fascinating and little known and yet important aspects. It's quite accessible, too.

[davidbfpo]

Professor John Schindler has a blog piece on the first allied victory in WW1 @ Cer, a mountainous plateau in Serbia, which I expect have heard of:http://20committee.com/2014/08/19/10...f-world-war-i/

A taster:

The “brief autumn stroll” had ended in disaster. Vienna lost more than 23,000 soldiers killed, wounded, and missing in the brief campaign, winning nothing but an appreciation for Serbian tenacity and martial skill. Over four thousand Habsburg prisoners of war, forty-six artillery pieces, and thirty machine guns had been left in Serbian hands. Serbian casualties of 16,000 were considerable, but there was no mistaking that this had been an historic defeat for the House of Habsburg. The loss of prestige for the army and the monarchy was vast, and its diplomatic implications in the Balkans were frightening for Vienna.

A fascinating insight from an unexpected source:

Egon Erwin Kisch, a noted Prague journalist — he had broken the salacious story of the Redl spy scandal a year before — witnessed the retreat as a reserve NCO in a Czech regiment of VIII Corps, and he was shocked by how rapidly things had gone wrong: “a boisterous horde fleeing in thoughtless panic towards the border,” his shattered battalion led by a mere subaltern, its companies led by sergeants. “The army is defeated, on a lawless, wild, hasty retreat,” he lamented to his diary.