Books > History > World history > From 1900 > First World War
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The Month that Changed the World - July 1914 and WWI (Paperback)
Loot Price: R482
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The Month that Changed the World - July 1914 and WWI (Paperback)
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List price R564
Loot Price R482
Discovery Miles 4 820
You Save R82 (15%)
Expected to ship within 9 - 15 working days
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On 28 June 1914 the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was
assassinated in the Balkans. Five fateful weeks later the Great
Powers of Europe were at war. Much time and ink has been spent ever
since trying to identify the 'guilty' person or state responsible,
or alternatively attempting to explain the underlying forces that
'inevitably' led to war in 1914. Unsatisfied with these
explanations, Gordon Martel now goes back to the contemporary
diplomatic, military, and political records to investigate the
twists and turns of the crisis afresh, with the aim of establishing
just how the catastrophe really unfurled. What emerges is the story
of a terrible, unnecessary tragedy - one that can be understood
only by retracing the steps taken by those who went down the road
to war. With each passing day, we see how the personalities of
leading figures such as Kaiser Wilhelm II, the Emperor Franz
Joseph, Tsar Nicholas II, Sir Edward Grey, and Raymond Poincare
were central to the unfolding crisis, how their hopes and fears
intersected as events unfolded, and how each new decision produced
a response that complicated or escalated matters to the point where
they became almost impossible to contain. Devoting a chapter to
each day of the infamous 'July Crisis', this gripping step by step
account of the descent to war makes clear just how little the
conflict was in fact premeditated, preordained, or even
predictable. Almost every day it seemed possible that the crisis
could be settled as so many had been over the previous decade;
almost every day there was a new suggestion that gave statesmen
hope that war could be avoided without abandoning vital interests.
And yet, as the last month of peace ebbed away, the actions and
reactions of the Great Powers disastrously escalated the situation.
So much so that, by the beginning of August, what might have
remained a minor Balkan problem had turned into the cataclysm of
the First World War.
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