The War That Ended Peace by Margaret MacMillan

It carries the much stronger message that it is not enough to merely want peace.Lately, those around me have discovered something disconcerting: my attempts to shift all conversation to the topic of the First World War. There are plenty of accounts of the War itself, most of which demonstrate the operational ineptitude of the generals who clamored for it. Perhaps Winston Churchill, when it became apparent late on Augthat diplomacy had failed, demonstrated the rampant naiveté best when he mused that “at any rate the war can’t last long.”

The fact that it did not lends credence to the theory that the First World War was inevitable. Rational diplomacy should have worked here. Finally, Germany’s support to Austria’s Serbian ultimatum is superbly recounted and fills a gap in The Guns of August. As for the Balkans, MacMillan’s description of the ethnic complexities, multiple crises, and how temporarily solving them in the pre-war years lulled European leaders into a false sense of security makes that region’s role in providing the spark to war amazingly clear. The first is straightforward enough, but essential to understand because it drove a wedge between a traditional sea power and a wannabe-tragically, for no logical reason. Three areas are worth highlighting here: the British-German naval race, pre-war turbulence in the Balkans, and Germany’s “blank check” to Austria-Hungary after the assassination in Sarajevo. On the civilian leadership side, the recurring theme seems to have been one of ineptitude and complacency the notion that no political crisis could possibly come to war. Unfortunately for the millions killed, the uniformed crowd held sway.

When it comes to the players, MacMillan goes beyond the usual suspects sitting on thrones, pacing the halls of government, or wearing uniforms she includes peace activists, financiers, even anarchists. In the process, she provides all the background the reader could possibly hope for, with a style that makes the journey absolutely enjoyable. In her introduction to a book that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Barbara Tuchman’s landmark The Guns of August, Margaret MacMillan asks “what made 1914 so different” that European leaders were unable to back away from the precipice of general war, as they had so many times in the years following Napoleon’s exile? Unlike Tuchman’s focus on a single month, MacMillan takes the reader back several decades to identify the people, events, and decisions that led to the outbreak of war in 1914.

The War That Ended Peace by Margaret MacMillan