july crisis, 1914

Dedicating a chapter to every day of July 1914, the author retraces the actions that led to World War I, beginning with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and following leaders of the time as they escalated the crisis.

When a Serbian-backed assassin gunned down Archduke Franz Ferdinand in late June 1914, the world seemed unmoved. There was nothing to suggest that the episode would lead to conflict, much less a world war of such massive and horrific proportions that it would reshape the course of human events. In fact, World War I might have been avoided entirely had it not been for a small group of statesmen who, in the month after the assassination, plotted to use the murder as the trigger for a long-awaited showdown in Europe. The primary culprits, moreover, have long escaped blame.

A history of the outbreak of World War I, from the breakdown of diplomacy to the dramatic battles that occurred before the war bogged down in the trenches.