![]() ![]() Recently, Christopher Clark, in his book The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, has argued that blame for the beginning of World War I should be spread widely around the European powers. Bethmann-Hollweg belatedly tried to stop events, but only shortly before war began and only after he realized that Britain would enter into the war against Germany. While the former managed the behind-the-scenes negotiations with Austro-Hungary and other European powers with an aim, the latter pushed for war in German political circles. That World War I came to pass despite the Kaiser’s view depended on the machinations of two highly placed German officials, Chancellor Thoebald von Bethmann-Hollweg and the German military’s chief of staff, Helmuth J.L. Nevertheless, upon Serbia’s response to Austro-Hungary’s demands, even the German Kaiser Wilhelm II objected that “every justification for war has fallen away.” A week after the June 28, 1914, shooting, Germany gave the Austro-Hungarian Empire a “blank check” of support in a war with Serbia and for any consequences that might arise out of one. Perhaps chief among these missed chances was the response of Imperial Germany. The reality, of course, is more complicated, though it is true that Franz Ferdinand’s killing did put into place a chain of events that led to war the tragedy is that there were many missed chances along the way, where a different outcome could have been achieved. ![]() The assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand caused the First World War.” This is what many people have been taught about what was called at the time the Great War. You can view both panel discussions at /exploringWWI. We asked several of the panelists to give us an abbreviated version of those discussions. Army War College faculty and explored the causes and consequences of this world-shattering event from multiple and diverse perspectives. 8-9, the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues hosted two panel discussions to commemorate the centennial of a conflict that resulted in the collapse of empires and ushered in the age of modernism. “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, / Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, / Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs / And towards our distant rest began to trudge,” begins “Dulce et decorum est,” Wilfred Owen’s heartbreaking poem about World War I. ![]()
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