In summer 1914, the world went to war.

Now 110 years later, we go back to those figures, to those debates, to those questions,

in the greatest failure in the history of diplomacy.

I am Dr. Zach Twomley. You're listening to When Diplomacy fails.

And this is the July crisis. The resentment against Germany might well be called the sole of French policy. The irreconcilability of France is a factor that we must reckon with in our calculations.

Every time the national powers of France were fortified, she proceeded to acts of aggression abroad,

and would do so again if she

foresaw the likelihood of success.

We must take this into account and consider that we ourselves should be the opponent against

whom France would first turn if she thought that she could carry out a victorious campaign

against Germany.

Former German Chancellor Bernard von Buello, writing in his book Imperial Germany, 1914.

On Wednesday the 15th of July, 1914, French President Raymond Pondgaret and his premier,

Rene Viviani, began the first leg of their journey to St. Petersburg.

It would require an overnight train journey before a battleship, the France, would bring these

dignitaries to their destination, sailing through the Baltic to reach the Russian capital.

Boarding the France in the early morning of the 16th of July, Poincere would have a lot on his mind.

First, there was the speech of Charles Humbert in the French Senate.

This senator for the muse, a sensitive department on the Belgian border, refused to mince his words.

He presented a damning indictment of French defensive preparations,

noting the decay of fortresses, a dearth of heavy guns, poor communications,

a qualitative and quantitative inferiority in artillery compared to the Germans,

...