#66: The July Crisis - Conclusion

When Diplomacy Fails Podcast

Zack Twamley

19th Century, 20th Century, International Relations, Politics, Thirty Years' War, Korean War, 18th Century, First World War, Phd, 17th Century, European History, History, War

4.8 • 773 Ratings

🗓️ 30 June 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What have we learned after 65 episodes of background, analysis, and day-to-day coverage of the most consequential diplomatic failure in human history? What can we say about those responsible for what happened, and is there any value in searching for guilt? Can we distinguish between guilt or responsibility? Is it a cop out to not look for culprits? Should we search for reasons instead?

The July Crisis is a story of human failure on a catastrophic scale, but not all failures were made equally. One is drawn to the behaviour of Austria, Russia, and Germany - the three Eastern powers - who made the war possible. But did they know what they were doing? Were they knowingly moving the world towards disaster, or simply making what they believed was the best choice available to them? Here we wrap up, as much as possible, this incredible story.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	In summer 1914, the world went to war.
0:04.6	Now 110 years later, we go back to those figures, to those debates, to those questions,
0:12.2	in the greatest failure in the history of diplomacy.
0:16.3	I am Dr. Zach Twomley. You're listening to When Diplomacy Fails, and this is the July crisis. When people consulted their legal and financial advisors about the highest classes of guilt-edged investments,
1:03.7	they always asked the stereotypical question, is it perfectly safe?
1:08.2	And we always shrugged our shoulders and replied,
1:11.2	unless there is a European war,
1:13.4	meaning that this was utterly beyond the possibility of belief.
1:18.0	British Solicitor and Polymath Edward Heron Allen writes in his diary 3rd of August 1914.
1:27.2	So, here we are. The July crisis is over, and the First World War
1:33.0	has begun. To tell this story, we required 65 episodes, which includes background context,
1:41.8	character studies, historiographical examinations, analyses of important decisions,
1:47.4	and coverage of the simple day-to-day activities. We used sources like academic articles and books,
1:53.9	some supplied by my heaving bookshelves, and others provided by the likes of Perligo or else
1:59.9	found online, and that's just the secondary
2:02.1	sources. Our primary sources included official British and German documents, memoirs, diaries,
2:08.9	parliamentary debates, newspapers and other collections, all to build a picture, which is as
2:13.9	accurate, up-to-date, and comprehensive for you as possible.
2:18.2	You might even say, I went too deep into the sources, and gave too much detail on the hour-by-hour
2:23.8	journey towards war.
2:25.2	There were times when even I could not remember certain key moments and had to check
2:29.2	older scripts to refresh my memory, so if you found yourself drowning a bit in the sheer volume
	...

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