When Diplomacy Fails

The July Crisis Anniversary Project

A day-by-day account of the events that occurred 100 years ago.

Conclusion

Can the eruption of World War I and the successive events of the

20th century really be explained out of the barrel of Gavrilo Princep's pistol or can they be

attributed to the actions of a small group of men who if they had only acted differently

could have so changed our world.

That was the question we sought to address. The aim of this project was to delve deeper into the

events of the July crisis and to examine the individuals, many of whom aren't known to popular history.

I wanted to present you with a different version than the one you know.

I wanted to do this because the false version of history is the one that is widely distributed

in the popular consciousness.

I'm not just referring to the Germany started it idea.

I'm talking about the Germany wanted it, planned it, willed it, and forced it into being.

I'm talking about the German historians of the 1960s, prime among them Fritz Fischer, who declared

emphatically that Germany was to blame. Since that point, it has been a battle for historians to

establish the truth. Indeed, some of the greatest accounts of the July crisis I have come across

heaped a considerable amount of blame still on Germany, some of the most poignant, immersive,

social histories of the war upheld to the end, the fact that the war began due to German and

sometimes Habsburg aggression. We know that the cause of the war wasn't so simple,

and we'll get to that in a minute, but it is worth referring to another issue that I raised

...