Title
The war that ended peace : the road to 1914 / Margaret MacMillan.
Edition
First U.S. Edition.
ISBN
9781400068555 hardcover alkaline paper
140006855X hardcover alkaline paper
Published
New York : Random House, 2013.
Language
English
Description
xxxv, 739 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm.
Call Number
D511 .M257 2013
Dewey Decimal Classification
940.3/11
Summary
From the bestselling and award-winning author of Paris 1919 comes a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, a fascinating portrait of Europe from 1900 up to the outbreak of World War I. The century since the end of the Napoleonic wars had been the most peaceful era Europe had known since the fall of the Roman Empire. In the first years of the twentieth century, Europe believed it was marching to a golden, happy, and prosperous future. But instead, complex personalities and rivalries, colonialism and ethnic nationalisms, and shifting alliances helped to bring about the failure of the long peace and the outbreak of a war that transformed Europe and the world. The War That Ended Peace brings vividly to life the military leaders, politicians, diplomats, bankers, and the extended, interrelated family of crowned heads across Europe who failed to stop the descent into war: in Germany, the mercurial Kaiser Wilhelm II and the chief of the German general staff, Von Moltke the Younger; in Austria-Hungary, Emperor Franz Joseph, a man who tried, through sheer hard work, to stave off the coming chaos in his empire; in Russia, Tsar Nicholas II and his wife; in Britain, King Edward VII, Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, and British admiral Jacky Fisher, the fierce advocate of naval reform who entered into the arms race with Germany that pushed the continent toward confrontation on land and sea. There are the would-be peacemakers as well, among them prophets of the horrors of future wars whose warnings went unheeded: Alfred Nobel, who donated his fortune to the cause of international understanding, and Bertha von Suttner, a writer and activist who was the first woman awarded Nobel's new Peace Prize. Here too we meet the urbane and cosmopolitan Count Harry Kessler, who noticed many of the early signs that something was stirring in Europe; the young Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty and a rising figure in British politics; Madame Caillaux, who shot a man who might have been a force for peace; and more. With indelible portraits, MacMillan shows how the fateful decisions of a few powerful people changed the course of history. Taut, suspenseful, and impossible to put down, The War That Ended Peace is also a wise cautionary reminder of how wars happen in spite of the near-universal desire to keep the peace. Destined to become a classic in the tradition of Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August, The War That Ended Peace enriches our understanding of one of the defining periods and events of the twentieth century. - Publisher.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 691-710) and index.
Europe in 1900
Great Britain and splendid isolation
"Woe to the country that has a child for king!" : Wilhelm II and Germany
Weltpolitik : Germany's place on the world stage
Dreadnought : the Anglo-German naval rivalry
Unlikely friends : the entente cordiale between France and Britain
The bear and the whale : Russia and Great Britain
The loyalty of the Nibelungs : the dual alliance of Austria-Hungary and Germany
What were they thinking? : Hopes, fears, ideas, and unspoken assumptions
Dreaming of peace
Thinking about war
Making the plans
The crises start : Germany, France, and Morocco
The Bosnian crisis : confrontation between Russia and Austria-Hungary in the Balkans
1911 : the year of discords : Morocco again
The first Balkan Wars
Preparing for war or peace : Europe's last months of peace
Assassination at Sarajevo
The end of the concert of Europe : Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia
Turning out the lights : Europe's last week of peace.
