The Great War disrupted and destroyed lives on
a scale never known before. More than 60 million
men were mobilised and 8.5 million were killed,
21 million were wounded and in every town and
village in Europe the blinded and maimed victims
served as daily reminders decades after the war
was over. In every town and village war memori-
als commemorate the names of those who gave
their lives for their country. The war, which
involved millions and for which millions suffered,
was launched by the decision of just a few men
negotiating and conspiring in secret. They bear a
heavy responsibility. What made these men act
the way they did? Were they aware of what they
were doing, or did they just muddle into war
through confusion and error?
There was a widespread illusion about the
course the war would take. The troops left for the
front believing that they would be home by
Christmas. With the new mass armies it was
thought that the war would be decided by the
devastating battles fought at the outset. No one
expected that this would be just another war, like
those of the mid-nineteenth century, ending with
the victors exacting some territorial and financial
punishment from the vanquished and leading to
a new balance of power. There was, however, no
illusion about what was at stake. Grey’s famous
words about the lights going out all over Europe
expressed a sentiment that would have been
well understood in Paris, Berlin, Vienna and St
Petersburg. Bethmann Hollweg gloomily pre-
dicted the toppling of thrones and the victory of
socialism. In Vienna, the future existence of the
Habsburg Monarchy was felt to be at stake: defeat
would lead to its dissolution. Tsarist Russia was
beset by serious internal disturbances and French
society was deeply divided on the eve of the war.
There were no illusions about the devastating
consequences of this war from which a new world
would emerge. There were hesitations on the
brink of war. It was then too late. How had the
powers allowed the crisis caused initially by a ter-
rorist crime, the assassination of an archduke, the
heir to the Habsburg throne, to escalate until
there was no way out but a devastating European
war? There seems to be no obvious connection
between the murder committed by a young man
in Bosnia and the clash of armies of millions.
The assassination of the archduke Franz
Ferdinand in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 was the
work of a handful of Bosnian youths who had
romantically dedicated their lives to Serb nation-
alism and had been greatly influenced by the
Russian terrorists in exile. They received their
weapons from the secret Serbian conspiratorial
Black Hand organisation headed by Colonel
Dragutin Dimitrijevic ́ who was also in charge of
army secret intelligence. The Bosnian youths,
who had spent some time in Belgrade, had been
helped across the Serb frontier by Serbian agents.
The prime minister of Serbia, Nikola Pasˇic ́, and
King Alexander were powerless against the army
officers and the Black Hand. But Pasˇic ́ did sendChapter 4
OVER THE BRINK
THE FIVE-WEEK CRISIS,
28 JUNE–1 AUGUST 1914