Europe on the Brink of World War I
SVG Map_Europe_alliances_1914-fr.svg One disquieting lessons of history is that, although world wars affect nearly everyone, the task of avoiding them falls to a tiny number of decisionmakers. And those decisionmakers are sometimes fools. The Economist, "How to avoid world war three," April 11, 2026, 72. ORIGINS OF THE WAR This is an extraordinarily complicated story. One reason is that it is difficult for the modern reader to understand the mentality of the key decision-makers – their prejudices, mental frameworks, how they reacted to threats and stress. Fortunately, there are several excellent books that attempt to describe the key players’ assumptions, mentality and motivations. World War I was started by the decisions of a very small number of men, often in secret, implementing secret agreements and understandings, who represented the most reactionary, nationalistic or conservative groups in their countries and governments. Most wer...