EconAir

      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 or conservative groups in their countries and governments. Most were incompetent, narrow-minded, myopic and/or delusional. They thought going to war - appealing to nationalist sentiments - would solve or subsume social problems and political challenges that were mostly the result of rapid economic change. All planned to win in short offensives; Germany had a detailed plan to defeat France in six weeks. Very few people saw that

  Vienna Ringstrasse -Parliament Building   OVERVIEW   Austria-Hungary was a multinational, multiethnic empire. It had 11 recognized languages. It promoted, or at least tolerated, internal free trade, economic development and internal mobility in the period 1870-1914. Hungary was a major exporter of agricultural products to the rest of Europe. The railroad network was expanding, helping to tie the Empire together. New industries in metal-working and electrical appliances were established, especially in Bohemia (Czechoslovakia). Major cities had industrial districts. Banks and financial companies raised large amounts of capital to finance development and expansion.   Its economy was modernizing but the government bureaucracy, especially in foreign affairs and in the military, were controlled by conservative elements – nobility, royalty and the court, and landed aristocracy. The political structure of dual sovereignty, both between Hungary and Austria, and between central government in V