Volume 31, Number 5 · March 29, 1984
Slithering over the Brink
By James Joll
Russia and the Origins of the First World War
by D.C.B. Lieven
St. Martin's Press, 213 pp., $25.00
France and the Origins of the First World War
by John F.V. Keiger
St. Martin's Press, 201 pp., $25.00
'All the governments, including that of Russia, and the great majority of the peoples are pacific, but things are out of control [es ist die Direktion verloren],' the German chancellor remarked gloomily at the height of the crisis leading to the outbreak of World War I. And other politicians with a share in the decisions that brought their countries into the war had similar feelings. 'The nations slithered over the brink into the boiling cauldron of war without any trace of apprehension or dismay,' Lloyd George later observed, and S.D. Sazonov, the Russian foreign minister, admitted to being 'débordé par les événements.' This is an understandable attitude for politicians to take, especially in retrospect when they can see that the war they started turned out to be a very different kind of war from the one they expected.
Review, 2336 words
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