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July 1914: Countdown to War
- Narrated by: Steve Coulter
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
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July 1914: Countdown to War
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Summary
When a Serbian-backed assassin gunned down Archduke Franz Ferdinand in late June 1914, the world seemed unmoved. Even Ferdinand’s own uncle, Franz Josef I, was notably ambivalent about the death of the Hapsburg heir, saying simply, "It is God’s will." Certainly, there was nothing to suggest that the episode would lead to conflictmuch less a world war of such massive and horrific proportions that it would fundamentally reshape the course of human events.
As acclaimed historian Sean McMeekin reveals in July 1914, World War I might have been avoided entirely had it not been for a small group of statesmen who, in the month after the assassination, plotted to use Ferdinand’s murder as the trigger for a long-awaited showdown in Europe. The primary culprits, moreover, have long escaped blame. While most accounts of the war’s outbreak place the bulk of responsibility on German and Austro-Hungarian militarism, McMeekin draws on surprising new evidence from archives across Europe to show that the worst offenders were actually to be found in Russia and France, whose belligerence and duplicity ensured that war was inevitable. Whether they plotted for war or rode the whirlwind nearly blind, each of the men involvedfrom Austrian Foreign Minister Leopold von Berchtold and German Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov and French president Raymond Poincarsought to capitalize on the fallout from Ferdinand’s murder, unwittingly leading Europe toward the greatest cataclysm it had ever seen.
A revolutionary account of the genesis of World War I, July 1914 tells the gripping story of Europe’s countdown to war from the bloody opening act on June 28th to Britain’s final plunge on August 4th, showing how a single monthand a handful of menchanged the course of the twentieth century.
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What listeners say about July 1914: Countdown to War
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ludwig van El
- 15-08-24
the deliberste(?) failure of diplomacy
In his book "July 1914" about the prelude to and design of WW1, Sean McMeekin describes what egotripping, pathetic opportunists European diplomats were as early as even 1914.
Austria Hungary wanted a compact, limited little war against the Serbian people and government over Gavrilo Princip's assault on Franz Ferdinand. Not a big war or anything, certainly not one that would lead to millions of deaths (by a.o. poison-gas) on the battlefield. Or, decades later, to the murder and torture of countless innocent civillians in the middle-east, by their own governments, or to the founding of a nation state that would put millions of jewish lives at risk. No, not that kind of war.
Certainly not one that would lead to Tokyo being firebombed into practical non-existence, and to two other Japanese cities being nuked.
Or to incredibly many Jews, gypsies beibg gassed to death, half of Europe suffering under the thumb of a murderous hostile political ideology.
Oh, and let us not forget what the nazis did to tge non-racially inferior Europeans either.
GB tried to engineer German blame for the war, before it broke out.
Even though the Russian army was the first to mobilize, it failed to provide its soldiers with sufficient rifles.
IOW this book is about how masterful diplomacy could have saved millions of lives. But even at that time diplomats were unable to foresee the consequences of what they did. Yet they did it anyway.
All that's changed in over a century is the availability of nuclear weapons. Politicians are still the dumbest persons in any country.
ps the reader was good, nice voice, easy to understand.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Mark
- 28-10-13
A good book but let down by the narration
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
How could anyone think it was a good idea to pick a sonorous American narrator and fail to coach him in how to pronounce any European language? (Or even British English - Lord Salisbury is pronounced as "sal-iss-bury")
What did you like best about this story?
A well written telling of how the world stumbled to war. Well written but not inspiring
Would you be willing to try another one of Steve Coulter’s performances?
No
Was July 1914: Countdown to War worth the listening time?
Just about
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3 people found this helpful