Downloaded from YTS.MX
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
Before the world was shattered, before the soil
was stained with the blood of nations, before
the great empires bled dry and the very
earth trembled beneath the weight of human suffering,
there was an age of splendor, of certainty,
of illusions.
The year was 1913.
The world stood at the precipice of an era that believed itself eternal.
It was the twilight of an age gilded
in gold, its grandeur masking the deep fractures below.
This was the Belle Epoque, the beautiful era,
an age of opulence, of confidence, of an unshakable belief in progress.
The hum of industry, the glow of electric
light, the boundless ambition of science, humanity reached
higher, faster, further.
The cities of Europe pulsed with life.
London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, names that spoke of
civilization at its peak, of culture, of innovation.
It was an age of steam and steel,
of towering airships drifting like silent sentinels over
glittering capitals, of locomotives thundering across nations, binding
cities and people in a network of progress.
The future had never seemed so bright.
The motor car roared onto cobbled streets, the
aeroplane defied gravity, and Marconi's wireless messages whispered
across oceans.
A world once vast and unknowable was shrinking,
growing ever closer, ever more connected.
Yet beneath the elegance, beneath the laughter in
the grand halls and the smoke curling from
cafe terraces, the earth rumbled with something darker,
a force unseen, unheard, yet undeniable.
The world was not at peace, not truly.
Across the continent the empires of old stood
tall, their banners flying high, their rulers seated
upon thrones gilded with the weight of history.
The German Kaiser, restless and ambitious, cast long
glances beyond his borders.
In the halls of St. Petersburg, Tsar Nicholas
II clung to a brittle autocracy as the
murmur of revolution seeped through the streets.
In Vienna, an empire of many peoples but
one crown, fragile, fracturing on borrowed time.
And in Britain, the Lion of the Seas
watched, wary, as the world around it shifted.
The great powers walked a tightrope, stretched thin
between honour and ambition.
Alliances were forged in ink and sealed in
steel, promises of protection and vengeance whispered behind closed doors.
The world, whether it knew it or not, had become a powder keg, and then the
Balkans, a land soaked in history, in blood,
in restless dreams of freedom.
Here, in the shadows of empires, a single act would set the world ablaze.
June 28th, 1914.
Sarajevo.
A motorcade, an archduke, a bullet fired from
the trembling hands of a young assassin, a
single shot, then another, and the course of history was altered forever.
The streets of Sarajevo, once drowsy beneath the
summer sun, erupted in confusion.
The heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke
Franz Ferdinand, lay mortally wounded, his blood staining
the silk of his uniform.
His wife, Sophie, collapsed beside him, a final breath escaping her lips.
Their assassins, a band of young idealists, had
no idea that their gunfire had sounded the death knell of an entire age.
News spread like wildfire, carried by telegraph wires
that pulsed with the urgency of governments scrambling for control.
In Vienna, grief turned to fury.
In Berlin, war councils whispered behind closed doors.
In St. Petersburg, the Tsar readied his armies,
feeling the weight of duty and destiny.
And in London and Paris, uneasy diplomats watched
as the balance of peace swayed, a feather's breadth from collapse.
In the drawing rooms and lively taverns, in
bustling markets and industrious factories, the people of
Europe carried on with their daily lives, blissfully
unaware that they were teetering on the brink
of a catastrophic upheaval that would forever alter the course of history.
Some individuals leisurely perused newspapers, their pages filled
with reports of distant tensions and geopolitical disputes,
never imagining that within mere weeks, their own
sons, fathers and brothers would be compelled to
march toward a war that would be unlike
any conflict that had ever unfolded before in the annals of time.
The great wheels of power and influence began to turn with an ominous grace.
Austria-Hungary issued a stern ultimatum to Serbia,
harsh, demanding, and ultimately impossible to accept.
The world, with bated breath, held its collective
gaze upon the unfolding drama.
However, Serbia, emboldened and defiant, refused to bow to the pressure.
Russia, bound by ancient ties of blood and
dutiful loyalty, swore to protect its Slavic brethren
against any potential aggressor.
Germany, positioned like a coiled spring ready to
unleash its might, pledged unwavering solidarity to its ally Vienna.
France, forever vigilant and wary of its old
adversary, began to prepare for impending battle, grounding
its defenses with strategic precision.
Britain, still caught in a web of hesitation
and lingering hope, observed the storm clouds gathering
on the horizon with a heavy heart.
As the days of July began to fade into the heat of August, the tense atmosphere
became unbearable.
And finally, the fragile thread of peace snapped irreparably.
August 1914 arrived and with it, the world
descended into a swirling vortex of chaos and madness.
They called it the War to End All
Wars, a grand and imposing title that resonated
with claims of righteousness and necessity.
They labeled it a cause that had to be fought for, crucial and just in its
inception.
Yet in their hubris, none foresaw the unimaginable
horrors and profound suffering that were to follow
in the wake of this monumental conflict.
As darkness descended, it became clear that their
notions of honor and glory would become twisted
beyond recognition, setting the stage for a tragedy
of unimaginable proportions.
This was no war of swift victories, no
gallant charge upon open fields where honor and bravery could shine.
This was a war mechanized and industrialized to
an unprecedented degree, a brutal conflict fought without mercy or respite.
Men would march forward with the stirring songs
of their nations echoing in their hearts, driven
by a spirit of honor, by a sense of duty, only to be consumed utterly by
a horrifying nightmare of mud, choking gas, treacherous
barbed wire, and the unrelenting deafening cacophony of
endless ceaseless shellfire.
The earth itself became a graveyard, the trenches
yawning wounds across the land filled not with
glory, but with the dead and the dying.
The very air turned toxic, a silent specter that choked the breath from lungs.
And still, the war machine ground on, devouring
a generation, carving its scars not just into
the soil of Europe, but into the soul of humankind.
By Christmas of that first year, the illusions had crumbled.
The belief in a quick war, a righteous war, had drowned in the blood of the
Marne, been buried in the frozen earth of Flanders.
This is the story of World War I,
a conflict that reshaped history, shattered empires, and
left behind ghosts that whisper through the ages.
A war that saw the world burn, yet left the seeds of future battles sown deep
within the soil.
This was not the end.
This was merely the beginning of a century of conflict.
This is the story of how the world unraveled.
Welcome to the descent into the abyss, into the trenches, into the fire.
It was the final summer before the outbreak of World War I,
the last summer of the old world.
For the everyday men and women walking the
streets of the western world, especially those who
had lived through the lively early years of
the 20th century, war seemed like the farthest thing from their minds.
During those years, men who fantasized about the
thrill of battle would have struggled to find a conflict to join.
In 1901, and in the 13 years that
followed, the people of western Europe and the
English-speaking Americas were shifting from warriors to consumers.
Motor cars, motorcycles, airships, electric trains, and submarines
became novelties to fill the growing leisure time.
The emerging middle class looked forward to more
years of progress, prosperity, and peace.
There had been no war among the great powers for nearly half a century, and the
globalization of the world economy suggested that war was a relic of the past.
To many, that hot, sun-soaked, beautiful summer
of 1914, the most stunning in living memory,
Europe felt like an Eden.
Stefan Zweig captured the mood perfectly, writing that
he had rarely experienced a summer more luxuriant,
more beautiful, and, I'm tempted to say, more summery.
In particular, the middle and upper classes were not happy with the war.
The middle class Britons saw themselves living in
a perfect world, one in which economic forces
would prevent the European powers from waging war on each other.
For those with a comfortable income, the world
of their time felt freer than it does today.
Until 1914, the sensible, law-abiding Englishman could
go through life barely aware of the state's presence.
One could live wherever and however one pleased,
and travel almost anywhere in the world without needing anyone's permission.
For the most part, a passport wasn't required,
and many people didn't even have one.
The French geographer André Siegfried circled the globe
with nothing more than his visiting card as identification.
It was an era of free capital flow
and the unrestricted movement of people and goods.
In fact, there was more globalization before 1914
than there is today.
Much of the final quarter of the 20th
century was spent simply regaining the ground lost in the preceding 75 years.
Economic and financial interconnectedness were among the powerful
forces that made war among the major European
powers seem not just impractical, but obsolete.
In the Western world, ordinary people had no fear of an impending conflict.
While some leaders expressed concerns, even they did
not expect war to break out in the summer of 1914.
France had long desired to reclaim territories lost
to Germany decades earlier, but those in a
position to know were certain that France would
not initiate a war to recover them.
On December 13th, 1913, the Russian Prime Minister
informed the Tsar that all French statesmen sought
peace and were willing to cooperate with Germany.
By the end of 1913, it was clear that Franco-German relations were in a better
state than they had been in years.
Germany feared a future war with Russia.
By the winter of 1914, they knew the
Tsar's armies were in no condition to fight and wouldn't be for several years.
The glorious final days of June 1914 unfolded
under a summer sky and calm seas, until
they were suddenly struck by a shock they
mistakenly believed had come out of nowhere.
The path that led the major powers of Europe into war in 1914 was long and
winding, shaped by numerous factors that ultimately pushed
them toward armed conflict.
Perhaps the most significant and apparent factor was
the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.
This brief but decisive conflict resulted in France's
humiliating defeat and the unification of the German
states under Prussian leadership.
The creation of the German Empire, one of
the spoils of victory, saw the annexation of
Alsace and Lorraine from France, causing a major
shift in the European balance of power.
Germany's rapid rise to economic and military dominance
only heightened the anxieties of its neighboring countries.
By 1938, Germany was the world's second most
powerful industrial nation, behind only America.
For nearly two decades, between 1871 and 1890,
the new European balance of power remained unchallenged.
Thanks to the diplomatic skill and cunning of
Otto von Bismarck, the German Chancellor who successfully kept France isolated.
However, when Bismarck left office in 1890, it
didn't take long for a series of unpredictable
shifts to start undermining his carefully crafted continental system.
Relations between France and Germany rapidly worsened, and
Russia, under the Tsar, began to draw closer
to both France and Austria-Hungary.
In response, Germany worked to strengthen its alliance
with the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy, ensuring an ally to the east.
Yet, this alliance would prove costly, as it
increasingly tied Germany to a crumbling empire struggling
to control the nationalist movements within its diverse population.
The volatile situation in the Balkans grew more
dangerous as Turkey's influence waned.
Austria and Russia, eager to exploit these opportunities,
each pursued paths that would inevitably lead to conflict.
The rise of Serbia further destabilized the region.
Serbia, angered by Austria's 1908 annexation of Bosnia
and Herzegovina, expanded its influence and territory following
the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, which
only fueled Austria's growing irritation.
With Bismarck's departure, the bellicose and unpredictable Wilhelm
Wacht, who had become Kaiser in 1888, quickly
pushed Germany toward a more aggressive stance in international relations.
France, already eager to avenge its defeat in
1870 and reclaim the lost provinces, grew even
more alarmed by Germany's expanding industrial and military strength.
Russia, too, found reason for concern about the
Austro-German alliance, which not only cast a
menacing shadow over its western frontier, but also
threatened to undermine Russian interests in the Balkans.
The first significant crack in Bismarck's diplomatic framework
appeared in 1892, with the dismantling of its
cornerstone, the isolation of France.
That year, Russia and France signed a military
agreement, later bolstered by additional talks in 1893
and 1894, in which both nations pledged to
assist each other if either were attacked by Germany.
This shift from Bismarck's pragmatic Realpolitik to Wilhelm
II's more ambitious Weltpolitik ultimately forced Britain to
reassess its position in relation to the other major European powers.
For much of the late 19th century, Britain
had maintained a relatively friendly relationship with Germany,
in part because Queen Victoria's eldest daughter was
married to the German Crown Prince Frederick, who
ascended to the throne in March 1888.
However, after Frederick's death from cancer following a
mere three-month reign, his estranged son, Wilhelm
II, took the throne, heralding a new era
of competition with Britain for colonies and global markets.
Wilhelm's first public remarks as Kaiser were not
addressed to his people, but rather to his armies.
We belong to each other, I and the army.
We were born for each other and will indissolubly cleave to each other.
I promise ever to bear in mind that from the world above the eyes of my
forefathers look down on me, and that I
shall one day have to stand accountable to them for the glory and honor of the
army.
The German army, under Prussian leadership, was the
most formidable military force in the world, but
it was Germany's naval expansion that estranged Britain.
Our naval power involved British existence.
If our naval supremacy were to be impaired,
the whole fortunes of our race and empire
would perish and be swept utterly away.
Under the guidance of Rear Admiral Alfred von
Tirpitz, and with the Kaiser's backing, the Kriegsmarine
revealed its plan to build a fleet of 38 battleships over the next 20 years.
Viewing Britain as the greatest obstacle to Germany's
expansion, Tirpitz saw the German fleet as a
political tool that could enhance the country's influence in global affairs.
The launch of 14 battleships in Germany between
1900 and 1905 marked the beginning of a
naval arms race, which escalated further when Britain
introduced the revolutionary turbine-driven all-big-gun
battleship HMS Dreadnought in 1906.
Each new launch pushed Germany and Britain further apart.
I explained to him that the real ground
for the growing antagonism in this country towards
Germany was not jealousy of her rapidly expanding
commerce, but fear of her growing navy.
The Kaiser did not care.
I do not wish for a good understanding
with England at the expense of the extension of the German fleet.
Germany's support for the Boers during the South
African War of 1899 to 1902 accelerated the
end of Britain's previous policy of isolation.
In 1904, Britain signed the Entente Cordiale, significantly
strengthening its diplomatic and military ties with its
traditional rival, France.
A similar agreement was reached with Russia in 1907.
By the end of the 19th century, Britain
had clearly aligned itself with the Franco-Russian alliance.
Although these agreements were not formal treaties and
did not obligate Britain to go to war in support of France or Russia, they did
create a moral commitment to stand with both
nations against the central powers.
An unforeseen incident involving any of these countries
could easily spark a larger conflict, which, due
to the competing alliance systems, might quickly involve them all.
Sunday, 28th June, 1914.
Early in the morning, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and
his wife Sophie attended mass in a chapel set up for them at their hotel.
Afterward, they boarded a train bound for Sarajevo,
a journey lasting just under half an hour.
Upon reaching the railroad terminal on the outskirts
of the city, they transferred to a motorcade for the remainder of the trip.
The procession of chauffeur-driven cars entered Sarajevo
between 9.30 and 10 o'clock, heading towards the town hall.
The morning rain had ceased and the top of the car was lowered.
That morning, Gavrilo Princip, the Bosnian-Serb teenager
who aspired to be a martyr, had positioned
himself and his fellow conspirators along the embankment
at three locations where it was crossed by bridges.
As the Archduke's motorcade made its way along
the quay, it would be passing through a
deadly gauntlet of nationalist assassins.
As the Archduke's procession entered the first bridge,
it entered a kill zone.
Three conspirators lined the riverside of the quay,
with two more positioned on land.
The first attempt on the Archduke's life came
from the riverside, where Nijelko Kabrinovic, after asking
a nearby policeman to identify Franz Ferdinand's motorcar,
accidentally knocked the cap off his bomb while trying to detonate it.
He threw the bomb at the Archduke's car,
but it missed, bouncing off the folded-down
hood of the convertible and landing beneath the
car behind it, where it exploded.
The countess felt a slight graze on her neck from the blast, and those in the
following car sustained minor injuries.
Hearing the explosion and the crowd's shouts, Princip
quickly made his way to the scene where
it appeared that the attempt had failed.
The gendarme had Kabrinovic firmly in custody, and
were hauling him off to the police station.
None of the other conspirators was to be found.
Alone, Princip wandered back to what had been
his appointed station on the riverside of the
embankment at what was called the Latin Bridge.
He then crossed the street.
Of the others, one was so jammed in the crowd that he could not pull the
bomb out of his pocket.
A second saw policemen standing near him, and
then decided that any movement would be too risky.
A third felt sorry for the Archduke's wife, and did nothing.
A fourth lost his nerve and slipped home.
Franz Ferdinand decided to cancel existing plans, which
called for his motorcade to maneuver through winding
alleys on the way to the museum.
After the stop at the town hall for
a reception and speeches, he insisted on driving
to hospital to visit Colonel Medici, who'd been
likely wounded in the bombing attack.
The driver in the lead car was not told of the change in plans, and turned
off the main road toward the museum.
When the mistake was realized, the Archduke's driver
halted his car to consider how best to get back on the route to hospital.
Meanwhile, they sat motionless less than five feet from the dejected Princip.
He was astonished at his sudden good fortune.
He quickly seized his chance.
He reached for a bomb in his pocket,
but became aware that hemmed in by the crowd, he could not swing his arm to
toss it at his target, so he pulled out his pistol and fired two shots at
point-blank range.
His first shot hit the Archduke in the jugular.
His second caught the Duchess in the abdomen
as she was rising to her husband's aid.
Princip then turned the revolver on himself, but
was prevented from firing it by a bystander who hurled him to the ground.
Confusion erupted as the crowd and nearby police
battled one another to get the boyish assassin.
Princip tried once again to kill himself, reaching
into his pocket to remove the capsule and swallow.
The poison was old and only made the assassin vomit.
The mob closed in about him and began to beat him.
Eventually, the police wrestled him away from the crowd.
Meanwhile, the limousine sped off to seek help.
Sophie dear, Sophie dear, don't die, stay alive
for our children, Franz Ferdinand called out.
The first shot was fired around 10.30.
Sophie passed away at roughly 10.45, with
the Archduke following soon after around 11.
It was far from nothing.
If the murders in Sarajevo had occurred even
a century earlier, it would have taken weeks
or months for word to reach distant corners of the world.
The consequences could have been entirely different, but
technology had changed that.
Foreign officials around the globe learned of the shooting almost immediately.
In Germany, the Kaiser was informed of the
assassination while racing in a regatta aboard his yacht, Meteor.
Wilhelm decided to return to Berlin immediately.
In England, the outrage, as the assassinations were
called, dominated the foreign coverage in the morning
edition of the London Times.
In France, however, at the first cabinet meeting
following the murders, the killings were scarcely mentioned.
In fact, across Europe's capitals, the reaction to
the assassination of the heir to the Habsburg
throne was shockingly calm, even indifferent.
The truth was that few in Austria-Hungary mourned Franz Ferdinand's death.
While the leaders of the dual monarchy expressed
regret over the killing of royalty, they saw
the Archduke's removal as the least mourned choice among the royal family.
Of course, as heir to the throne, Franz
Ferdinand was second only to the Emperor in
importance within the Habsburg Empire.
But by murdering him, Serbian terrorists had issued
a direct challenge to the Empire's very existence.
If Austria-Hungary failed to respond, it would risk losing its authority.
Yet this was not the primary motivation for Austria's desire to destroy Serbia.
The Habsburgs had long sought to eliminate Serbia
as a threat and the killings merely provided the pretext.
Before the assassination, Austria had already been looking
for a reason to assert its dominance over Serbia.
The murders gave Vienna an excuse to act, not the cause.
Austria-Hungary saw the Austro-Serbian confrontation as
a golden opportunity to solidify its power in
Europe, achieve global status, weaken the Entente powers,
hinder Russian modernization, and eliminate the threat Serbia
posed to its authority in the Balkans.
The German ambassador to the dual monarchy reported to the Kaiser.
Canberto, the Austro-Hungarian foreign minister, told me
today that everything pointed to the fact that
the threads of the conspiracy to which the
Archduke fell a sacrifice together at Belgrade.
I frequently hear expressed in Vienna, even among
serious people, the wish that at last a
final and fundamental reckoning should be had with the Serbs.
The Kaiser wrote in the margin of his report, now or never.
Four days later, on July 6th, he sent a message to the Austrian emperor.
The emperor Franz Josef may rest assured that
his majesty will faithfully stand by Austria-Hungary
as is required by the obligations of his
alliance and of his ancient friendship.
And with that, on the very same day,
the Kaiser set off on a summer cruise
aboard the royal yacht in Scandinavian waters.
While Europe continued to enjoy its idyllic summer
vacation, Austria moved forward to cash in on
Germany's blank check for unconditional support against Serbia.
After securing Germany's backing 25 days after the
Archduke's assassination, Austria issued a 10-point ultimatum to Serbia.
Throughout July, Germany's top military leaders, along with
the Kaiser, Chancellor and Foreign Secretary, were all on leave.
Once the Austrians had set a firm date
for their ultimatum, Berlin discreetly called its leaders back.
They returned starting on July 23rd, one by one, to avoid drawing attention.
After their return, the debate over the next steps began.
Among those engaged in discussions on the fate
of war and peace were Germany's key military
figures, Chief of Staff von Moltke, War Minister
von Falkenhayn and Military Cabinet Chief von Linke,
along with several other important officials.
For Moltke, the debates were particularly frustrating, both
because civilian leaders did not share his perspective
or objectives, and because they lacked the knowledge he had.
A Saxon officer speaking with Moltke's deputy on
July 23rd noted that he got the sense
the General Staff would welcome the outbreak of war at this moment.
Moltke did not fear Russian mobilization.
He actively sought it.
He understood more than most that time was running out for Germany.
Germany was committed to following Moltke's grand strategy,
a plan that few were fully aware of.
The Kaiser, Falkenhayn, and until July 31st, the
German Chancellor Bethmann, were kept in the dark.
None of them knew that Moltke had already
set his plan for Germany's opening moves in the war into motion.
On July 25th, Serbia accepted nine of Austria's
ten points, but rejected in part the demand
that Austrian officials be involved in the investigation
of the assassination, seeing it as an infringement on its sovereignty.
On the same day, Serbia also mobilized its army.
Russia confirmed partial mobilization on July 26th, entering
a phase of preparation for war.
Austria responded by mobilizing that same day.
Then on July 28th, the dual monarchy declared war on Serbia.
Up to this point, it might still have
been possible to localize the conflict, but Germany
continued to take an uncompromising stance, escalating tensions
and internationalizing the crisis.
On July 29th, Germany demanded that Russia immediately
halt its preparations for war.
Failure to comply would result in Germany mobilizing its own army.
The German Imperial Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg,
instructed the ambassador in St. Petersburg to deliver this message.
Kindly call attention to the fact that further
confirmation of Russia's mobilization measures would force us to mobilize.
And in that case, a European war could scarcely be prevented.
Russia could not afford to passively accept the
erosion of Serbian sovereignty or the growing influence
of Austria in Eastern and Southeastern Europe.
As a result, on July 30th, Russia ordered
a general mobilization in support of Serbia.
Russian mobilization began the following day, but it
was not necessarily an immediate step towards war.
The Russian forces could, if needed, have remained
on their own territory for weeks while diplomatic negotiations continued.
Germany's actions escalated the tension.
At 1.45 p.m. on July 31st,
Germany issued a proclamation signaling the threat of war.
By 3.30 p.m., the German government
addressed both Russia and France, presenting Russia with an ultimatum.
Unless Russia demobilized within 12 hours, Germany would
fully mobilize its forces.
The German ambassador in Paris was instructed that
mobilization equated to war, and France was asked
to provide guarantees of neutrality.
Events were spiraling quickly beyond control.
When Russia did not respond, Germany ordered a full mobilization.
Time was running out.
In each country, mobilization marked the point at
which war plans were set into motion.
Nowhere was this more evident than in Germany,
where the nation had become a prisoner of its own military strategy.
The Schlieffen Plan, initially conceived in 1897 and
revised in 1905 by Count Alfred von Schlieffen,
then chief of the German general staff, was
designed to address the nightmare scenario of fighting
a two-front war against both Russia and France.
Schlieffen's primary goal had been to create a
strategy that allowed Germany to confront this challenge head-on.
While it offered a potential solution, the plan
inadvertently reduced the army's anxiety about a two
front war, thus emboldening its willingness to take
the risks associated with such a conflict.
Schlieffen calculated that in the event of a
war with both France and Russia, Russia would
take longer to mobilize, giving Germany a crucial
window of approximately six weeks to quickly defeat
France through a massive offensive.
Once France was subdued, Germany could then shift
the majority of its forces to the east to counter the Russian advance.
However, a significant concern was that the heavily
fortified defenses along France's northeastern border could delay
the rapid execution of the western campaign.
To overcome this, Schlieffen decided that German forces
must cross a small strip of Dutch territory
and then push through Belgium, disregarding its neutrality,
before driving into northwestern France.
The plan gave particular importance to five armies
positioned between Metz and Holland, comprising a total of 35 corps.
These forces, stationed on the far right of
the offensive, were tasked with executing a massive
encirclement, with one army maneuvering around Paris's western flank.
The aim was to trap the French armies
from behind, forcing them against their own frontier.
Colonel General Helmuth von Moltke, who succeeded Schlieffen,
made several significant adjustments to the original plan
between 1906 and 1914.
Though he was a meticulous and thorough officer,
Moltke was also introspective and struggled with periods
of low self-confidence.
His modifications included weakening the right flank and
abandoning the planned advance through Holland.
These changes, in hindsight, would prove to be critical missteps.
On the 1st of August 1914, Germany could
wait no longer for a response from Tsar Nicholas II and declared war on Russia.
In keeping with her alliance with Russia, France
mobilized her forces, triggering the complex web of European alliances.
On the 2nd of August, Germany presented Belgium
with an ultimatum, demanding the right to pass through her territory.
The Belgians quickly rejected the request.
The following day, Germany declared war on France,
and France reciprocated with her own declaration of war.
Early on the 4th of August, German forces crossed the Belgian frontier.
The strength of the German forces on this front was formidable.
Colonel General Alexander von Kluck's 1st Army, stationed
on the extreme right, numbered 320,000 troops.
The neighboring 2nd Army, under Colonel General Karl
von Bülow, and the 3rd Army, led by General Max von Hausen, counted 260,000 and
180,000 men, respectively.
The invasion of Belgium brought the final major
power into the conflict, Great Britain.
I ask the House, from the point of
view of British interests, to consider what may be at stake.
If France is beaten to her knees, if in a crisis like this we run away
from obligations of honor and interest as regards
the Belgian Treaty, we should, I believe, sacrifice
our respect and good name and reputation before
the world, and should not escape the most
serious and grave economic consequences.
God grant we may not have a European war thrust upon us, and for such a
stupid reason too.
No, I don't mean stupid, but to have to go to war on account of tiresome
Serbia beggars belief.
Britain had no formal military agreement with France
and Russia, but was bound by a treaty
from 1839 to guarantee Belgium's neutrality.
The moment had arrived.
At 11 p.m. on August 4th, 1914,
the last summer of the old world came to an end.
Standing on the balcony of his residence, British
Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Gray watched as the
lamplighters moved along the street below.
The lamps are going out all over Europe.
We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.