
'Smash your telephone!' . . . Russia mobilises
Countdown to Armageddon, July 1914: the Tsar stalls, the Kaiser rants, the generals take charge. War is 'unstoppable'
What have we done? And why? Join my Thursday plunge into the history of the state we're in...
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Countdown to Armageddon, July 1914: the Tsar stalls, the Kaiser rants, the generals take charge. War is 'unstoppable'

London blundered, vacillated and then sailed into a European war

. . . as Berlin lets fall its mask

In July 1914 European leaders feared - some relished - the coming war of their making. None was 'sleepwalking'

And, to the dismay of the Austrians who wrote it, almost scupper the case for war . . .

Austria's ultimatum to Serbia was 'written to be rejected'; it was a declaration of war

And the heroic Hungarian who tried to stop them...

His assassination gave Austria what they wanted: a case for war. Next, they needed a 'blank cheque' from Germany

The archduke's murder was a mafia-style hit job planned by a 'gentleman killer'

The summer before the storm, July 1914