Usually with just a paragraph or two, she perceptively (and entertainingly) fleshes out the people whose decisions cumulatively moved Europe towards its cataclysm. Like Massie, one of MacMillan’s great strengths as a writer is her biographical sketches of the figures – both well-known and obscure – who move across the cluttered stage. One of my favorite books, Robert Massie’s Dreadnought, covers all the same beats: the German naval buildup the formation of the Entente Cordiale the Moroccan crises etc. This was a time of new alliances, rearranged power dynamics, and small, local conflicts that either a) made likely peace could be maintained through treaty and the threat of force or b) made war absolutely inevitable. In this book, she covers the years of tremulous “peace” in Europe, before the guns started firing. That volume did not start until the guns fell silence. MacMillan previously wrote a well-received book on the post-war Peace Conference called Paris 1919. Afterwards, it’s still illogical and complex, but you will be able to explain it to your disinterested friends after you’ve consumed a bottle of wine). It’s entirely illogical and complex until you’ve read your fifth or sixth book on the subject. (This invasion was somehow the result of the assassination of an Austrian archduke in a Bosnian city by a Serbian assassin.
It covers the first fourteen years of the 20th century and ends just as Germany invades Belgium. Margaret MacMillan’s The War That Ended Peace is one of these releases. Publishers are releasing a glut of new books timed to take advantage of the upcoming anniversary. With the centennial of World War I’s opening salvos less than a year away, this is a great time to get interested. Had it not occurred, things today would be unimaginably different. The personalities! The miscalculations! The repercussions! World War I was a true fork in the road of world history. Now, though, it’s a topic I can’t get enough of. Just a couple years ago, World War I was simply something I ignored while reading about World War II. At the bar, when others try to talk about the National Football League, I’m busy trying to kick-start an exchange on the League of Nations.
At dinner, if my wife asks me about my day, I reply: “Better than the English on the first day of the Somme.” When my little daughter says, “Dada, milk,” I tell her she’s as helpless as an Austro-Hungarian field marshal. Lately, those around me have discovered something disconcerting: my attempts to shift all conversation to the topic of the First World War.
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