404 Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies N. 3 / 2014 author develops with precision and rigour, and at the same time with the elegance and lively expression of a literary work, entertaining in its plot and its fine introspection in its descriptions of the main characters: emperors, kings, prime ministers, chancellors, generals and admirals and a varying spectrum of politicians. A unique portrait gallery that allows us to understand their feelings and share their weaknesses, without entering into arguments or explanations of a personal nature. Because the real protagonist of her work is not the conflict itself, or the numerous factions responsible, but the destruction of peace. What she investigates are the reasons why peace was not possible. The book gradually reveals, with the meticulous care of an archaeologist working away at her site, the various factors that would lead to war. In essence how and why peace that had survived a multitude of crises was eventually broken. The summer of 1914 was a good one and as readers we will breathe this summer ambience, Europe’s “last summer ”, before becoming locked in European civil war which, except for brief intervals, was to occupy the next thirty years. We will be witnesses to those intense weeks stretching from 28th June to the first week in July, but we will not hear the “guns of August”. On the contrary, as in a retrospective tale, the author looks back onto the preceding decades, because it is there that the deeply committed historian searches for, and finds, the policies pursued, the military plans laid down, the alliances forged and the nationalist impulses that together converge into the shock of August. In the middle of the summer holidays of the major political and military leaders of the day we switched “from peace to war”. It could have been a minor conflict or just another Balkan war as in previous years, but this time history was going to be different: beginning so enthusiastically with cheers and farewell kisses on railway station platforms and later the resounding horror of destruction and death. MacMillan explores the entrails of war, not the external sounds. She is interested by war but she broaches it from a very personal viewpoint. War for her, in this case the Great War, is not an accident however dramatic, nor an occurrence however transcendental; no, war is always a result. And as a historian she wants to guide us, and she does so with rigour, leading us to discover the broad catalogue of underlying causes, circumstances and people who brought about that transition from peace to war, that result that goes back such a long way back in history. She takes us on a guided tour across Europe from Czarist Russia to Great Britain; with her we visit Germany where in one year, 1888, three generations coincide with the title of Emperor; and it is the grandson, the young Wilhelm II, who with great ardour and excessive enthusiasm, makes the first steps towards the risky “Weltpolitik”, while at the same time moving away from Chancellor Bismarck’s skilful policies which for decades had prevented Germany from isolation. We become witnesses to the escalation in rivalries between Germany and Britain over which of them has the better and larger fleet in the North Atlantic, an effort
REVISTA IEEE 3
To see the actual publication please follow the link above