History 244 Modern Britain 

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Week Nine  

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George Dangerfield opened his famous account of what he dubbed The Strange Death of Liberal England, with a reminder that Halley's Comet, the legendary harbinger of chaos amongst the affairs of the world, returned at the start of this remarkable decade. A storm of domestic reform could not satisfy the demands for change from Ireland, the Trades Unions, and the aspirations of Irish Home Rule.  But even the atmosphere of uncertainty these engendered paled before the coming of what was immediately named "the Great War."

Assigned Readings:
Roberts, Chapter 27
Begin Barker
The German request for free passage through Belgium to attack France, August 2, 1914
"Brave Little Belgium" - the Belgian refusal to allow free passage, August 3, 1914
"The Scrap of Paper," August 4, 1914
 

"It's a Long Way....."

On the morning of July 28, 1914, in the city of Sarajevo, the capital of the province of Bosnia-Herzogovina, the man on the right fired one pistol shot into the throat of the man on the left.  This act of political violence set in motion the chain of events that would result in the outbreak of "the Great War."

The July Crisis
The timeline of the July Crisis

Documents taking Europe to War
"The Blank Check," July 6, 1914
The Austro-Hungarian Ultimatum to Serbia, July 23, 1914
The Serbian Response to the Ultimatum from Serbia, July 25, 1914
The "Willy-Nicky" Telegrams, July 29 - August 1, 1914
The German Declaration of War on Russia, August 1, 1914

The Main Combatants
War Atlas Index
The Schlieffen Plan, 1905
The Deadly Alliances - details and reference for all the entanglements
 
 

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