SUMMER MADNESS

As we bask in (or seek the shade from) Europe's recurrent heatwaves this summer, I am reminded of an earlier summer - to be more precise, July 1914, now known by historians as the 'July crisis' because it was during this month that fateful decisions were made in the chancelleries of Europe that led to the outbreak of the First World War. Apparently that July was marked by picnic-perfect weather across Europe, adding to the massive irony that would emerge only in hindsight of a slaughterous conflict that was certainly not the picnic that some thought it might be when it started. Indeed, 'the summer of 1914' has become a metaphor for the naivety of a generation which was about to 'sleepwalk' into catastrophe. In the 111 years since, historians have agonised over how and why this disastrous war came about. The post-war Versailles settlement of 1919, which imposed a new world order amid the ruins of the old, expressly blamed Germany for starting it all, and accordingly exacted from it massive penalties - leaving Germans outraged and providing the rising Nazi Party with ample ammunition for its rhetoric of 'victimisation'. That 'war guilt' clause has been at the heart of debate about the origins of WW1, with to this day scholars (many of them, perhaps unsurprisingly, German) lining up either to condemn it as a false reading of history or (often using the very same evidence) blaming Germany for an excess of belligerence and militarism in 1914 and before. Interestingly, in the immediate aftermath of Versailles, the German foreign ministry took pains to publish archived documents which gave the impression that German diplomacy up to 1914 had been eminently, well, diplomatic - that is, moderate and reasonable. This had some effect for in the 1930s historians, no doubt not wishing to exacerbate a subject so painful to the Germans, apportioned blame more evenly among the capitals of Europe. But then in 1961 the German historian Fritz Fischer lobbed a bomb into this space by asserting, essentially, that Germany had been the prime mover for taking the continent to war in 1914. Fischer had accessed new archives as well as re-interpreting old ones. His explosive thesis reinvigorated the whole blame game all over again, with at least one German historian denouncing Fischer as a 'traitor'. The issue today - with the demise of many older-generation German scholars in particular - is much less heated, not least because WW2 has occurred since and few disagree that that conflict was caused by the German Nazi regime. The consensus now on 1914 would seem to be closer to what it was in the 1930s, with a more even-handed approach that lays some blame on all the major protagonists - even if some narratives agree that Germany and Austria-Hungary bear a heavier responsibility than others. Broadly, historians now focus on the how rather than the why in seeking to explain what happened in that hot July of 1914 that led to a world war. Are we in a similar scenario in the summer of 2025, with Russian aggressors in Ukraine, dangerous tensions in the Middle East, and Chinese sabre-rattling in the Pacific suggesting we're on the brink of WW3? Who can say? History never repeats itself, though it can perhaps rhyme or echo the past. But if the next world war does break out this August, the 'summer of 2025' may well become the new ironic buzz-phrase - though marking this time not our naivety (we're only too aware of the dangers today) but rather our reckless stupidity.

Crowds outside the Royal Palace in Berlin cheer the news that Austria-Hungary is at war with Serbia. Within days, Russia mobilised in support of Serbia - prompting Germany, as it had promised, to side with Vienna.

If you think you know about WW1 and WW2, it's time to think again.

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