Age of Bismarck - Introduction

In our final episode looking at the Entente, we bring our story up to the eve of the July Crisis.How had past lessons influenced the way Russia and France interpreted the world by spring 1914? Was war...

2 Aug 202457min

In our second installment of this Entente analysis, we look at the Liman von Sanders crisis.By late 1913, a new crisis in Russo-German relations centred on the status of General Liman von Sanders, app...

31 Juli 20241h 3min

In this first of three episodes, we look at the pre-war position of the Entente!Before we bring our narrative further, it would be useful to turn our attention to what came before. The Franco-Russian ...

29 Juli 202458min

As Belgrade burned with rage following the death of Ambassador Hartwig, Berchtold was on the verge of his greatest triumph. After several intense weeks of pressure, Stefan Tisza seemed finally to be s...

26 Juli 202426min

Now that German support had been acquired, and the delivery of an ultimatum to Serbia was virtually guaranteed, Berchtold had one final mission - to persuade the Hungarian Premier Stefan Tisza of the ...

24 Juli 202445min

By 7 July 1914, Austria-Hungary's leading officials gathered in Vienna. The key item on the agenda was what to do about Serbia, but an unspoken item amounted to what to do about Hungary.With German su...

22 Juli 20241h 1min

With the blank cheque secured, Austria had received its ally's blessing to pursue a punitive strike against Serbia - what would happen next? The morass of questions surrounding this development deserv...

19 Juli 202432min

Among all the controversies of the July Crisis, perhaps few compare to Germany's decision to provide Austria-Hungary with a 'blank cheque' for whatever policy it intended to adopt towards Serbia. In f...

17 Juli 202448min