These were the words uttered by a German nationalist, after recalling the fateful day of June 28,1914. The Belgian minister to Germany, Baron Beyens, used another metaphor for the same event. For him it was "a clap of thunder in the sky". Historians writing about the war have usually focused their attention on the diplomatic, military and social aspects of the Great War. By doing so, they have not taken into account another very important angle, which is the one being described here.
In a wonderfully researched and elegantly written book, Professor Neiberg destroys one of the central myths which dominated the historiography of WW1, namely: that the leaders and their respective nations were all interested in going to war. Neiberg's view is that the common people DID not want any war and were deeply shocked when this war erupted. In his words: "Virtually no one in Europe sought war as a way to correct supposed inequities stemming from the turbulent nineteenth century or as a way to adjust borders". The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife did not get almost any attention after it happened and, as Stefan Zweig noted, "only a few weeks more and the name and figure of Ferdinand would have disappeared for all time out of history". This was so because the people in Europe or elsewhere thought about the murder in personal, not political ,terms.
Neiberg uses new documents, letters, diaries and pamphlets to show that the outbreak of the war caused shock, a huge surprise, fear and disgust throughout Europe. Thus, the people accepted the necessity of war primarily because they believed their wars to be defensive. They likened the outbreak of hostilities to a natural disaster. In France, for example, Jules Isaac, wrote that war "seems to fall upon the world like an avalanche", while expatriate Edith Wharton spoke of a "monstrous landslide" . The start of the war had overwhelmed the ability of the people and communities to cope both on a material and psychological level. All this does not mean that Professor Neiberg denies the responsibility of the various leaders for the fateful decisions they made in 1914. He emphasizes that political cabinets were still important, but there was a big gap between them and the public opinion after the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum delivered to Serbia. The stories and atrocities ( both real and embellished) motivated Europeans to fight to defend their homelands, believing their cause to be the most just of all: self-defense against an aggressive and barbaric invader. Contrary to common wisdom, the year 1914 was the one which saw the highest casualty rates of any year of the war. Men died by tens of thousands in the war's opening months, causing widespread shock and trauma in communities not adjusted to the realities of warfare. Allegations of mismanagement, corruption,and war profiteering were commonplace before the war was even a few weeks old. In Paris, for the first two weeks of the war, milk was available only to families with children, while salt disappeared as well because all available supplies went to the city's bakeries. Working-class Germans were complaining that the shortage of bread was due to the limited flour stores..."being squandered on cake for the rich at the expense of their most basic food, therefore already raising the specter of inequitable sacrifice in the name of someone else's profit". German war letters from the end of 1914 commonly used to describe the war in terms of "murder", "wholesale assassination" and "slaughter". The disillusionment and depression that the war brought on also manifested themselves ouside of letters and diaries. On Novemeber 23,the Royal Welsh Fusiliers reported their first case of a man who had shot himself in the arm in the hopes of getting out of the trenches.He later died of his wounds. The same unit would later report the first cases of what would later be called "shell shock" and "trench foot". Another German soldier wrote that most of his comrades wished the war would be soon over, as the enthusiasm for it is "a Thing of the Past". Soldiers faced the knowledge that their fates depended not on their courage, faith ,or prowess but on pure luck. They also came to understand that most civilians were not the cunning enemies they had been led to fear, but merely innocent people caught in the crossfire.
Europeans in 1914 identified themselves in part by their nationality but shared much in common, including a pronounced aversion to war. They believed that "the responsibility for the war belonged with another country and that their governments had done all they could have to avoid war". The large number of dead and the sight of so many people wearing mourning clothes spoke for themselves. In short, the war had taken over and transformed individuals and societies alike into something that would have been unrecognizable just a few months earlier. The war had created hatreds that were both products of the first few weeks of bitterness and killing and outlets for the frustrations people felt at being stuck into a total war of national survival after so many years of peace. Part of the hatred came from the many and various hardships that people on the home front had to endure.
This book is a must for those who are interested to get a fresh and original intepretation of WW1. It is perhaps the best book which offers such a penetrating analysis of the common people during those tragic times.
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