Dimensions
153 x 234 x 39mm
1914: a year of unparalleled change. The year that diplomacy failed, Imperial Europe was thrown into its first modernised warfare and white-gloved soldiers rode in their masses across pastoral landscapes into the blaze of machine-guns. What followed were the costliest days of the entire War. But how had it happened?
In CATASTROPHE Max Hastings examines how World War I could ever have begun. Ranging across Europe, from Paris to St. Petersberg, CATASTROPHE traces how tensions across the continent kindled into a blaze of battles.
A searing analysis of the power-brokering, vanity and bluff in the diplomatic maelstrom reveals who was responsible for the birth of this catastrophic world in arms. Mingling the experiences of humbler folk with the statesmen on whom their lives depended, Hastings asks: whose actions were justified?
From the out-break of war to the bloody gambles in Sarajevo and Mons, Le Cateau, Marne and Tannenberg, this is the international story of World War I in its most severe and influential period. Published to coincide with its 100th Anniversary, CATASTROPHE explains how and why this war, which shattered and changed the Western world for ever, was fought.
