C20 Peters

I've been reading Margaret MacMillan's highly informative The War That Ended Peace.  She shows how all the relevant countries - Germany, Russia, France, Austria-Hungary and Britain - were constantly feeling their way round each other, testing out existing alliances/ententes and sounding out new ones in a revolving set of courtship dances.  The single most striking account is of Kaiser Wilhelm's character.  Here was a playground bully totally used to getting his own way, an immature adolescent in charge of a country, and an army and navy.  MacMillan shows him blundering around in diplomatic exchanges  - at times laughably so, except that the consequences were dire;  not that she blames him exclusively…
Read More