The History of the World War I. Various Authors

ction>

      Various Authors

      The History of the World War I

      Published by

      Books

      - Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -

       [email protected]

      2021 OK Publishing

      EAN 4064066380687

Table of Contents

       Volume 1

       Volume 2

       Volume 3

      Volume 1

       Table of Contents

Table of Contents

       WHAT CAUSED THE WAR

       THE DEFENCE OF LIÈGE

       THE GREAT RETREAT

       THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE

       HOW THE FRENCH FOUGHT

       THE RACE FOR THE CHANNEL

       THE LAST DITCH IN BELGIUM

       WHY TURKEY ENTERED THE WAR

       THE FALKLAND SEA FIGHT

       CRUISE OF THE EMDEN

       CAPTURE OF TSING-TAO

       GALLIPOLI

       GAS: SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES

       THE CANADIANS AT YPRES

       SINKING OF THE LUSITANIA

       MOUNTAIN WARFARE

       THE GREAT CHAMPAGNE OFFENSIVE OF 1915

       THE TRAGEDY OF EDITH CAVELL

       GALLIPOLI ABANDONED

       THE DEATH-SHIP IN THE SKY

      WHAT CAUSED THE WAR

       BARON BEYENS

       Table of Contents

       I

       II

       III

       IV

       V

       VI

       VII

       VIII

      I

       Table of Contents

      Political designs of Francis Ferdinand.

      The Archduke Francis Ferdinand will go down to posterity without having yielded up his secret. Great political designs have been ascribed to him, mainly on the strength of his friendship with William II. What do we really know about him? He was strong-willed and obstinate, very Clerical, very Austrian, disliking the Hungarians to such an extent that he kept their statesmen at arm's-length, and having no love for Italy. He has been credited with sympathies towards the Slav elements of the Empire; it has been asserted that he dreamt of setting up, in place of the dual monarchy, a "triune State," in which the third factor would have been made up for the most part of Slav provinces carved out of the Kingdom of St. Stephen. Immediately after he had been murdered, the Vossische Zeitung refuted this theory with arguments which seemed to me thoroughly sound.

      The Archduke, said the Berlin newspaper, was too keen-witted not to see that he would thus be creating two rivals for Austria instead of one, and that the Serb populations would come within the orbit of Belgrade rather than of Vienna. Serbia would become the Piedmont of the Balkans; she would draw to herself the Slavs of the Danube valley by a process of crystallization similar to that which brought about Italian unity.

      Army and Navy reorganized.

      From year to year the Archduke had acquired more and more weight in the governance of the Empire, in proportion as his uncle's will grew weaker beneath the burden of advancing age. Thus he had succeeded in his efforts to provide Austria-Hungary with a new navy, the counterpart, on a more modest scale, of the German fleet, and to reorganize the effective army, here again taking Germany for his model. Among certain cliques, he was accused of not keeping enough in the background, of showing little tact or consideration in the manner of thrusting aside the phantom Emperor, who was gently gliding into the winter of the years at Schönbrunn amid the veneration of his subjects of every race.

      Another charge was that he appointed too many of his creatures to important civil and military posts.

      Antagonism of Russia and Austria.

      We may well believe that this prince, observing the gradual decay of the monarchy, tried to restore its vigour, and that his first thought was to hold with a firm grasp, even before assuming the Imperial crown, the cluster of nationalities, mutually hostile and always discontented, that go to make up the Dual Empire. So far as foreign relations are concerned, we may assume that he was