This is a splendid time to remember the First World War. It started 100 years ago this month with the June 28 shooting of the Austrian archduke and his wife. By the end of the summer, much of Europe was engaged in a war that lasted about four years, toppled four empires, precipitated the communist revolution, created by fiat the modern Middle East, recognized Zionism, made the U.S. a world power and cost the lives of about 10 million fighting men. Historians are still trying to figure out what happened.

There are theories galore—and an equal amount of finger-pointing. Germany was to blame, many insist. No, it was Austria-Hungary or maybe Russia. On the other hand, it could have been Serbia—or the rigidity of mobilization plans, those damned railway schedules, the romantic insanity of nationalism run amok, the assured confidence that the crisis would pass (others had) or, in the minds of some, that the working men of Europe would never kill one another so that the capitalists and the upper classes would benefit. Little about the war made much sense.

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