"The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history's clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again.”
Tuchman proposes, here, that the death of King Edward VII marks the end of an era. With his passing, Europe enters a stage of political discord and economic trouble which results in "the Great War" and culminates in the events of WWII. As she opens the book with the king's funeral, Tuchman sets the stage for an international war over legitimacy and threat.
“Human beings, like plans, prove fallible in the presence of those ingredients that are missing in maneuvers - danger, death, and live ammunition.”
The military leaders of Europe are only as successful as the individuals under their command. The events of the book reveal a trend which ultimately points toward the reason behind the Allies' success. The German commanders push their soldiers through gruesome conditions to perform nearly superhuman feats and, as Tuchman observes, people simply don't perform well under threat of death.
“One constant among the elements of 1914—as of any era—was the disposition of everyone on all sides not to prepare for the harder alternative, not to act upon what they suspected to be true.”
Tuchman notes that war was not a foregone conclusion until it had already happened. No single nation was eager to engage in war. Perhaps this very hesitation motivated Princip to catalyze events with his perfectly-timed assassination.
“The turn of events in Belgium was a product of the German theory of terror. Clausewitz had prescribed terror as the proper method to shorten war, his whole theory of war being based on the necessity of making it short, sharp, and decisive. The civil population must not be exempted from war’s effects but must be made to feel its pressure and be forced by the severest measures to compel their leaders to make peace.”
The German forces executed a strategy of terror in their warfare. Although ultimately unsuccessful, these methods revealed the tone of international relations in the twentieth century. Germany did not play by the rules nor even attempt to mitigate destruction, especially concerning innocent civilians. Although Germany loses the war, they permanently scar most of Europe, whose people no longer enjoy the luxury of safety and peace of mind.
