"The Opening Shots of World War One" Topic

"The centenary of the start of WW1 has resulted in a plethora of publications and documentaries on the conflict. Most people have a fair idea that the spark was the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, but fewer still will be aware that the first shots of the war were fired at Serbian soldiers.

I use the word ‘murder' deliberately, because despite the revisionist attempts by some Serbian nationalists, that is what it was. The involvement of the Serbian state security services also means that the Serbian state cannot absolve itself from some responsibility for the ensuing conflict. However, the consequences for the Serbian people were truly horrendous. Serbia suffered the most casualties in the war with 62% of males aged between 15 and 55 being killed.

The early battles of the war have not received much attention in the English language with the focus on the western front and the great battles in France including the Marne that stopped the German advance on Paris. The centenary publications have at least begun to change that. The documentary series have all covered the Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia and I would give a special mention to Max Hastings', ‘Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914' that goes out of its way to bring these campaigns to a wider readership…"
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Amicalement
Armand