What Germany Thinks

On July 24, 1914, a German newspaper called Austria’s ultimatum to Serbia “a pretext for war”—and warned that Europe stood on the brink.

Writing amid the first year of the Great War, Thomas F. A. Smith turns to the German press to trace a nation’s argument with itself. Some newspapers condemned Austria’s demands as a perilous provocation; others backed them, while crowds urged the government to stand firm. Smith’s account asks how warnings of catastrophe could coexist with patriotic fervour—and how a country that saw the danger came to follow a course that set Europe ablaze. What did Germans believe they were defending, and who did they think was responsible for the war?

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