ABSTRACT
Europe, in the early months of 1914, seemed to be at peace. Sir Winston
Churchill, writing in the 1920s, recalled that ‘the spring and summer of
1914 were marked in Europe by an exceptional tranquillity’. Anglo-German
relations, after years of tense naval rivalry, seemed to be improving as the
two powers negotiated amicably about the possible future disposition of
the Portuguese colonial empire in Africa. French bitterness towards
Germany, centred on the ‘lost provinces’ of Alsace and Lorraine, appeared
to be abating. Austria-Hungary and Russia had refused to allow their
Balkan ‘clients’ to draw them into war in 1912 and 1913.
