The Russian Origins of the First World War
eBook - PDF

The Russian Origins of the First World War

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

The Russian Origins of the First World War

About this book

The catastrophe of the First World War, and the destruction, revolution, and enduring hostilities it wrought, make the issue of its origins a perennial puzzle. Since World War II, Germany has been viewed as the primary culprit. Now, in a major reinterpretation of the conflict, Sean McMeekin rejects the standard notions of the war's beginning as either a Germano-Austrian preemptive strike or a "tragedy of miscalculation." Instead, he proposes that the key to the outbreak of violence lies in St. Petersburg.

It was Russian statesmen who unleashed the war through conscious policy decisions based on imperial ambitions in the Near East. Unlike their civilian counterparts in Berlin, who would have preferred to localize the Austro-Serbian conflict, Russian leaders desired a more general war so long as British participation was assured. The war of 1914 was launched at a propitious moment for harnessing the might of Britain and France to neutralize the German threat to Russia's goal: partitioning the Ottoman Empire to ensure control of the Straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.

Nearly a century has passed since the guns fell silent on the western front. But in the lands of the former Ottoman Empire, World War I smolders still. Sunnis and Shiites, Arabs and Jews, and other regional antagonists continue fighting over the last scraps of the Ottoman inheritance. As we seek to make sense of these conflicts, McMeekin's powerful exposé of Russia's aims in the First World War will illuminate our understanding of the twentieth century.

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Yes, you can access The Russian Origins of the First World War by Sean McMeekin in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Russian History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. Abbreviations
  7. Author’s Note
  8. Introduction: History from the Deep Freeze
  9. Chapter 1. The Strategic Imperative in 1914
  10. Chapter 2. It Takes Two to Tango: The July Crisis
  11. Chapter 3. Russia’s War: The Opening Round
  12. Chapter 4. Turkey’s Turn
  13. Chapter 5. The Russians and Gallipoli
  14. Chapter 6. Russia and the Armenians
  15. Chapter 7. The Russians in Persia
  16. Chapter 8. Partitioning the Ottoman Empire
  17. Chapter 9. 1917: The Tsarist Empire at Its Zenith
  18. Conclusion: The October Revolution and Historical Amnesia
  19. Notes
  20. Bibliography
  21. Acknowledgments
  22. Index