Aye Write! The Road to War, 20 Apr

History made its presence felt in the Mitchell Library’s grand hall as two historians discussed the road to 1914. Charles Emmerson and Christopher Clark have each written books looking at the fateful months leading up to World War I. For Emmerson, the Mitchell Library’s grandeur was a reminder of the pre-war confidence that seemed a hallmark of the Edwardian era. But he also stressed the modernist flavour of the times, characterised by cubism, the motor car and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.

This progressive mood, along with increasing international connections, said Emmerson, made war seem unlikely. Christopher Clark agreed that few thought conflict a certainty, even on the day the heir to the Austrian throne was murdered. But he was keen to scotch the later view that war in 1914 was inevitable. Although there were those, mostly in the military, who wanted a war, most policymakers didn’t.

The interesting question, which Clark’s book explores, is how the hawkish elements got their way. For both Emmerson and Clark, World War I was “the original catastrophe” that spawned later convulsions. Without the Great War it’s harder to imagine the rise of fascism, communism and Nazism; harder still to imagine the Holocaust. [James Carson]