The Russian origins of the First World War / Sean McMeekin.

Collection type Library
Author McMeekin, Sean, 1974-;
Call Number 940.311 M167
Document type Monograph
Year 2011.
Pagination xii, 324 p. : ill., maps ; 25 cm.
Publisher Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
Note Formerly CIP. Includes bibliographical references and index. This book argues that Russian ambitions to dismantle the Ottoman Empire explain much about World War I, that is unsatisfactorily explained otherwise. 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 Germ ano-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 ambiti ons 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 Russias goal: partitioning the Ottoman Empire to ensure control of the Straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.
Place made Cambridge, Mass. :
Abstract

Introduction: History from the Deep Freeze -- The Strategic Imperative in 1914 -- It Takes Two to Tango : The July Crisis -- Russia''s War : The Opening Round -- Turkey''s Turn -- The Russians and Gallipoli -- Russia and the Armenians -- The Russians in Per sia -- Partitioning the Ottoman Empire -- 1917 : The Tsarist Empire at Its Zenith -- Conclusion: The October Revolution and Historical Amnesia.

Shelf Items

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