28 June: Sarajevo 1914 - Versailles 1919: The War and Peace That Made the Modern World

The success of Germany in the early years of the 20th century acted as a powerful spur to nationalism across Europe, but especially in those eastern and central areas where the authority of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires was waning. Those who had sought autonomy and a federal structure to save the Habsburg Empire had their hopes dashed when the heir to the throne was assassinated in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. What followed was a war on a scale the world had never before witnessed. Exactly five years later, in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles, five Principal Allied Powers and 22 Associate Powers sign a Treaty of Peace with Germany. These two events, in Sarajevo and Versailles, bookended a conflict that would dramatically alter the course of 20th Century history. This volume looks at these two events as well as the reasons why each nation entered the First World War, exploring the casus belli between Germany and the lesser-known states such as Liberia, Siam and Costa Rica.