April 2, 1917 Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Otto von Bismarck, the German statesman who masterminded the unification of Germany in 1871 and served until 1890 as its first Chancellor, once said “If a general war begins, it will be because of some damn fool thing in the Balkans”.

Bismarck got his damn fool thing on June 28, 1914 when a tubercular 19-year-old leveled a revolver in Sarajevo and murdered the heir-apparent to the Austro-Hungarian throne Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg.

What followed could have been a regional conflict at worst, a local squabble between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, as the two settled issues going beyond the scope of this essay.  Instead, mutually entangling national alliances brought about mobilization timetables moving vast armies according to predetermined schedules.  Deep and abiding mistrust ensured than would be the first to blink.

The cataclysm of the next four years would destroy a generation, and lay…