July 1914: Countdown to War

July 1914: Countdown to War written by Sean McMeekin goes into excruciating detail as to why World War One started. In an effort to be as accurate as possible he combines many primary and secondary sources to form a comprehensive guide about the situation. It is one of the most informative books I believe can be found on the subject. 

Pros

The most incredible aspect of this book is McMeekin’s attention to detail. I can only imagine the amount of information he had to sift through in order to bring such a full account of the Sarajevo Incident and the events in the month following it. He mixes information from telegrams, personal diaries, speeches, and many other sources to create a full encompassing view as to why the First World War started. 

One aspect of the book that I greatly appreciated was how it handled differing accounts. For instance, if two people had a conversation and one person wrote down what they said and it differed from what the other person claimed was said then instead of choosing just one perspective the book puts both. Now the author does often interject his opinion and says which he believes is most likely to be the true account but I found myself agreeing with the author on all but one of these occasions. Another great thing about the book is that it explains events so well and so complete that I rarely had any questions about what or why something happened. This plays a lot into him going through personal accounts and being able to tell the motivations of people. It doesn’t just tell you that someone did something but goes into the reasoning behind it and what the person felt, even down to how certain peoples mannerisms affected the situation. It is extremely informative.

Table of contents helps to show how well organized the chapters are.

The book is also amazingly well organized. All of the chapters blend right into one another and none seem to be out of place. For the most part the book follows events as they happened and tells you how the different powers were acting at the same time as one another. I particularly liked how it started with the assassination and then went through the reactions of each nation and then started really telling why and how the war was brewing, as opposed to jumping right in with no background.

There are also many resources in the book to help you if you are lost. There are a few maps in the book that help tremendously, especially with specific events like Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination. All the names are listed at the front of the book along with who they are in context to the events. The names are well organized in alphabetical order and are split up by country which makes it easy to go back and find them as most chapters are split up by each individual country. It all makes for an enjoyable and easy reading experience since the reader doesn’t have to worry about having to find a name if they become lost or confused, and there are a lot of names in this book. However I will say that anyone who already has a fair amount of knowledge of the war many of the names will be recognized, but for those readers that are less knowledgeable it is a great help.

First page of the character names list, very helpful. There were a few more pages than this.

Cons

There are not many cons to this book as it is extremely well put together. My biggest complaint was that sometimes information was repeated and often times more than once. There were several instances where I was glad it was repeated but other times it detracted from the book, especially in those cases where it was repeated a few times. 

Another thing I noticed a few times was that the timeline of events would jump ahead suddenly without much of a transition. A couple times the author even tells you why it happens, which was good and I understood after he explained it, but mostly when it happened there was no explanation and I was left wondering. 

With that being said these cons are minor and are easily overlooked, but be aware that they are present in the book.

One of the maps in the book, this one depicting Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination.

Recommendation

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in World War One and wants to understand why it started. Even if your interest in the subject is just cursory, I think it would be a good book to pick up as it helps to understand the confusing start of the war. The amount of information might scare some readers but it is not hard to comprehend at all, the author did a fantastic job of conveying information in an easily understandable manner. Plus as I said before, the book gives you a lot of resources to help if you do become confused. July 1914: Countdown to War is a book I greatly enjoyed and I recommend it to just about anyone that even has a minor interest in history.

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