http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1998/10/98/world_war_i/197586.stm
Thursday, 5 November, 1998, 18:37 GMT
Lions led by donkeys?
By Peter Simkins, Senior Historian at the Imperial War Museum
As we approach the 80th anniversary of the armistice that brought the fighting in the Great War to an end, public perceptions of that war - particularly in Britain - are still dominated by images of the Somme and Passchendaele, of futile frontal attacks against machine guns in the mud of Flanders, of generals who were little more than "butchers and bunglers", and of brave front-line troops who were sacrificed because of the ill-conceived plans of incompetent staff officers. In short, ordinary British and Dominion Officers were "lions led by donkeys".
The myth of the uncaring general - safely dining and drinking in his chateau while the front-line troops lived and died in squalor - has proved especially durable - and has been reinforced recently by Stephen Fry's portrayal of just such an officer in BBC's Blackadder Goes Forth.
What is much less widely known is that 78 British and Dominion officers of the rank of Brigadier General and above died on active service in the First World War while a further 146 were wounded. These figures alone show that, contrary to popular belief, British Generals frequently went close enough to the battle zone to place themselves in considerable danger.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9501EFD61F39E633A2575AC2A9619C946596D6CF
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Austrian Emperor to Take Command at Vienna Headquarters.; WAR FEVER AT CAPITAL
Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES.
July 29, 1914, Wednesday
Page 1, 539 words
VIENNA, July 28. -- Upon the issue of the formal declaration of war against Servia today Emperor Franz Josef gave orders for the removal of the Summer Count from Ischi to the capital.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I
World War I
Date 28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918 (Armistice Treaty)
Treaty of Versailles signed 28 June 1919
Location Europe, Africa and the Middle East (briefly in China and the Pacific Islands)
Result Allied victory; end of the German, Russian, Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian Empires; foundation of new countries in Europe and the Middle East; transfer of German colonies to other powers; establishment of the League of Nations.
On 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian-Serb student and member of Young Bosnia, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo, Bosnia. This began a period of diplomatic manoeuvering between Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, France and Britain called the July Crisis. Wanting to end Serbian interference in Bosnia conclusively, Austria–Hungary delivered the July Ultimatum to Serbia, a series of ten demands which were deliberately unacceptable, made with the intention of deliberately initiating a war with Serbia. When Serbia acceded to only eight of the ten demands levied against it in the ultimatum, Austria–Hungary declared war on Serbia on 28 July 1914. Strachan argues "Whether an equivocal and early response by Serbia would have made any difference to Austria-Hungary's behaviour must be doubtful. Franz Ferdinand was not the sort of personality who commanded popularity, and his demise did not cast the empire into deepest mourning". The Russian Empire, unwilling to allow Austria–Hungary to eliminate its influence in the Balkans, and in support of its longtime Serb proteges, ordered a partial mobilization one day later. When the German Empire began to mobilize on 30 July 1914, France – sporting significant animosity over the German conquest of Alsace-Lorraine during the Franco-Prussian War – ordered French mobilization on 1 August. Germany declared war on Russia on the same day.
