War Without End

摘要

It was supposed to be over in a matter of weeks. In the summer of 1914, the European war that began in the aftermath of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand drew great armies into the fields, launched ships of war upon the seas and engaged imperial ambitions and fears. There was, however, a sense of optimism among several of the combatants, an expectation that victory would be quick. "You will be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees," Kaiser Wilhelm Ⅱ told the German troops in the first week of August.