The great powers had not been involved in a war in Europe for 40 years.

Moreover, there was a rising complacency about peace. Nationalism proved to be a stronger bond than socialism for Europe’s working classes, and a stronger bond than capitalism for Europe’s bankers. German authors wrote about the inevitability of Teutonic-Slavic battles, and schoolbooks inflamed nationalist passions. In Eastern Europe, pan-Slavism threatened both the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, which had large Slavic populations. Instead, as the British historian Christopher Clark has shown, they sleepwalked into a conflagration that lasted four years, destroyed four empires, and killed millions.īack then, leaders paid insufficient attention to the changes in the international order that had once been called the “concert of Europe.” An important change was the growing strength of nationalism. In 1914, all the great powers expected a short third Balkan War. But while many invoke the onset of the Cold War, a more worrisome historical metaphor is the start of World War I. CAMBRIDGE – As US President Joe Biden’s administration implements its strategy of great power competition with China, analysts seek historical metaphors to explain the deepening rivalry.

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