Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914

Kaiser Wilhelm II (Popperfoto/Getty Images)

Poincaré and the Tsar, St Petersburg, July 1914 (© Interfoto/Alamy)

Asquith and Lloyd George (Private collection)

Pasic (Imagno/Getty Images); Berchtold (akg/Imagno); Sazonov (© RA/Lebrecht Music & Arts); Grey (Hulton Archive/Getty Images); Churchill (Hulton Archive/Getty Images); Bethmann Hollweg (DPA/Press Association Images)

Russians solicit divine assistance (Mirrorpix)

Moltke (The Granger Collection/Topfoto); Ludendorff (Hulton Archive/Getty Images); Hindenburg (Hulton Archive/Getty Images); Kitchener (Hulton Archive/Getty Images); Lanrezac (Mary Evans/Epic/Tallandier)

Conrad (© Ullsteinbild/Topfoto); Joffre (© Roger Viollet/Topfoto); French (© Roger Viollet/Topfoto); Haig (© Roger Viollet/Topfoto); Falkenhayn (Hulton Archive/Getty Images); Franchet d’Espèrey (DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Russians in Galicia (Mirrorpix)

Serbian troops advance (© Robert Hunt Library/Mary Evans)

Putnik (© The Art Archive/Alamy)

Potiorek (Getty Images)

Corporal Egon Kisch (© IMAGNO/Lebrecht)

Austrian troops conduct a mass execution of Serbian civilians (© Robert Hunt Library/Mary Evans)

An Austrian siege piece (Photo12/Ann Ronan Picture Library)

Kluck (akg-images)

Bülow (© INTERFOTO/Alamy)

French troops, before the deluge (© Roger-Viollet/Topfoto)

Belgians in action (Underwood Archives/Getty Images)

The legendary French soixante-quinzes (Roger-Viollet/Rex Features)

Smith-Dorrien (Mirropix)

Wilson, Foch and Huguet (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Murray (Universal History Archive/UIG/The Bridgeman Art Library)

Germans advance (RA/Lebrecht Music & Arts)

Frenchmen display offensive spirit (Mirrorpix)

Austro-Hungarian cavalry in Galicia (© Robert Hunt Library/Mary Evans)

The British deploy on their first battlefield (© IWM (Q 53319))

British troops await the enemy

Samsonov (DeAgostini/GettyImages)

Russians under attack

Russian prisoners after Tannenberg (© Robert Hunt Library/Mary Evans)

Rennenkampf (RIA Novosti)

Fortunino Matania’s painting of L Battery’s action at Néry (© David Cohen Fine Art/Mary Evans Picture Library)

The Middlesex under fire (R.C. Money. LC GS 1126. Reproduced with the permission of Leeds University Library)

A Suffolk girl at the handle of a Lowestoft tram (© IWM (Q 31032)

Russian soldiers in bivouac (David King Collection)

A Russian field hospital (David King Collection)

The Western Front, winter 1914 (© SZ Photo/Scherl/The Bridgeman Art Library)

Dorothie Feilding (Warwickshire County Record Office collections: CR2017/F246/326); Edouard Cœurdevey (Personal archives of Jean Cœurdevey); Jacques Rivière (All rights reserved. Private collection); Richard Hentsch (bpk/Studio Niermann/Emil Bieber); Paul Lintier (From Avec une batterie de 75. Le Tube 1233. Souvenirs d’un chef de pièce (1915–1916) by Paul Lintier, Paris 1917); Vladimir Littauer (From Russian Hussar by Vladimir S. Littauer, J.A. Allen & Co., London, 1965); Constantin Schneider (Constantin Schneider als Oberleutnant; Foto: Privatbesitz; Reproduktion: Salzburger Landesarchiv; aus: Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Neuere Geschichte Österreichs, Bd. 95, Wien [u.a.] Böhlau, 2003); Lionel Tennyson (Tennyson Research Centre, Lincolnshire County Council); Venetia Stanley (© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans); Louis Spears (Patrick Aylmer); Helene Schweida and Wilhelm Kaisen (State Archive of Bremen); Louis Barthas (From Les Carnets de guerre de Louis Barthas, tonnelier, 1914–1918 © Editions de la Découverte. Paris. English edition to be published in 2013 by Yale University Press); François Mayer (© IWM Q 111149)

A family flees a battlefield (Mirrorpix)

British soldiers in Belgium, winter 1914 (K.W. Brewster/The Liddle Collection/Leeds University Library. Photograph LC GS 0195)

While every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders of photographs, in some cases this has not proved possible. The author and publishers would welcome any information that would enable such omissions to be rectified in future editions.

Maps (#ulink_ac1d56e9-79ee-554d-b5ac-d50dae608e9d)

Author’s note: The movements of the vast armies in 1914 were so complex that it is almost impossible to depict them cartographically in detail. In these maps I have striven for clarity for non-specialist readers, for instance by omitting divisional numbers except where essential. They are generally based upon the maps in Arthur Banks’s A Military Atlas of the First World War (Heinemann, 1975).

Rival concentrations on the Western Front, August 1914 (#litres_trial_promo)

Serbia, 1914 (#litres_trial_promo)

Frontier battles in Lorraine, 10–28 August 1914 (#litres_trial_promo)

The German advance through Belgium, August 1914 (#litres_trial_promo)

The Battle of Mons, 23 August 1914 (#litres_trial_promo)

The British at Le Cateau, 26 August 1914 (#litres_trial_promo)

The allied retirement, 23 August–6 September 1914 (#litres_trial_promo)