We’ve now reached the brink of the First World War. Before we dive in, this episode looks at how warfare had changed in the previous hundred years or so, with weapons far deadlier than had existed before, and which moved the advantage in battle from the offensive to the defensive: men with the powerful new firearms, sheltered by a good protective positions, were now well-placed to disrupt or even entirely overthrow any attempt by the other side to attack them over open ground.

Next, we move on to think about how Europe looked different in 1914, with the map of central and eastern Europe dominated by three great Empires which actually touched each other – Austria-Hungary and Germany had a common border with Russia – while all the smaller states that we know today, such as the Czech Republic, Croatia, Estonia, Finland or even Poland, were simply parts of those empires.

Finally, we look at how the continent spiralled downwards following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, to a general war involving the five greatest powers of the Old World, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Germany, France and Britain.

Illustration: European alliances in 1914. Public Domain

Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.