The successful English naval blockade of Germany (and Austro-Hungary), meant that the only source of iron ore for the Central Powers was neutral Sweden. Both the English and Russian fleets ran operations to disrupt and prevent iron ore from reaching the enemy. This book examines and reviews the ships and tactics of these operations.

Diese Gesamtgeschichte des Ersten Weltkriegs ist konkurrenzlos. Noch nie wurde die Urkatastrophe des 20. Jahrhunderts so vielschichtig erzählt: europäisch vergleichend, global in der Perspektive, souverän in der Darstellung.

Ninety years ago, the First World War ended. In Europe, this date is still celebrated as one of the main events of the 20th century, but in Russia it has been virtually forgotten. This book is a collective work of leading Soviet ‘military experts’ of the 1920s, in which former staff officers and generals of the Tsarist army examined the course and results of the recent war, analyzing their own...

The author details in his book the little studied southern front in the early days of the Russian Civil War and the tragic destiny of the military commander I L Sorokin. Sorokin, who was the Commander in Chief of the Red Army in the Northern Caucasus would end up deleted from Soviet history or painted as a traitor to the revolution.

The assasination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo started a chain of events that led to the beginning of World War One. It lis less clear, in the eyes of the author, as to why security was minimal for the Archduke, how dangerous was the 'Black Hand' organization and who stood to benefit from the destruction of the old man of Europe?

Clark traces the paths to war in a minute-by-minute, action-packed narrative that cuts between the key decision centers in Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Paris, London, and Belgrade, and examines the decades of history that informed the events of 1914 and details the mutual misunderstandings and unintended signals that drove the crisis forward in a few short weeks.

Es ist ein Jahr, in dem alles möglich scheint. Und doch wohnt dem gleißenden Anfang das Ahnen des Verfalles inne. Literatur, Kunst und Musik wussten schon 1913, dass die Menschheit ihre Unschuld verloren hatte. Florian Illies lässt dieses eine Jahr, einen Moment höchster Blüte und zugleich ein Hochamt des Unterganges, in einem grandiosen Panorama lebendig werden.