World War One — The Age of Attrition 1914 — The Illusion of a Short War

In the summer of 1914, Europe did not feel like a continent about to commit suicide. It felt like a machine that had been running smoothly for decades, loud but familiar, proud of its engineering, proud of its empires, proud of its armies, and confident that history belonged to it. The cities were electric with modern life: trains, telegraphs, newspapers, factories, parliaments, stock exchanges, cafés. The educated classes argued about art and science and nationalism as if those things were distinct categories. The working classes lived closer to the ground, closer to hunger and fatigue, but even there the mood was not apocalyptic. It was tense, yes. There were strikes. There were anarchists. There were assassinations. There were diplomatic crises that flared and faded. But a crisis was almost comforting. A crisis meant the old system was still the system.