Most World War I scholarship that discusses the start of the conflict focuses on the diplomacy and military planning of leaders of the European nations whose maneuverings led their countries into global war. Author Michael S. Neiberg avoids the usual narrative and instead seeks out the thoughts and words of the rest of Europe. Dance of the Furies, Europe and the Outbreak of World War I emphasizes that the struggle was not a “people’s war” by examining the journals, diaries and letters of the middle class during those crucial months of 1914.
Neiberg, who serves as the Chair of War Studies in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the United States War College, states plainly that the general populace of Europe did not desire war and lists their numerous reasons why in the book’s introduction. He refers to the war as a “cabinet war,” brought upon by a dozen or so world leaders who made the decisions that led to hostilities. For the next two hundred pages, Neiberg then asserts several arguments about how the middle class interpreted and confronted those crucial months of 1914.
First of all, Neiberg states few expected the war to occur and even fewer wanted it. The general consensus was how could the death of a relatively unknown official in the Balkans cause “civilized” nations to go to war. They also believed that their trained diplomats would prevent such a calamity from ever happening, as they had done during other minor occurrences earlier in the century. The author continues that the usual scholarly focus on nationality oversimplifies a complete understanding of the war. Thirdly, countries accepted war by expecting it to be defensive in nature; simply defending their homeland against an aggressive attacker.
A fourth argument claimed by Neiberg is that disillusionment with the war took place in 1914, much earlier than many historians have claimed. Although before many of war’s major bloodbaths like Verdun and Passchendaele took place, 1914 was the deadliest year of the war and soldiers and families alike became quickly fatalistic about its outcome. Nevertheless, people remained determined to see the conflict through and kept fighting, mainly due to growing hatred towards an enemy that grew as the war marched on. These hatreds, according to the author, led to harsh treaty negotiations afterwards that eventually would lead to a second World War twenty years later.
Neiberg’s data comes from an examination of the words from Europe’s middle-class citizens. His core samples are mainly from England, France and Germany with only a scattering from other countries. He claims there was no way to gather a full representative sampling of sources so he went with what he had. A large portion of the book is composed of quotes from these sources that underline his thesis although one wonders if this sample size is large enough to completely prove his arguments.
Dance of the Furies approaches the war’s beginnings from a different perspective, which provides readers with a more complete understanding of the conflict. However, in the desire to tell the other part of the story, the author expects the reader to already have an understanding of the political and diplomatic events that did push the world to war. He provides little to no explanation of the Archduke’s assassination, Austria-Hungary’s subsequent demands and Serbia’s response as well as the inner workings of Germany and other countries and how their leaders moved towards mobilization and war. Providing more details on the “cabinet” side of things would have given more weight to the “people’s” responses. Nevertheless, Dance fulfils its mission to provide a clearer picture of that critical year of 1914 which saw the world come to war.
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