When World War I broke out 100 years ago this summer, Forverts Editor Abraham Cahan predicted “a frightful bloodletting.” Under the stark headline “Milkhome” (War), Cahan wrote: “War means a retreat backwards, a return to darkness.” June 28 will mark the centennial of the spark that ignited that war: the assassination of the Austrian archduke,…
The imperial couple was on a tour of the Bosnian province that Austria had won from Turkey six years earlier. A young Serbian student was the shooter, believing that province must be Serbian. A second youth threw a bomb on the couple hours prior to the shooting. They are proud of their attack. Major Upheaval…
I’ve just returned to Berlin from a journey to Lodz and several other cities in Poland that are currently in German hands. The trip was eventful. I was in the apex of the area where Russian barbarians were raging not long ago and that currently breathes freely under German rule. Earlier I sought out the…
If such news — that the land of Israel is going to be given to the Jews, had come 50 years ago, it would have made a totally different impression on the Jewish masses than it is making today. It would then have had a similar impact as the coming of the Messiah as it…
It’s almost impossible to believe, but it happened. War has been declared. The great powers began a terrible blood bath. If the flames are not extinguished right away, the war will be the most terrible, the worst in human history. Think about what happens next. None of the peoples caught up in the war have…
When I came here I was a very young man. Many years have passed. I sometimes think it was only yesterday that I arrived here; but often that day feels so far away— like a half forgotten dream. I sometimes feel as if I’d been born here having spent my most interesting years here. It…
Archduke Franz Ferdinand Lives! A World Without World War I By Richard Ned Lebow Palgrave Macmillan, 256 pages, $27 In the introduction to his new book, “Archduke Franz Ferdinand Lives! A World Without World War I,” Richard Ned Lebow discloses a poignant personal reason for his interest in counterfactual history. The professor of international political…
This year marks the centennial of two landmarks of modernity: World War I and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.” Both events have their origins in 1914, but neither ever truly ended: Upon his death in 1924, Kafka left behind an unfinished manuscript, while the peacemakers at Versailles left behind an unresolved war. Beyond their incomplete natures,…
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