Passage to Byzantium: The Romanov-Habsburg Feud that Led to World War I

For 100 years most historians accepted the conclusions of the Versailles conferees that the Germans were mainly culpable for the First World War. Since Kaiser Wilhelm II retained the sole right to go to war, it was he who was blamed for bringing on the tragedy. It is true that the emotionally incendiary Kaiser pursued the conflict with undue enthusiasm once it started. There is no evidence that he wanted or expected the war that broke out on July 28, 1914. Maggie Ledford Lawson’s “Passage to Byzantium” is an account of how the Great War actually started. It is an epic tale about two ancient dynasties, the Romanovs and the Habsburgs, whose clash of interests in the Balkans led to the tragedy of 1914.