Taylor's celebrated short book on the causes of World War One. His theory, and it's a good one, is that Europe was governed by constraining time tables for industrialisation, mobilisation and war. The decision to go to war was thought of as being a scientific and industrial one with very little flexibility. So for Austria to go to war against Serbia for assassinating their Archduke, they also had to mobilise part of their force against Russia because the timetables and plans said that's what they had to do. The only reason Germany went to war against France was that their plans were so inflexible they could only deploy half of their army against the original enemy, Russia, and the rest had to march against France because of this rigid planning.
A very sobering and interesting account and a must read for anyone interested in that era.
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