Part 1 Part 2 On the morning of August 1, Nicholas II received the German ambassador. He strongly maintained that the mobilization posed no threat to Germany and furthermore had no hostile intent. Also, it would be impossible to immediately halt the mobilization because of the enormous spans of territory […]

Part 1 And the Germans bought it. The icy distrust of Britain’s traditionally hostile policies was melted by the radiant charm of Sir Grey. Admiral Tirpitz noted «On July 9, those in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs maintained the sober view that if, contrary to expectations, peace in Europe could […]

These days 96 years ago the world was shocked with the first outbursts of the World War 1 – the global bloodbath betokening unbelievable tragedies of the XXth century. Why did it happen? What inhuman power was coolly pushing the world to catastrophe at the hot summer of 1914? The […]

Part I To properly evaluate who would benefit from Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination, just look at the results of the First World War. It destroyed Great Britain’s two chief competitors – Russia and Germany. Convinced that Russia was not crushed during the Russo-Japanese War and the carefully planned revolution, London […]

“The Austrian and Russian emperors should not dethrone one another and pave the road to revolution.” Archduke Franz Ferdinand It was an ordinary, unremarkable visit by a senior leader of the Empire to one of its central cities. And for us, it would not be the slightest bit interesting, if […]

ORIENTAL REVIEW opens the new historical series. We decided to name it ‘The Episodes’. We are not going to cover the world history with a comprehensive overview. It is beyond our power and competence. We want to relate to our readers few stories, which are not very known or well-forgotten […]