Abstract
On 3 August 1914 France entered a world war from which she emerged victorious and yet the greatest casualty of all the nations involved. In just over four years, of the eight million Frenchmen who fought, nearly one-and-a-half million had been killed, and the country had sacrificed half of its national wealth. To a large extent the effects of that war were responsible for the crushing defeat and ignominious collaboration which France experienced some twenty years later in a second world war.
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Notes and References
For a brief introduction to this question, see H. W. Koch (ed.), The Origins of the First World War (London, 1972) pp. 3-6.
For bibliographical references, see the very comprehensive and excellent historiographical survey of the debate from its origins to the present in J. Droz, Les causes de la première guerre mondiale (Paris, 1973).
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© 1983 John F. V. Keiger
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Keiger, J.F.V. (1983). Introduction. In: France and the Origins of the First World War. The Making of the 20th Century. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17209-2_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17209-2_1
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