August 4, as even non-history buffs now know, will mark the hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of World War I.  Inevitably, a slew of books have appeared on the war’s origins.  Two of the most widely reviewed, going head-to-head in their interpretations, are Catastrophe, 1914 by Max Hastings and The Sleepwalkers by Christopher Clark.  But there’ve been other excellent entries:  Thomas Otte’s July Crisis, Gordon Martel’s The Month that Change the World, and Geoffrey Wawro’s A Mad Catastrophe.  Those who are curious, however, can decide for themselves who’s to blame.  While a great many chapters in these and other accounts of the war’s origins explain the “long-term” causes, which can be traced back to the 1890s, 1871 (the founding of the German Empire), and much earlier, it was, in the end, the July Crisis that resulted in war.  The storm clouds had gathered in 1905-6, 1908-9, 1911, and...(Read Full Article)