1914 Redux

Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast · Dec 23, 2021 · 23m

In the first days of August of that particular year, one of the largest and most powerful empires in the world - albeit one with an equally large inferiority complex - issued an ultimatum to one of its small, but not insignificant neighbors. "Do what we want, or we will 'by force of arms' do it anyway."

It was not a declaration of war, certainly not in the legal sense. It was, however, a act of aggression that set the world on a course that to this day is still be sailed. The newspapers of the day carried stories, rumors, analysis, commentary and discussion of the note and its potential to…