It is almost easier to say what Dance of the Furies is not rather than what it is. Neiberg's book is not a recounting of war plans or the diplomatic chicanery behind the coming of the war. These events are, of course, mentioned, and there is an assumption that the reader has a knowledge of these happenings. Nor is the book an assessment of which country bears what responsibility, although the author clearly sees Austria-Hungary setting things in motion. Instead, Neiberg writes about a Europe whose people were not longing for war and whose sudden appearance took nearly everyone by surprise. Nonetheless, the nations went to war with an acceptance of the necessity for the conflict stemming from a belief that they were defending themselves. That illusion, notes the author, did not last longer than the promise to have the soldiers home before the leaves fell, and the mounting casualties and growing animosity toward those seen as responsible for the war left individuals and states with no practical alternative but to keep fighting. His is an interesting and convincing theory that widens our understanding of the origins and nature of the conflict.
Neiberg lays the blame on a ponderous diplomatic system that collapsed like a house of cards when the Austrians abruptly changed the accepted rules with their ultimatum and its unprecedented deadline. The speed at which events subsequently unfolded overwhelmed the dozen or so men who either ignited the crisis or tried or did not try hard enough to avert it. Instead, millions of Europeans who were soon to become its victims were hurried along to an undesired and unwilling fate. That is a strength of the book—showing how the millions were caught in a maelstrom with a speed that bewildered them as much as the events that seemed too insignificant to ignite such a conflagration.
The author uses mainly published memoir materials to gauge public opinion, refuting that Europe was a tinderbox ready to explode. Public opinion generally mattered in all the countries, more in some than others. Even autocracies took note of it. Where Neiberg excels is in showing how little public opinion factored in this crisis. Prior to the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, Europeans, he argues, felt good about the future and the prospects for peace. A process for resolving problems existed, one in which the peoples of Europe had confidence. He demonstrates how a smooth, if plodding, system of diplomacy had in fact previously provided numerous successful endings to seemingly more volatile or intractable challenges. The shock of the assassination momentarily caused Europe to tremble, but that continent had seen worse, and the tremor soon passed. Some sympathy did rest with Austria, but like everything with its fifteen minutes of fame, it quickly passed. And sympathy only went so far. Neiberg convincingly shows how few believed the Sarajevo assassinations provided justification to plunge Europe into war. When the Austrians finally issued their ultimatum with its unprecedented forty-eight-hour deadline, the actions and reactions of the great powers unfolded with such terrifying speed that no one had time to consider the public, which saw no reason for war. As Neiberg points out, government responses, whether made in democratic or autocratic states, came too fast to take opinion into consideration. There were no parliamentary debates, no tallies of who was in favor of or who opposed war. Fewer than a dozen men made decisions that led to the deaths of millions.
Histories of the war are filled with pictures of soldiers mobilizing in 1914 amid enthusiastic crowds, but Neiberg's illustration is a transnational one of citizens and soldiers who performed a somber sense of duty animated by the feeling that culture, nation, even civilization, had come under the gun. That righteousness lasted about as long as the short war myth. The combatants did not enter the war gradually or gently; 1914 saw the highest casualty rates of the war. Disillusion rapidly followed, and coupled with the almost immediate privations imposed on civilians, led to a rapid demonization of the other side that served only to stoke hatred and prolong the conflict.
The author writes lucidly and clearly, using contemporary sources with skill. He looks at Europe from a transnational perspective rather than the alignment of Entente and Central Powers, an approach that reveals a more cosmopolitan and less bellicose society. The book is well documented with endnotes, but unfortunately there is no bibliography. That is a very minor point in an important book that should be mandatory reading for a wider comprehension of the outbreak of the Great War.
