With the exquisite turn of phrase for which she was so highly regarded, Barbara Tuchman once likened the Austro-Hungarian declaration of war against Serbia of 28 July 1914 to an example of “the bellicose frivolity of senile empires”.

On 28 June 1914 Gavrilo Princip shot and killed the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. A little over a month later Europe was ablaze.