Folly and Malice: The Habsburg Empire, the Balkans and the Start of World War One

by John Zametica

What on earth was that First World War really about? Some uppity people in the Balkans? Did they start it? Were they pushed into it? The best way to find out is to read “Folly and Malice - The Habsburg Empire, the Balkans and the Start of World War One”, the instant classic a decade in the making authored by historian John Zametica, edited by Marko Gasic. Hailed as “a breathtaking display of how expert historical sleuthing works” (Paul Miller, Hungarian Studies Review, Nov 2020), Zametica has used meticulous, multi-lingual research to unearth definitive answers to practically all the questions that had been left unanswered for a century. Answers which will stand for the next hundred years and beyond. Focusing like many before him on the immediate triggers for war but also on the real motives for action of the competing protagonists from central, south and eastern Europe, Zametica uses his unparalleled knowledge of languages and sources to illuminate those actors, particularly in the neglected way-stations of the Balkans, in a way that has only once previously ever been attempted. Folly and Malice moves forever the goalposts of our understanding of what led in 1914 to the ‘war of wars’. In that parallel world of two competing power blocs the work offers warning lessons to our world of today concerning mindsets that could lead to an even deadlier conflict. The plethora of evidenced discoveries includes the long-sought ‘smoking gun’ of war guilt. And innocence. For “Through meticulous research he proves beyond doubt that the notorious Serbian terrorist group the Black Hand did not plan the plot, nor was the government involved … His vivid description of the murders on June 28 is the best we have.” (Mark Cornwall, TLS, Apr 3, 2018). Zametica additionally opens up the possibility that there may have been not one but two conspiracies which ensured the assassination of the Archduke at Sarajevo on June 28: namely the conspiracy by the young Bosnian students themselves, but also a parallel one at the highest level of the forewarned Austro-Hungarian Empire to ensure these young men succeeded at least in making the attempt. Folly and Malice reveals that fake news about responsibility for the assassination gave the Habsburgs their long-sought excuse to launch war. This work deconstructs the standard story of what led to conflict. It exposes a century of flawed academic research; a litany of errors by the great and the good. The great conspiracy story that wasn't. The great reformer who wasn't. The war-stirring alliance that was desperate for peace. And moving to the wider picture, it begs the is history just intellectual fashion or can we trust it to act like a science? This book offers an utterly unique, once-only treatise on all of the above.

Genres: History, World War I, Nonfiction

809 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 23, 2017

Reviews

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is an enormous canon of writing about the origins of the First World War and this new massive work by John Zametica will be an important contribution. Put simply, its central contention is that it is to Austria-Hungary that one should look to see why the assassination of Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo led to the start of the war. The book analyses in great detail the twists and turns of Austrian policy from the latter part of the nineteenth century. From this, Zametica concludes that "the real powder keg of Europe..was the continued existence of an increasingly panic-stricken and yet assertive Habsburg Monarchy."

In unpacking this contention, Zametica very thoroughly discusses various policy interventions and along the way, severely criticises historians who have sought to attribute responsibility for the calamity on other states such as Serbia and Russia (Christopher Clark's The Sleepwalkers comes in for particular negative criticism).

The book continues the most detailed account of the assassination at Sarajevo that one could possibly envisage - almost minute-by-minute, car by car - and attributes blame for letting this happen on to the pride and incompetence of Governor Oskar Potiorek.

It is important to recognise that the focus of the book is on Austria's role and not on the great power alliances that developed the conflict into the global conflict. Nonetheless, Zametica, through a formidable use of source material, makes a most compelling case for Austria culpability.

This is big book and needs a lot of concentration. I read it over several weeks - with a long break - but leave it impressed with the information that is uncovered and the power of the argument that is made.

[Marko Gasic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Folly and Malice has been reviewed in glowing terms in mainstream and academic publications such as The Historian (journal of the Historical Association), Times Literary Supplement, Hungarian Studies Review and the RIIA's International Affairs. Reviewers were invariably leading historians and the book received huge praise, including from the world-famous Prof. Sir Hew Strachan, Prof. Sir Vernon Bogdanor, Prof. Alan Sked, Prof. Paul Miller-Melamed. It has also been positively referenced by other leading historians including the late Prof. John Rohl; also by Prof. Holger Afflerbach in his book and at an international conference in Vienna where he placed the book in the same category as the works of Albertini, Fischer and Clark. At Goldsmiths College, Prof. A. Watson has put it on the reading list and it is cited extensively on Wikepedia. It looks great to me!

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 1 out of 5]

(I don't often write reviews of books I haven't read but this book intrigued and then disturbed me so I have written the following 'review').

I have searched everywhere for a review of this book in a mainstream publication or an academic journal and found none. I also haven't found evidence of this work being referenced by other historians. This makes me very uneasy because, why I don't doubt that the author has done a vast amount of research in archives in many different countries, that doesn't unfortunately guarantee anything (while I have no intention of comparing John Zametica to David Irving it is worth remembering that Irving was once taken seriously because of his apparently exhaustive archival research). A good historian should read languages and consult archives, but that isn't everything. I have seen this book praised on amazon and GR for bringing attention back onto Austria-Hungary and Imperial Germany in causing WWI but Zametica is not the first to do this. I don't know, because I can't get hold of a copy from the library and have no intention of buying a copy (much as all of us would like to buy every book we want it isn't possible, at least for me) but it appears Mr. Zametica is interested in demolishing older explanations for the outbreak of WWI, and this can result in a work propaganda rather then history.

A great deal of what the author 'reveals' is not new, for example:

"...he documents that Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Austro-Hungarian Heir to the Throne, was anything but a "federalist", modern-minded reformer of the multi-national Hapsburg Empire; that the people who killed the Archduke in Sarajevo were not proponents of the "Great Serbia" project, but supported a "Yugoslav" ideology which they shared with the young Croat intelligentsia; and that the secret "Black Hand" officers' organization in Serbia, far from organizing the assassination in Sarajevo, had in fact tried to prevent it."

None of these statements are new or surprising, all can be found in histories of WWI and Austria-Hungary, even recent biographies of Franz Ferdinand, even popular histories. That some at some point in time may have said these things is neither here-nor-there and demolishing the mistakes, errors, or distortions of older historians does not justify reading or buying this door stopper of a book.

All the, few, reviewers who have bought the book praise it for its wealth of scholarship, but few discuss in any detail this 'scholarship' or what the author is saying. Again I can't help pointing to David Irving who always used 'archives' but shamelessly manipulated them. I don't say Mr. Zametica is doing that but I do think he is fighting old battles and demolishing phantom dragons. I think this 700 page monster of a book has overwhelmed the GR reviewers who are struggling to convince themselves that they haven't wasted their money so none of them are willing to even think they may have been sold a dud.