First World War centenary: War felt impossible in a bright new world - until the dark past returned

It was prosperous and productive too. Advances in technology, the fruits of the industrial revolution, had produced new and increasingly cheaper consumer goods and the means of transporting them to new markets. On the oceans the age of sail was passing into memory as faster and more efficient steamships began to rule the waves, while on land the inexorable march of the railway system helped to shrink distances. Even Russia, so backward 60 years earlier, had managed to acquire 30,000 miles of railroad.

The telegraph, too, had made the world a smaller place: the first transatlantic cable had been laid in 1858 and by 1900, following the inventions of Alexander Graham Bell, Emile Berliner and Thomas Edison, the US, Britain and most of the leading European countries had extensive telephone systems under full or partial government control.

The sense of self-confidence was reflected in the buoyant financial markets. The US had emerged as the strongest economy in the world, accounting for one third of the global industrial output, but its strength was also bolstered by gold-based investment from Europe to the tune of £350 million a year.

Much of it passed through the City of London, making its bankers and financiers part of an international cartel, so inter-linked and mutually dependent were the world's markets. In that atmosphere of financial co-operation the concept of war was not only unbelievable but abhorrent.

In 1910, in his influential book The Great Illusion, the British-American economist Norman Angell contended that the growth of international credit had destroyed for ever the need for great nations to go to war: "How can modern life, with its overpowering proportion of industrial activities and its infinitesimal proportion of military, keep alive the instincts associated with war as against those developed in peace?"

Many other links bound the world together. International bodies had been created to codify the laws of trade, communication, transport and ideas. Tourism had encouraged the middle classes to take their holidays in other countries whose pleasures were extolled by Baedeker's Guides, the bible of the moneyed tourist.

Whether it was the canals of Venice, the French Riviera, or the German spa towns, people came together from all over Europe - provided of course that they had the money to pay for the adventure - and there was an over-riding sense that the beauties of other countries had become communal property.

And yet, despite the coherence of those financial and cultural links, there were disturbing undercurrents. Although there had been well-meant attempts to limit arms production and to revise the rules and customs of warfare, there was no method of diplomatic arbitration: in place of the Concert of Europe, which had given Europe a century of peace, there existed a series of alliances which provided a balance of power of sorts to keep the rivalries in check.

The Hapsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire was linked to Italy and to the new state of Germany in a Triple Alliance; France marched with Russia, and through the Entente Cordiale of 1904 had an understanding with Britain. While the system was supposed to prevent war by making it unprofitable and self-defeating, there was no shortage of powder-kegs. One of them came not from the modern world but from a darker and more dangerous age, and it was in the Balkans in the summer of 1914 that the fuse was lit.

On June 28 the Austro-Hungarian army concluded its exercises in Bosnia with an official visit to Sarajevo by Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the imperial crown.

This was not just the third-last day of the month but a date dear to the Serb nationalist cause: St Vitus's Day (Vidovdan) commemorated the anniversary of the great Battle of Kosovo fought in 1389 between Serb and Ottoman forces. Although it resulted in a defeat for the Serbs it remained a holy day, the date from which Serb nationalists began their long battle against the overlordship of the Ottoman Empire. Six centuries later the Ottomans had been replaced as oppressors by the Austro-Hungarians, but tensions were still running high in Sarajevo, a city which contained a sizable Slav population.

This was no place for an official visit by a leading member of the Hapsburg Royal Family, and what followed was predictable. Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were assassinated by a Slav terrorist called Gavrilo Princip. Subsequent investigation found his six-man terrorist cell had been given substantial assistance by the Serb Army and it was followed by a full confession.

That changed everything. Austria-Hungary demanded its pound of flesh from Serbia and called in favours from Germany. The quarrel intensified when Russia decided to support its fellow Slav nation, the Serbs who had begun mobilising their army against the expected invasion.

It was not quite war by timetable as has often been claimed, but Europe was now sliding inexorably towards Armageddon. On July 28 Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia and two days later Russia began mobilising her armed forces. This prompted Germany to declare war on 30 July and four days later to present France with a separate declaration of war.

Fatally, this was followed by an ultimatum to Belgium demanding the use of its territory for military operations. That settled Britain's position. Not only was she linked to France through the Entente but by an obscure treaty of 1839 she was bound to defend Belgium's territorial integrity. On August 4 an ultimatum was sent to Berlin demanding the cancellation of all military operations against Belgium.

No answer was returned and by 11pm that night Britain was at war with Germany. At the time Britain's foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey recorded the following mournful thought: "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime." The resulting conflict lasted more than four years and cost nine million casualties, and there were no clear-cut winners.

Germany was humiliated by the demands of the Treaty of Versailles which ended the conflict. Russia was plunged into civil war which resulted in the triumph of a Communist dictatorship and long years of repression.

For the Austro-Hungarian Empire it was the end of the line; it disintegrated completely and Vienna would never again play any role in deciding European affairs. Ottoman power was destroyed once and for all: by 1923 the Sultanate in Constantinople was abolished and modern Turkey emerged as a secular republic under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal.

Of the other great powers France suffered in ways the other countries never did. Her casualties were disproportionately high and much of the war was fought over her territory; it was not to be wondered that, having fought the Germans twice in 40 years, she remained unforgiving, and at Versailles insisted that Germany pay for all the damage.

That left the US, by then the world's strongest power, and Britain, which emerged from the conflict as a country and an empire in decline. For many of the estimated 5.8 million Britons who had worn uniform during the conflict it was a curious kind of victory.

The events which took place between 1914 and 1919 meant many things to many people. At the time the conflict was known as the Great War for Civilisation and later, once it was all over, it was often referred to as "the war to end war", a title which owed more to optimism than to any real understanding of the reality that confronted the post-war world. Over the years, once the world had gone to war for a second time within the same century, it became known as the First World War or World War One, to distinguish it from the even greater conflagration which took place between 1939 and 1945.

Whatever the nomenclature, the conflict cast a long shadow over the 20th century, influencing events

and reshaping the world up to the collapse of Communism and the subsequent redrawing of the map of eastern Europe.

Indeed it could be said that the war was the focal point for what can now be considered as the "short 20th century" which began in 1914 and ended properly in 1990, embracing two hot world wars and the long cold war. In that sense the war was a lengthy continuum which had a noisy beginning and several uncertain conclusions before it was finally laid to rest in the century's last decade.

The war also spawned other epithets which have made their way into our language. Those who survived were promised "a world fit for heroes"; those who were less fortunate were the "glorious dead"; those whose bodies were never traced or were atomised in the monstrous slaughter were soldiers "known unto God". It is right and proper in this centenary year that the world should pause and remember them and the events which shaped their lives, not in a spirit of celebration, but in a mood of profound contemplation and commemoration.

The war left other long shadows. Given the length and bitterness of the conflict it was understandable that some soldiers found it impossible to forget what had happened to them. This was particularly true of those who had suffered physically or mentally, and their numbers were legion. The death toll for the British Empire was 908,371. French casualties were 1.4 million, the Austro-Hungarians lost 1.1 million and the Russians 1.8 million. German losses amounted to 2,037,000, the Italians lost 578,000, the Turks 804,000 and the Serbs 278,000.

Although this was an age when men were supposed to suffer in silence and to show a stiff upper lip, the repression of war experience could not disguise the fact that many veterans were condemned to spend the rest of their lives suffering in smaller or greater measure from the effects of war.

It is undeniable that former soldiers continued to die in their hundreds after the Armistice as a result of war-related injuries or illnesses.

The total listed as wounded in the British armed forces was 1,676,037, at least 10 per cent of whom would have been Scots, and until 1939 the annual reports of the Registrar-General for Scotland recorded the numbers of former servicemen who had died as a result of their war wounds. All over Britain charitable organisations such as the British Legion catered for the needs of the veterans but theirs was largely a secret sorrow, usually out of sight and out of mind.

There was also the continuing pain of those who had lost loved ones, women made unseasonal widows, children who would never know their fathers, and parents denied the opportunity of seeing their teenage sons become men.

The popular Scottish entertainer Sir Harry Lauder spoke for all bereaved families when he claimed that the war had been won at a dreadful personal price.

"For a time I was quite numb," he wrote after he received the news of his only son's death in December 1916. "But then, as I began to realise and to visualise what it was to mean in my life that my boy was dead, there came a great pain. The iron of realisation slowly seared every word of that curt telegram upon my heart. I said to myself over and over again. And I whispered to myself, as my thoughts took form, over and over, the one terrible word: 'Dead!'"

For Lauder and for thousands of others who had lost loved ones, the war would never end.