The war that ended peace

The century since the end of the Napoleonic wars had been the most peaceful era Europe had known since the fall of the Roman Empire. In the first years of the twentieth century, Europe believed it was marching to a golden, happy, and prosperous future. But instead, complex personalities and rivalries, colonialism and ethnic nationalism, and shifting alliances helped to bring about the failure of the long peace and the outbreak of a war that transformed Europe and the world.