‘Find a reason to go to war with Germany’: Shocking letter documents how King George V urged his foreign secretary to justify conflict two days before outbreak of First World War

‘Find a reason to go to war with Germany’: Shocking letter documents how King George V urged his foreign secretary to justify conflict two days before outbreak of First World War

‘A secret letter which documents a private meeting between King George V urging his Foreign Secretary Edward Grey to go to war with Germany two days before the outbreak of the First World War has been unearthed.
The incredible note, sent during one of the most difficult times in British history has been made public for the first time, by Adrian Graves, Sir Edward’s great-great-nephew and grandson of Sir Cecil Graves.
King George V, who had stayed away from making public declarations about Europe as his hands were tied as a constitutional monarch, said it was ‘absolutely essential’ Britain go to war in order to prevent Germany from achieving ‘complete domination of this country’.’
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The Lessons of World War I: The 100th Anniversary of the Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

‘June 28, 2014 is the 100th anniversary of the famous political assassination in Sarajevo, Serbia, that was the spark that started World War I, the war that was widely called “the war to end all wars”, because of the unendurable mutual mass slaughter of an entire generation of young European men (on all sides of the war).
On June 28, 1914, the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, one of the wealthiest men in Austria, was murdered in Sarajevo.’
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The Sinking of The Lusitania, America’s Entry into World War I, A Bonanza for Wall Street

‘Six days later, on the afternoon of Friday, May 7th, 1915, the Lusitania approached within 12 miles of the southern Irish coast. Winston Churchill, the Lord of the Admiralty, knew that German U-boats were operating in the area after three ships had been sunk in the previous 2 days. Not only did Churchill not come to the assistance of the Lusitania but he ordered her planned escort, the destroyer Juno, to return to Queenstown harbour. Earlier, the Lusitania had been ordered to reduce speed by shutting down one of her four boilers (ostensibly to save coal). She was a sitting duck and the entire Admiralty knew it.
Lusitania -Winston_ChurchillAt least one of Churchill’s officers, Commander Joseph Kenworthy, was disgusted at the cynicism of his superior. In his 1927 book, The Freedom of the Seas, he would write: “The Lusitania was sent at considerably reduced speed into an area where a U-boat was known to be waiting and with her escorts withdrawn.”’
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