Telegram Failures During the July Crisis
Poets involved
What happened
After Archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassination in Sarajevo, European governments exchanged ultimatums, telegrams and partial mobilisation orders. Delays, ambiguous promises and different understandings of military timetables narrowed the room for negotiation. The informal Willy-Nicky telegrams between the German and Russian emperors failed to halt mobilisation and war.
Literary impact
The collapse of diplomatic language created the historical catastrophe confronted by Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Isaac Rosenberg and countless other war poets. Their work repeatedly contrasts official abstractions such as honour and necessity with bodily experience in the trenches.
Source: Wikipedia
