LAWRENCE — An author who blames France and Russian for the start of World War I will speak Tuesday night at 7:30 at the Kansas University Lied Center Pavilion in Lawrence. Sean McMeekin is author of “July 1914: Countdown to War,” and his book charges that Russia and France were largely responsible for the outbreak of the Great War, which devastated Europe, created a lost generation and still haunts Europe. Although most historians blame Germany and the Austro-Hungarian empire for the start of the war, McMeekin draws on new evidence from European archives to show that the worst offenders were actually to be found in Russia and France, whose belligerence and duplicity ensured that war was inevitable. McMeekin says that despite the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian heir Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie by Serbian terrorists in Sarajevo, Bosnia, World War I might have been avoided entirely had it not been for a small group of officials in Russia and France who, in the month after the assassination, plotted to use the murder as the trigger for a long-awaited showdown in Europe. His lecture is free and open to the public. . A reception and book signing will follow. August marks the centennial of World War I.
Monday, Jan. 27, 3 p.m.
