The discussion about the outbreak of the First World War has been raging...until this work. German historians Ritter and others steadfastly refused to admit the German war guilt. Fritz Fischer, Geiss' mentor, so upset the German "historical establishment" when he published his denunciation of German innocence, that the German government cut his funding and did not allow him to travel. Geiss knew all this and, in a very objective, and clever selection no pours concrete into the walls of arguments that Fischer had erected. After reading this book, there will be no doubt who caused the war and how it was done.