Thunder at Twilight: Vienna, 1913/1914

by Frederic Morton

In July 1916, Fritz Mandelbaum, a junior officer in Austria's Seventh Army on the Russian front near the river Dnjestr, was shot in the abdomen and died shortly thereafter. Twenty four years later the name suffered erasure again. This time it was borne by a refugee boy arriving in New York in 1940. His father changed the family's name. Fritz Mandelbaum became Frederic Morton. The present book deals with the events, ideas, unpredictabilities and inevitabilities surrounding the death of the next Crown Prince, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. It set off the dynamics leading the World War II.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, European History, World War I, War, 20th Century, Historical

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Frederic Morton (born Fritz Mandelbaum) was a Jewish Austrian writer who emigrated to the United States in 1940. Born Fritz Mandelbaum in Vienna, Morton was raised as the son of a blacksmith who had specialised in forging imperial medals. In the wake of the Anschluss of 1938 his father was arrested but later released again. In 1939 the family fled to Britain, and the following year they migrated to New York. Morton said that back in 1940 his father decided, with a heavy heart, to change their family name to Morton in order to join an anti-Semitic labor union. Frederic Morton first worked as a baker but from 1949 studied literature. In 1951 he visited Austria again for the first time after the war, and in 1962 he returned, this time to Salzburg, to marry his fiancée, Marcia, whom he had met at college. From 1959, Morton worked as a columnist for several American periodicals including The New York Times, Esquire, and Playboy . He died in Vienna ,at the age of ninety, on April 2015

Reviews

[Chrissie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book was OK and in giving it two stars I am not criticizing the historical facts presented, but I question some of the conclusions drawn. The book ends with an afterword of sweeping generalizations about the behavior of humanity. This pushed my tentative three-star rating down to two.

I found the language of the book pretty rather than clear. In a book of non-fiction I am looking for clarity. All too often I would ask myself what the author was trying to say. The lines are filled with innuendos. Different interpretations could be drawn. While I do appreciate lyrical writing it has to fit the subject of a book.

The conclusions drawn are not substantiated, neither by convincing arguments nor footnotes to sources.

Finally, the purpose of the book is unclear. It both discusses the historical events that led up to the Austro-Hungarian declaration of war against Serbia and attempts to draw the mood of the times, primarily in Vienna. Emerging thoughts on political trends and psychoanalytical theories are explored by looking at what Hitler, Stalin, Trotsky, Lenin, Freud, Adler and Jung were doing. They were all in Vienna. However, the tie between the psycho-analytical and political themes is not made clear. References are made to contemporary authors, but very little is said about art. I believe the author is trying to draw a connection between the cultural and political climate in Vienna before the war and how this led to the war. I don’t see the connection. The author has failed to make this clear to me.

The audiobook is narrated by Arthur Morey. His intonation further accentuates the author’s diffuse intentions. You hear the author’s queries and the ponderous philosophical tone, yet the reading is clear and easy to follow.

You learn little about the personality of any of the figures encountered - not the assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, not his morganatic wife Sophie, not his uncle Emperor Franz Josef, not even Gavrilo Princip. This too I find disappointing.

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can think of few other books, save Edmund Wilson's To the Finland Station and Andrei Biely's St. Petersburg, that so brilliantly captured the spirit of a time, bringing key figures to life and recreating a vibrant sense of being there. In this case the scene is Vienna, on the eve of the Great War. I was captivated.

In part this may have been because Thunder at Twilight was the antithesis of the rather dry biography I'd just finished (The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh by Linda Colley). Where Colley was pedantic, Morton cut a dash; where Colley was painstakingly comprehensive, Morton was creatively selective. Where Colley was speculative, Morton was boldly assertive. Morton's book was a broad yet believable historical tapestry while Colley's was a dutiful piece of neat embroidery.

And what a cast of characters! Russian revolutionaries (Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky), aristocrats and courtiers of the Habsburg dynasty (foremost among them the Emperor Franz Joseph and the Crown Prince, Franz Ferdinand); future catalyst of WWII, Adolf Hitler; and a host of intellectual and artistic giants such as Sigmund Freud, Thomas Mann, Oskar Kokoschka, and Arnold Schönberg. Impressively, the main narrative thread isn't lost in this colorful swirl of personages; in fact, for a reader with even a modest grounding in European history and culture, these numerous fleeting appearances only add to the vibrancy of the tale.

I was swept up immediately by Morton's heady prose -- at times, I confess, I found it to dip rather heavily into the symbolic or engage in the overly rhetorical flourish -- but still his writing has undeniable evocative power. Here, for instance, is a passage describing the eccentric habit of a struggling artist living in poverty in a Viennese "men's home":

"....Now the brush would drop from his hand. He would push the palette aside. He would rise to his feet.
          "He began to speak, to shout, to orate. With hissing consonants and hall-filling vowels, he launched into a harangue on morality, racial purity, the German mission and Slav treachery, on Jews, Jesuits, and Freemasons. His forelock would toss, his color-stained hands shred the air, his voice rise to an operatic pitch. Then, just as suddenly as he had started, he would stop. He would gather his things together with an imperious clatter, stalk off to his cubicle.
          "And the others would just stare after him."

That, of course, was a sketch of Adolf Hitler.

But what most struck me after reading A Distant Thunder is how well Morton had made clear the causes of World War I. Of course, every school boy knows that the trigger was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Like me, however, many have undoubtedly wondered just who was this Franz Ferdinand to have set off such a sequence of cataclysmic events. Morton makes the ill-fated Crown Prince the central character of his book, and in doing so infuses it with heavy irony, for Franz Ferdinand was, despite all his bluster, a constant advocate of peace, not war. That the Great War was begun ostensibly on his account was the supreme irony.

Morton adroitly renders a sympathetic but unsentimental portrait of Franz Ferdinand, highlighting his problematic relationship with his uncle, the Emperor, and his devotion to his wife Sophie, whom he had married contrary to Habsburg wishes. If there is a tragedy here beyond the insane march to war, it is this story of a prince and the sacrifices he made for his beloved wife, who was continually slighted by a court intent on keeping her down among the "non-royals" in its merciless pecking order.

Finally, as an occasional visitor to Vienna, a city I've long admired, I'm greatly looking forward to reading Morton's other Vienna-inspired history, A Nervous Splendor, which deals with the suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf in 1889.

[Jamie Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not your standard history book. Frederick Morton’s intent with Thunder at Twilight was to create an immersive account of what it was like to live in Vienna between 1913 and the opening days of World War I, describing the city life, the changing seasons, and the political ferment of the times. Lenin and Trotsky lived there, Stalin spent a few weeks during this time, and Hitler lived in a Vienna flophouse for years until he reached the age when his refusal to perform mandatory military service became a crime and he fled to Germany. In addition, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Mann, the composer Arnold Schönberg and the painter Oskar Kokoschka were all part of the city life.

To bring these people and their times to life the author adopts the novelist’s omniscient tone in filling in details, presuming to know people’s thoughts and even such trivial things as what they were having to eat. It makes for some confusion, because while Morton’s account of the big historical events is accurate, he assumes so much with regard to the motives and intentions of the protagonists that the reader starts to wonder just where documented history ends and fiction begins.

The prose is lavish in describing the city and its life, occasionally even a bit ridiculous, as with

In Vienna spring belonged to culture more than to nature. Here spring merged its green arts into the town’s architecture, where seasons bloomed from romanesque to rococo, sprouted as gargoyles, fountains, statues. With its vernal rose windows, its tendrilled friezes, its sculpted bowers and garden amorettos, the Maytime city conjured the poetry of the West. Now it exuberated in the same vein with leaf and petal. Vienna experienced spring as yet another urban fancy, opulent and stylish, moving through its dream of history. (p. 46)

Um, okay. Vienna is pretty in the spring.

Three main subplots occupy the book. First are the Communist revolutionaries, as they scheme and direct subordinates, writing articles for their journals and calling for the creation of a new order which must have seemed a very remote possibility. Second is the struggle between Freud and Jung for the leadership of the psycho-analytical movement, waged, like the Communist movement, through papers and meetings. Third is the political and military maneuvering of the Austrian government as it dealt with challenges and threats both internal and external.

It is this third area which forms the bulk of the book, and is the most interesting part. Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, is described sympathetically but realistically. With the hindsight of history he comes across as the most reasonable, far-sighted member of an otherwise middling bunch of politicians and generals. He understood better than any of them how weak Austria was and how unprepared for war, and he was correct in believing that the Russians would come to the aid of their Slav brethren if attacked. His problem was that he was brusque and abrasive, in a court culture that thrived on subtlety and indirection. Even his father the emperor seems to have found him tedious, and most of their communications were in the form of official memoranda. He disliked the obsequious obfuscation of the court, and despised the officials around the emperor who went out of their way to snub and humiliate his morganatic* wife.

His primary antagonist in foreign policy was Field Marshall Conrad, the head of the armed forces. Although Franz Ferdinand had initially backed him for the job, it soon became obvious that he was a terrible choice, all too ready to use any provocation, real or imagined, for military force, constantly badgering the emperor to be allowed to use his soldiers . The Archduke’s low opinion of Conrad has been borne out by history, and he is often considered one of the worst generals in a war that had many disappointing ones. He was badly beaten by tiny Serbia in the first weeks of the war, losing 100,000 men, and then decisively defeated by the Russians at the Battle of Galicia, where the Austrians lost so much material that they were dependent on Germany for the rest of the war. He also sent soldiers into the high mountains without winter clothing and with no means of supporting them, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths. He never accepted responsibility for any of the failures, always blaming others.

One of the strengths of this book is the description of the geopolitical situation in 1914. Serbian nationalists had a dream of creating Greater Serbia by incorporating their peoples from Bosnia, Albania, Romania, and the Austrian provinces. The Serbian government was actually moderate and realistic, but was undermined by radical factions within the military which were willing to do anything to provoke a conflict which they believed would serve their ends, including murdering their country’s leaders. Among these was the infamous Black Hand, which provided intelligence, weapons, training, and safe passage to the group which was sent to assassinate Franz Ferdinand.

Consider everything that resulted from that fateful day, June 28th, 1914: World War I, the rise of Communism and Fascism, World War II, and the Cold War. Indirectly, it was probably responsible for the great influenza pandemic (which originated in crowded military bases) that killed up to 50,000,000 people worldwide between 1918 and 1920, the Great Depression, and nuclear weapons. It is safe to say that the assassination of the Austrian Archduke and his wife made the 20th century what it was.

The actual event has a Keystone Cops feel to it; the chances of its success were laughably small. One of the assassins threw a bomb which caused minor injuries to an aide to Franz Ferdinand. Even though the Archduke was told the man was in no danger, and would be released from the hospital within an hour, he insisted on going to see him as a display of support for his staff. On the way there the car he was in took a wrong turn, and backing up, stopped directly in front of Gavrilo Princip, the leader of the assassination team. From a distance of five feet he fired two shots, killing the Archduke and his wife, and the curtain rang down on the long European peace.

Many books have been written about the maneuvering in London, Paris, Berlin, Saint Petersburg, and Vienna during July 1914, and understanding the evolving situation requires book-length treatment to do it justice. This book only gives it one chapter, but it is a well written summary, hitting all the major events. Everyone expected Austria to issue demands to Serbia, which Serbia would accept and then issue a formal apology for what had happened, and then everything would go back to normal. However, a subordinate Austrian diplomat (his boss having gone on vacation when it looked like the situation would be peacefully resolved), acting without his government’s authorization, told Berlin that Austria expected full military backing, which Germany felt obliged to publicly offer, and then the Kaiser stepped in to make things much, much worse. “When the crisis broke, [Kaiser Wilhelm] was still away on his Nordic cruise. His ministers tried to keep him there. They knew too well His Majesty’s impulsiveness, unevenness, hollowness – the thunder of his tongue, the shaking of his knees.” (p. 311) His saber rattling unnerved the Russians, who felt they had no choice but to order a partial mobilization. Since Germany’s war plans depended on defeating France within six weeks before turning their armies against Russia, early Russian mobilization could be disastrous. The drums of war began to pound.

The author does a fine job briefly summing up the next few days:

Vienna cabled St. Petersburg that the Austrian Army had mobilized solely against Serbia. St. Petersburg cabled Vienna that the Russian mobilization was only partial and wholly defensive. Berlin cabled Paris about the dangerous consequences of French mobilization. Paris cabled that it mobilized only to protect French security. Berlin cabled London, urging Britain to stop the mobilization of its allies. London cabled Berlin, asking Germany to ask Austria to use mediation, not mobilization, in the Serbian matter. Austria cabled London its willingness to negotiate but without delaying its “operations against Serbia.” London cabled Vienna that it could not remain neutral in a European war. All cables invoked the sacredness of peace. All countries involved kept thrusting bayonets into the hands of their young men.” (p.315-316)

The final pages of the book provide a sense of the wild enthusiasm, bordering on collective madness, that swept through Europe with the declarations of war. Everyone thought it would be quick, victorious for their side, and a great adventure which nevertheless would see them home by Christmas. The feeling of those days is perhaps best summed up by Rupert Brooke in his poem “Peace”

Now, God be thanked who has matched us with his hour,
And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping!
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,
To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,
Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary;
Leave the sick hearts that honor could not move,
And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,
And all the little emptiness of love!
Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there,
Where there’s no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,
Naught broken save this body, lost but breath;
Nothing to shake the laughing heart’s long peace there,
But only agony, and that has ending;
And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.

Brooke himself would enlist and die of sepsis in February 1915 on his way to Gallipoli, one of ten million war dead. He was twenty-eight.

This book is worth reading even if it does sometimes go astray with assumptions of what people were thinking and doing which the author could not possibly have known. It memorably evokes the life and times of Vienna in those fateful years, and clearly explains the larger issues which the protagonists were dealing with. As a history book it is rather odd, but it is a good general introduction to how the conflagration of World War I started.

*all readers keep a few obscure words tucked away in the dusty corners of their minds that they only get to use a few times in their lives, and should never pass up the chance to do so. For me the list includes morganatic, usufruct, and acroamatic.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book contains many unusual, and unusually interrelated, facts. Did you know, for example, that in the years leading up to WWI, Hitler lived "about nine" tramway stops from Freud in Vienna? Or that Freud's apartment had previously been occupied by the Socialist leader Victor Adler, who came up with the idea of May Day? Or that Adler's son Friedrich, named after Nietzsche, eventually assassinated the Prime Minister of Austria, Karl von Stürgkh? Or that Hitler took inspiration from what he considered to be the 'spiritual terrorism' of the May Day marches inspired by Adler? Or that Hitler's last birthday gift to Mussolini, in 1943, was The Collected Works of Nietzsche? Well...maybe you did, maybe you did. But I didn't.

And I enjoyed learning these facts. I hope they're facts, anyway. Frederic Morton, however, sometimes pushes too far to accommodate his taste for synthesis and obscure connection, for comparison and contrast. It's a strange history book in this sense, as well as in the sense that it reads like a novel, complete with what sounds like a jocular early-20th century narrator, commenting ironically on the actions of his characters. I think Voltaire would have enjoyed Morton's merry repetition of 'Hurrah!' as Europe careens inevitability to war.

If you can accept the way the story is told, there's a lot to enjoy here. Morton (real name Mandelbaum), who was born in Vienna in 1924 and whose family fled to the United States after the Anschluss, makes you feel like you're in Vienna. Woefully uneducated about WWI as I am, I hadn't realized how sensible Franz Ferdinand really was, at least in regards to not going to war with Serbia. Kaiser Wilhelm II comes across as vain and not terribly bright, but unexpectedly likable, at least in this limited context- a man who enjoyed fishing, smoking Cuban cigars, and of course, I assume, warfare, but whom it sounds like the Austrians made sure was exploring the fjords when they delivered their ultimatum to Serbia. Gavrilo Princip meanwhile reminded me a lot of Lee Harvey Oswald, as well as Hitler (as Norman Mailer wrote, "all you have to do is pencil in a mustache on any photo of Oswald to see the resemblance")- just another cosmic-class narcissist whose desire to be a part of history, to be someone, drove him to murder. Incidentally, Gavrilo, you assassinated what sounds like the one person who might have actually prevented the Austrians from declaring war on your beloved Serbia. Nice going.

Some reviewers have commented that the book's final chapter seems to contain sweeping generalizations, and I suppose that it does...but there is something eerie in the chorus that Morton assembles, each individual voice singing in essence the same praises for the outbreak of war. Freud wrote, apparently, that "for the first time in thirty years I feel myself to be an Austrian." Hitler wrote that he was thankful to heaven for allowing him to be alive at such a time, that the war had liberated him from the pain of his youth. And a crowd (Morton doesn't tell us how large) gathered on the Ringstrasse to chant "Alle Serben müssen sterben!", which I believe translates roughly as "fuck Serbia." The enemy, Morton writes, "made it possible for them to break through to each other", and it is a generalization, but it also echoes pretty much exactly what Stefan Zweig wrote in Die Welt von Gestern about the fever of nationalism that accompanied the beginning of the Great War.

[Cara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the kind of history book where you can't really tell how much creative liberty the author is taking. A character will do something like "walk into the early morning sunshine, the day's newspaper tucked under his arm, whistling a tune from the latest opera that has been all the rage in cafe conversation."

While this makes for a fun and readable narrative, it does make me feel kind of suspicious the whole time.

That being said, the author does a very good job of creating a mood, and I actually teared up when Archduke Ferdinand got shot, even though I obviously knew it was coming.

[Janez · Rating 4 out of 5]

What were some of the most (in)famous personages like the later Yugoslavian dictator Tito, Soviet madman Stalin, his most fiercest opponent Trotsky, one of the ideologues of communism Lenin, the archenemy of the humankind Adolf Hitler, the psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, doing in Vienna, the centre of the multinational empire, in the fatal years of 1913-14? Tito was working and womanizing (something he kept doing during his presidential tenure), Stalin was conducting a survey on nationalities and perhaps wasn't quite satisfied with the outcome that Austria-Hungary, home of the greatst number of ethnic minorities at that time, was thriving, despite some serious problems. Trotsky as a salon revolutionary was drinking coffee and engaging in the debates in the famous Vienna coffee houses, while Lenin was discovering the beautiful nature of the Tatra mountain range in Cracow or its whereabouts. Hitler was ranting before the indigent people who lived in the municipal halfway houses, painted some postcards in order to survive and in the end escaped to Germany to avoid the conscription. However, the government of the Dual monarchy sent a detective to find him out in Munich and arrest him. He was extradited to Salzburg where his loquacity managed to save him not only from the punishment, but from the soldier duty. Freud was feuding with Adler, thus creating the rift between the two most influential courses of psychology of the day.
In the midst, the intrigues of the Habsburg court, with Franz Joseph I. on one side, aided by the Hofburg camarilla, at whose top was the highest magistrate, prince Montenouvo, representative of illegal branch of Habsburg family, and the young court assembled around the heir of the throne Franz Ferdinand at Belvedere Palace.
And in the depths of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the story of the young assassin Gavrilo Princip, whose "deed" made an end to four empires as well as an era. It also fundamentally pointed the way in which Southeastern Europe, as well as the rest of the Old continent, sombred for almost half a century.
And in the midst of all of it, the Viennese Belle Epoque culture which Morton managed to capture in extremely elegant, yet never boring narrative. I recommend this book to all the aficionados of the Austria-Hungary and to be read together with some political, cultural and economical syntheses of the monarchy that was popularly known as the prison of the nations.

[Mshelton50 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my third time reading this book, and it was just as marvelous as I recalled. In the 1930s, Frederic Morton's family fled Vienna to escape the Nazis, but during the 19th century, they were good Jewish subjects of the Habsburg Monarchy--in fact, Morton's family owned a factory that stamped out Habsburg military decorations. The book covers Vienna in the two years just before the outbreak of the First World War. Naturally, one of the prime subjects is the Heir to the Throne (Thronfolger), Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination in Sarajevo set in motion the chain of events leading to war. As Morton demonstrates, the Archduke would have been appalled; he constantly deplored the efforts of some, including Chief of Staff, Baron Conrad von Hotzendorf, to make war on Serbia, recognizing that such a war would involve Austria-Hungary in a war with Russia. Such a war, Franz Ferdinand realized, would be a catastrophe, one that would likely result in the Habsburgs and the Romanovs losing their thrones. The book is a sequel, of sorts, to Morton's earlier work, A Nervous Splendor, Vienna 1888-89, which focuses on an earlier Heir to the Throne, Crown Prince Rudolph, and his demise at Mayerling. Morton understands Vienna instinctively. He also touches on some of the other occupants of the city in 1913-14, including Hitler, Trotsky, Freud and Stalin. This edition features a new--and very good--afterward written by the author in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI. A terrific read.

[Tim Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before WWI, it was universally believed that whichever country mobilised first would win. Therefore it was safer to start a war than to wait for it. There was a cult of mobilisation. If people had known just how slow trench warfare would be, they wouldn't have been so edgy and the war would probably have been avoided.
The war started because Austria wanted to punish Serbia and stop her agitations within the Empire. One alternative that doesn't seem to have been considered is the wholesale expulsion of ethnic Serbs from Bosnia, leaving only Croats, Muslims and Jews. In some ways, it was a more civilised age.
But in any case, the Austrians had many options short of full scale war. A punitive raid on Belgrade using full-time troops without a mass mobilisation might have avoided war with Russia. It was possible to shell Belgrade from Austrian soil and the Austrians actually did that.
The Austrian ultimatum was designed to be unacceptable; nevertheless the Serbs very nearly accepted it. In particular, they agreed to arrest those the Austrians asked them to arrest, and to shut down those organisations the Austrians asked them to shut down. That would have been a great humiliation for Serbia and of considerable practical benefit to Austria.
In the end, what happened was that the Austrian Empire was totally destroyed and the Serbs got everything they wanted: a united Yugoslavia under their leadership.
But the greatest horror of 1914 was this: when the furnace door was opened, the people of Europe marched in willingly.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thunder at Twilight is a twin to Frederic Morton's A Nervous Splendor in that both are historical accounts of brief periods in Vienna (A Nervous Splendor covers 1888-1889; Thunder at Twilight runs from 1913-1914), and both books climax in the death of the heir apparent to Emperor Franz Joseph I (the suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf in 1889; the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914). Both are highly engaging nonfiction histories using many fictional techniques in their telling. Chapters get shorter as the narrative rushes toward the assassination and (spoiler alert!) World War I. Both books mix the political, social, cultural, and artistic history of the era. Much of the fun of Thunder at Twilight is in reading of the Franz's Joseph and Ferdinand sharing the streets of Vienna with Freud, Kafka, Kokoschka, Schiele, Richard Strauss, Trotsky, Stalin, and Hitler.

Thunder at Twilight was not easy to find (I had to recall it from my university's book storage; it was last checked out in Sept 1992), but it was well worth the search.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Thunder At Twilight" is not the only book Frederic Morton has written about Vienna. The other book, "A Nervous Splendor", preceded this book, and deals with the years 1888/1889. In many ways, this book is a continuation of "A Nervous Splendor", so for completeness sake, I would definitely recommend "A Nervous Splendor" as well, but "Thunder At Twilight" can easily be read as a stand-alone book, too.

Both books are incredibly similar. They deal with two years out of the lives of prominent Vienna figures, with one figure taking the centre stage. In "A Nervous Splendor", it was Crown Prince Rudolf, and the book dealt with his suicide at Mayerling: what led up to it, and how it influenced the city. This book mostly deals with Rudolf's replacement, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination was the catalyst for World War I.

Despite having central figures, Morton talks about various other people who were in Vienna at the time. This way we also learn about Franz Joseph (naturally), Conrad (general of the Austrian army), but also Freud, Trotsky, Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, Princip.. yet the book never becomes crowded. It's always easy to distinguish between different characters, and how they symbolize the time they live in. By doing this, Morton easily succeeds in showing the different ideas people had at the time, and so tries to offer an as complete as possible picture of life in 1913/1914, and how that would later affect European history.

Morton's main character in this novel though, is the city of Vienna: as it should be. Engagingly written, he describes several happenings, the moods of the time, sometimes even discussing the weather. The book is well researched, drawing on several newspapers and other sources from that time. Morton really makes you feel what it's like to live in Alt Wien (Old Vienna), and it's an interesting ride.

I have the same 'problem' with this book as I had with "A Nervous Splendor": the book is well researched, but there are so many details that at times I feel like Morton must have taken artistic license sometimes. The raw facts are most likely true, and he explains the reasons for World War I really clearly. The engaging style just makes the book feel slightly less scholarly to me, but on the other hand it definitely breathes life in a book that could easily have become a compilation of facts and articles.

Overall, Morton's style is extremely readable, and he makes Vienna history a joy to read. He is without a doubt one of my favourite non-fiction writers, and I greatly enjoyed this book. I would definitely recommend it.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book sometime around my final year in college and my first year in grad school. I loved it.

The list of characters who were in Vienna in 1913 and 1914 is amazing: Hitler, Stalin, Trotsky, Lenin, Freud, Carl Jung, Tito, and of course the Austrian rulers (Franz Joseph and Franz Ferdinand) and the assassin of the latter.

Freud by this time was an old man; he had made his contribution to civilization, and now was involved in a struggle against his former student, Jung, over the development of pyschoanalysis.

Stalin, Lenin and Trotsky were not yet where they would end up (Stalin was basically a thug, while Trotsky was still a doctor).

Hitler was a struggling, bitter artist living off his meager inheritance. Marshal Tito was a young sergeant in the Austro-Hungarian army.

Morton does a magnificent job capturing the mood and energy of one of the most vibrant cities in Europe just before the plunge into what would become the suicide of the West. He places the reader in the city and outside of it: we experience the weather, the culture and the overall zeitgeist.

Moreover, Morton's descriptions of the political and military events of the 2 years preceding WWI are brilliantly done. We are given access to the Emperor and his advisors. Ironically, Franz Ferdinand was a voice of reason and restraint concerning the Balkan states. Yet it is his assassination by a Serbian separatist that will spark the Great War.

Morton leads us to that fateful July day in Sarajevo, drawing the reader onward with an almost novelistic tension. We know what is to happen, yet we can't help rooting for peace and reason to save the day.

While this is a history book, it is one of the most fascinating and well-written I have ever read. It is not dry, it does not drag or get bogged down in minute details that so often plague histories. The storytelling is top-notch, and the descriptions and insights into characters who would become world leaders are compelling.

[Troy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a fixation with the years leading up to WWI. The idealism of the pre-war years reminds me of the late 1960s - the progressives honestly believed that they were going to change the world - not in decades, but NOW! They believed in equality for all, but were engulfed by a larger desire for nationalism, racial hate, and grand leaders. The War ended all a certain type of idealism, and that type of decentralized, leaderless idealism went underground until the 60s.

This book has all of that AND it's written beautifully.

There are beautiful passages about the decadence of the ruling classes, and their obsession with an outdated masculinity. Best is the story of Franz Ferdinand. I knew he was an aggressive dick, but I didn't know why. This book makes him out to be a tragic Cassandra. He correctly foresaw that war with Serbia would start a World War, and would mean the death of the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, and the Austrio-Hungarian Empire. He was a peace-nik and hated Austrian society because Austrian society hated his lower-born wife, and the Austrian court snubbed her at every opportunity. The lead up to his death at machinations of The Black Hand is a nail-biting action sequence. Even though we all know how it ends, the way we get to Ferdinand's assassination is exciting and incredible.

There's much more here. Nearly everything in this book is vital, and there's nearly no fat.

[Side Real Press · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part of my ongoing reading about early 20th century Vienna.

I had expected this to be quite a dry book of the years leading up to WWI but actually enjoyed this a lot.

Morton keeps a pretty strict chronology and attempts to give an overview of how various Viennese personages (Freud, Hitler, Stalin, Trotsky and numerous others) lived during their time there. He writes of the weather, the coincidences of time/location the politics and the social affairs of the city to suggest the ambience of the period rather than a straightforward recitation of fact. It makes for an entertaining read in its own right as opposed to it being a 'history book'.

I would have liked a bit more about the writers and artists of the city and felt that the book does feel its age a bit (its thirty years old now) but it is still thought-provoking and, as an accessible inroad to the period, does its job well. If you want a quick accessible overview of the period this will more than do the job.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. Not as good as the first one, A Nervous Splendor, but good. I definitely learned a lot. Anyone interested in history would enjoy this. The author has a great way of making strict facts read like fiction.

[Tenebrous Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rich in detail and beautifully written, this book balances its duty to transmit historical fact with an evocative voice that places the reader in the thick of the events leading up to WWI. Poignant, humane, and fascinating.

[Hermien · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating account of the events leading to the First World War without which the Second World War would not have happened. They were interesting times!

[Bill Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Splendid history -- lively, well researched, and reflective of issues that are still haunting us. Vienna in the months leading up to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was a colorful, festive city of conflict: Austria-Hungary vs. Serbia; Jung vs. Freud; Trotsky vs. Stalin (ideologically at this pre-pick point); and especially Emperor Franz Joseph vs. an archduke who had fractured ties with the Habsburgs by marrying a sub-royal bride and by favoring a less hostile relationship with those Balkan states that were not within the Empire. Like Morton's A Nervous Splendor, this month-by-month narrative over a year, leading up to an event that changed the world. Also like Splendor, the main character is Vienna.

I thought I knew a fair amount about 1913-14 on the eastern end of Old Europe, but there are amazing stories that were largely unknown to me. For instance, I knew the basics of the Colonel Redl spy scandal but not its astonishing details. And I had no notion of how sordid Hitler's last weeks in Vienna were and certainly not how badly the Habsburgs treated the morganatic Archduchess before and after her assassination. In the Habsburg crypt in the Capuchin church, I wondered why Franz Ferdinand was not interred there. Now I know.

Hard not to see parallels between the summer of 1914 and the horrors in the Ukraine today. Austria invaded Serbia over an issue that was more of a cause celebre than an act of war. The much larger country expected an easy victory and eventually dozens of other countries became involved and somewhere between 20,000,000 were dead with even more grievously wounded. The treaty of Versailles and the dominos that fell after 1945 are fundamental building blocks of the modern world. The factors that lead to a near-apocalypse are still out there now, especially the inexplicable love of war (and a kind of glorification of death) by people who should not be in positions of power.

And, always, the sometimes-petty interactions of people and nations that achieve nothing but the acceleration of conflict. Hoping the outcome this time isn't much worse.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't want to repeat what I said about Morton's previous volume 'A Nervous Splendour' which dealt with Vienna and the Hapsburg empire in 1888/89 but it all could be said about this volume. It and the earlier books are the best introduction to the history and culture of 'Mittel Europa' - of Freud, Stefan Zweig, Joseph Roth, Robert Musil, Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka and many, many more - indeed all those who, while not embraced or necessarily liked by the Imperial regime - were somehow nurtured and allowed to prosper by it. That the world Morton writes about also contained the poison that barely a quarter century would happily destroy 'Mittel Europa' and reject all those luminaries.

But Morton is a clear eyed realist, not a nostalgic, I can't think of another nearly forty year old popular history that I would recommend so unstintingly. It is a delight to read and I can't praise it and Morton's preceding volume enough.

[Tory Wagner · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written book on the lead up to World War I. Frederic Morton does a good job of introducing the people and ideals that resulted in the conflict between so many nations.

[Joep · Rating 4 out of 5]

“On a wall of Princip's cell, the following lines were found, written in pencil:

Our ghosts will walk through Vienna
And roam through the Palace
Frightening the Lords.”

[Howard Jaeckel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite a tendency to overdo his metaphors, and to use a profusion of words with which even a reader with an extensive English vocabulary is likely to be unfamiliar, Fredrick Morton writes beautifully. That is one of the many pleasures of “Thunder at Twilight.”

Moreover, his portrait of the personalties and atmosphere of Vienna on the brink of a cataclysm that would entirely change its ethos is vivid and engaging. He also brings to life, and thereby enhances our awareness, of certain well-known historical facts, most particularly the irony of the assassination of Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand, the strongest Hapsburg advocate of a conciliatory policy toward Serbia.

But though most enjoyable and informative, “Thunder at Twilight” is a novelistic historical pastiche rather than a history. It cites no sources for particular facts and does not develop the basis for the author’s key interpretations.

In an “Afterword” to the 2014 edition of his book, Morton writes that his research resulted in “an unwelcome conclusion staring [him] in the face: the leaders didn’t instigate the Great War — their subjects demanded it.” Undoubtedly, the populations of the belligerent nations reacted with frenzied enthusiasm to the declarations of war being hurled around Europe in late July 1914. But in giving public jingoism a starring rather than supporting role in causing the Great War, Morton is plainly at odds with more scholarly works.

After all, it was the chief of Austria-Hungary’s general staff, rather than the Hapsburg public, who had been advocating military action against Serbia long before the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. It was the German government, not crowds demonstrating on the Wilhelmstrasse, that granted Austria-Hungary a “blank check” for action against Serbia. It was not the public that devised a German military doctrine that called for war against France in the event of conflict with Russia. And it was the will of the Kaiser, not popular demand, that instigated a program of naval armament that threatened British naval superiority and thus its national security.

To Morton, the coming of World War I is best explained by the alienation of large numbers of people across Europe caused by industrialization and the decline of religious and traditional
values. This caused them, Morton argues, to seek meaning and community in nationalism and war. He quotes Viennese journalist Karl Kraus as saying, with reference to the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, “no less a force than progress stands behind this deed — progress and education unmoored from God.”

Morton’s analysis says much about the psychological dynamics of mass movements in the modern world. It also goes far in explaining the public exhilaration that accompanied the outbreak of what was to be the bloodiest slaughter in human history to date. But suggesting it was the cause of World War I goes too far.

[Matt Schmalzel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Over the years, I have developed an interest in central and eastern European history in general and in the pre-WWI Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires in particular. The tragedy of the period plays out with the weighty drama of what appears to us as the inevitable, reaching its bloody crescendo in millions of lives lost and entire ways of life for half of a continent irrevocably destroyed.

Thunder at Twilight narrows its scope even further, focusing on the year and a half period immediately before Austria's declaration of war on Serbia - the initial salvo of WWI. The setting is principally Vienna, the elegant and decadent caput mundi of the Habsburg universe, but also the seething cauldron of avant-garde philosophy. The author chronicles not only the political movements of the day, but also the experiences of other important historical figures whose lives contain a chapter set in Vienna in 1913-1914; Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin (briefly), Hitler, Freud, etc.

The author succeeds marvelously in evoking the mood of the period. Austria-Hungary seems a strange bird to our modern eyes, but the author reminds the reader that it was strange in its own day as well. It gracefully sustained the illusion of itself through its gifts of graceful theatricality. Against this backdrop of elegant drama, the author paints compelling portraits of the aged emperor, Franz Joseph, and his nephew and heir, Franz Ferdinand. There is a dynamic tension here between the elderly caretaker of staid tradition and the youthful rebel (as much as an heir to a 700-year old dynasty can rebel...). The relationship between the two men and their various courtiers and hangers-on is well explored. Indeed, the lead-up to Franz Ferdinand's assassination is even rather poignant.

In contrast to the well-drawn portraits of the various dramatis personae, I think the last few chapters detailing the descent into war were rather rushed and somewhat too broad-brushed. Additionally, I have to knock a star for the style of writing, which seemed overly conversational and chock full of idiosyncrasies. My least favorite example is the author's consistent reference to Conrad von Hötzendorf as "General Conrad" throughout the text. This is in direct contrast to every other person who is referred to either by their last name (Berchtold, Trotsky, etc.) or by their regnal name (Wilhelm, Franz Ferdinand, etc.).

In all, a beguiling and instructive portrait of an interesting year and a half in European and world history.

[Kendra · Rating 5 out of 5]

The second time I've read this book. The author has a real gift for evoking the politics and culture of Vienna in 1913-14, where not only the empire's rulers but the nascent communist movement leaders, Hitler and Freud all reside. Morton (the author) describes the events leading to the asassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a young Serbian disgruntled by the Austro-Hungarian empire's rule over his country. You see how the personalities involved, as well as the geopolitical balance of power at that time, led to the decisions made in dealing with the conflict in the Balkans (the Serbian rebellion against Austro-Hungarian rule) that resulted in the Archduke's death--as well as the response to that death. In doing so, the author shows Vienna in that age as a city devoted to masked balls while its poorest members begin to organize May Day marches (and Trotsky who lives in Vienna, Lenin and Stalin begin to fight for the soul of Bolshevism) in protest over their squalid living conditions. Freud's conflict with Jung over the future direction of psychoanalysis is included, as well It's fascinating.

[Tony Brewer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty solid three, although I caution reading only this book and only for informational purposes. The prose is at times obscuringly flowerly - as if he is employing the patois of the times to illustrate his points about the failing Aus-Hun empire. It's a good read and pulled me right along, and read as historical quasi-fiction, it's really quite good.

I also liked the organization of the text. No footnotes or superscript locators. Short chapters and sections. I have read several books on WWI in the years around the centennial mostly to try to grasp the social aspects, not so much the battle strategy, etc. This book is a fine snapshot of the months leading up to shots fired. I also feel there are probably clearer books out there that accomplish the same thing with a bit less flourish. If you are into that flourish, you might rate it higher.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't think of a book that better captures an era than this one.

It reads like a novel and captures the decadence and evil underbelly of the world's most cosmopolitan city before World War I. There's Jung & Freud battling it out, Hitler failing as an artist & dodging the German draft; Lenin & Trotsky & Stalin skulking about; the Kaiser & and the Emperor doing their tap dances; the operas and the actors; the war-mad generals and the pacifist, angry Crown Prince; the poverty and the excess -- the changes wrought by the industrial revolution .... all of it combining to lead to a totally avoidable war that would leave 16 million dead.

Hurrah! as Frederic Morton exclaims in the devastating last chapter.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It paints a wonderful picture of Vienna, the capital of the Habsburg Austrian-Hungrian empire, just before the Great War (a.k.a. First World War). It does so by following the lives of the most important characters in the drama that would eventually ignite the war, as well as the important literary and intellectual highlights of the time. It sometimes reads like a spy-novel, then it is almost like gossip, or geopolitical drama. For me this worked very well. The atmosphere of doomsday hanging over a city that does recognize this, but refuses to acknowledge it, is grasping. If you want to stay in that atmosphere a bit longer, I suggest you read Françoise Giroud's "Alma Mahler, ou l'art d'être aimée (1988)" (also available in English, Dutch).

[Mary Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. It has stayed with me forever. I have it and the sister volume, Nervous Splendor. Both live in my house and remind me that host pry repeats itself and that politicians and monarchs have no particular historical memory. thunder takes place in Vienna. It is the beginning of the end of the 20th century. Franz Josef is hunted in early autumn, preoccupied with the kill and eager to be rid of Von Wilhelm's toad, signs the declaration of war....signs away millions of lives in a stroke of the pen and returns to his prey. There are the most exquisite moments in this book, vignettes of all things past.

[Ann Otto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good narrative non-fiction. Vienna 1913-14 leading up to World War I. I read this just after we returned from Austria and Germany where we visited Vienna, and other places in the book like Schoenberg Castle. A must read first person account for history lovers of this period.

[AC]

A popular treatment..., too "popular" for my tastes... There are better places to spend my time on.

[Scott Hammond · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a continuation of my European history education that wasn't provided during my school years. It wasn't until we started traveling to Europe about 15 years ago, after the kids grew up and left home, that I realized I didn't know very much and was interested in learning more. Again, I'm very interested in learning more about the new places I see. I've also discovered that the local libraries we have around here have very few European history books, particularly of Central Europe (with the exception of WWII). I saw this book in a bookstore in Vienna and added it to my to-read list on Goodreads. Returning home, I wasn't able to find it at any local library, but discovered a used online bookstore, Abe Books, which seems to carry everything, and purchased it there. I don't mind paying used prices.
An early part of my education has been reading about Europe before WWI. I think it is just fascinating learning of this period, how the war started (Barbara Tuchman's Guns of August was my introduction), and society changed almost overnight from one of Kings, Queens and Emperors (all seemingly descendants of Queen Victoria) to a political world we recognize today, with all of the horrors of wars in between.
This book is a very well-written, easy to read, history of Central Europe at the end of the reign of Emperor Franz Joseph, when Vienna was a center of culture. The city today I believe still resembles that time, at least physically.
The last half of the book takes place in 1914, and is naturally focused on Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and his wife Sophie, who were of course killed in Sarajevo on June, igniting WWI, and the anarchists, including Gavrilo Princip, who assassinated them. There was much more detail about Franz Ferdinand and the assassins in this book than in Tuchman's, which covered a broader list of countries (i.e. England, France, Germany and Russia).
The book also introduces us to some other notable 20th Century players, some already famous, some not, who were also living or traveling through Vienna in those years, including, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, Josep Broz (Marshal Tito) and Adolf Hitler.