1914

Year 1914 (MCMXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) in the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Wednesday in the Julian calendar. It was the year that saw the beginning of what became known as World War I.

Quotes

 * Thoughts and pictures come to my mind, . . . thoughts from before the year 1914 when there was real peace, quiet and security on this earth—a time when we didn’t know fear. . . . Security and quiet have disappeared from the lives of men since 1914.
 * Konrad Adenauer, Cleveland West Parker, January 20, 1966, p. 1. Quoted in the article How We Know We Live in the “Last Days”, in The Watchtower magazine, April 1, 1967.


 * The First World War changed everything. In the summer of 1914 the world economy was thriving in ways that look distinctly familiar. The mobility of commodities, capital and labour reached levels comparable with those we know today; the sea lanes and telegraphs across the Atlantic were never busier, as capital and migrants went west and raw materials and manufactures went east. The war sank globalization - literally. Nearly thirteen million tons of shipping went to the bottom of the sea as a result of German naval action, most of it by U-boats. International trade, investment and emigration all collapsed. In the war's aftermath, revolutionary regimes arose that were fundamentally hostile to international economic integration. Plans replaced the market; autarky and protection took the place of free trade. Flows of goods diminished; flows of people and capital all but dried up. The European empires' grip on the world - which had been the political undergirding of globalization - was dealt a profound, if not quite fatal, blow. The reverberations of Princip's shots truly shook the world.
 * Niall Ferguson, The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (2006), pp. 73


 * The succession of events since 1914 has swept away so many illusions that even a summary inspection of the heap of ideological ruins would demand the compilation of a veritable encyclopaedia. The summer of 1914 witnessed the collapse of all those hopes which had been built on a peaceful evolution of the capitalist world, and it also witnessed the breakdown of.
 * Lucien Laurat, Marxism and Democracy, 1940, published by the , Victor Gollancz Ltd, London; translated by Edward Fitzgerald. Text online at the ''.


 * Everything would get better and better. This was the world I was born in. . . . Suddenly, unexpectedly, one morning in 1914 the whole thing came to an end.
 * Harold Macmillan, Stated in 1980 former British prime minister. Quoted in the article The Kingdom and “a Holy Place”, in the The Watchtower magazine, September 15, 1982.


 * Since 1914 the world has had a new character: a character of international anarchy.
 * H. R. Trevor-Roper, British historian said in 1954. Quoted in the article When Will God’s Will Be Done on Earth?, in the The Watchtower magazine, February 1, 1971.