Laurent Wirth, distinguished French historian, already author of around fifteen works, has just published “The possibility of the worst. Faced with war 1914, 1939, 2022…” with Editions l’Harmattan. We met him at his home in Creysse.
What is the theme of this book?
This book explores the contrast between the predictability of the wars that have ravaged Europe since 1914 and the astonishment that their outbreak caused.
What is this contrast?
The years preceding the “Great War”, punctuated by numerous international crises, appear today to be an irresistible march towards catastrophe. However, many historians have demonstrated that its explosion stunned the Europeans of the time and that their leaders walked like sleepwalkers to the edge of an abyss.
Is it the same for 1939?
The thirties were marked by an increase in dangers which led to a new catastrophe in 1939. But the Europeans and their leaders went to the extreme of denying reality by accepting capitulation to Hitler’s demands at the Munich conference, in 1938. The pact between Hitler and Stalin on August 23, 1939, caused their astonishment and the debacle of May-June 1940 struck them with astonishment.
What connection with the current era?
On February 24, 2022, when Putin launched his troops to attack kyiv, there was also general astonishment. This aggression, however, appears predictable, as in 1914 and 1939. The crushing of Chechnya in 1999-2000, the intervention against Georgia in 2008, the annexation of Crimea and the support for separatists in Donbass in 2014, the bombings in Syria in 2015: so many sinister preludes to the invasion of 2022.
And outside Europe?
If we add the conflagration in the Middle East since October 7, 2023, the tensions around Taiwan, Putin’s links with Iran, North Korea and China, we can ask ourselves the question of the possibility the worst…
