When the Lamps Went Out  No single government or nation deserves
blame for World War I. But the question remains: How could such
a calamity have occurred?  March 22, 2013 4:57 p.m. ET  The
historian Fritz Stern described World War I as "the first
calamity of the twentieth century, the calamity from which all
other calamities sprang." It takes only the barest knowledge of
the war to grasp his point. The war and its appalling slaughter
strained combatant nations to the breaking point. By the end, it
had overthrown dynasties, shattered empires and reconfigured the
map of Europe—unleashing all sorts of political forces and
intensifying sympathies and resentments that would themselves
wreak havoc on history. In various ways, as we now know in
retrospect, World War I helped to bring about the...  Available
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