The start of the summer had been filled with hope. Burnley had just beaten Liverpool in the FA Cup final, thanks to a goal by England international Bert Freeman. The weather was gorgeous, noted the poet Alice Meynell, with moon after moon “heavenly sweet” as the “silken harvest climbed the down”.
Abroad too, things looked peaceful, as one senior diplomat observed. “I have not seen such calm waters since I have been at the Foreign Office,” wrote Sir Arthur Nicolson, until recently ambassador to Russia, and now permanent undersecretary for foreign affairs. It was May 1914.
