The World of Yesterday: An Autobiography

This chapter begins in 1910. He recalls loving Europe more during these years than ever before, and being moved by the spirit of possibility and progress that was pervasive all over the continent. Technological advancements brought lighting, public restrooms, and other amenities once reserved for the upper classes into the realm of the proletariat. The workday was shortened. The population in cities exploded. Advances in health, nutrition, and medicine produced happier, heartier people. People were proud of rather than dismissive of youth. Exercise, sporting events, and more sexual freedom were available to young people in a way that they had not been to Zweig as a young man.

However, not all change was good. Expansionist aims were at the root of colonial land grabs as Italy and France sought to enlarge their colonial presence on the African continent. Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia. Various European powers competed and bickered among themselves. He is still unable to pinpoint the origins of the World War I, but he posits the “excess of power” among nations trying to best one another as one cause of the conflict (220). He watched the outbreak of the Balkan wars with uneasiness and wondered if those first rumblings of war would spread northward. He also recalls with regret the lack of cohesive leadership within the intellectuals of the day, most of whom had opposed nationalism, expansionist foreign policy, and war itself, but had no figurehead to organize a united movement against the rising tides of fascism, nationalism, and continent-wide conflict. He did think that the writer Romain Rolland tried to write about the need for unity and peace, and his admiration for his work grew greatly.

Zweig recalls how beautiful the summer of 1914 was in Europe: “[E]ven today when I say the word ‘summer’ I instinctively think about the glorious July days that I spent in Baden near Vienna that year” (237). The beauty of this summer was not to last, and Zweig recalls hearing the news that Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Habsburg throne, had been assassinated with his wife, Sophie, in Sarajevo. Although this event would come to be understood as the catalyst for the start of World War I, its impact on European society was not immediately evident, in part because of how unpopular the archduke had been.

It did not take long for the political ramifications of the assassination to become more apparent, however, and the papers soon began to report more news from the Balkans, where the perceived threat to Serbian independence posed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire had resulted in the assassination of the archduke; the Serbian state now stood accused of playing a direct role in the death of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie. Still, in Vienna there was a general sense that the affairs of the Balkans were far removed from everyday life, and it was assumed that the two governments would sort matters out. Alas, this was not to be. Newspaper headlines detailed the growing unrest in Europe with greater and greater frequency. It was reported that Austria-Hungary would challenge Russia, that Germany was preparing to mobilize its troops, and that Austria-Hungary’s ultimatum to Serbia had been met with an evasive response. By the time that Austria-Hungary officially declared war on Serbia, tourists began to leave their resorts in droves, and Zweig was able to take the last train leaving his seaside village in Belgium bound for Germany. On the way, he saw the mobilization of German forces, and he realized that, in violation of international law, Germany had begun its invasion of Belgium.

Back in Vienna, the atmosphere was surprisingly energetic. People of all walks of life came together in a show of unity that even Zweig, although staunchly opposed to war, found compelling. In hindsight, he is struck by how unprepared Europeans were for the catastrophic social, political, and economic upheaval that the war would bring to the continent. He does not see this same spirit of enthusiasm among Europeans as World War II is getting underway, and he thinks that the lessons learned during the last Great War are still fresh in the cultural consciousness. Zweig could understand the atmosphere of nationalistic support but remained firmly against war, and he took a job in an official military archive rather than enlist. Although he still identified as cosmopolitan, as “European,” there was a nationalistic entrenchment among many of his peers, German writers in particular. He recalls the great impact that such writers and other noted intellectuals had on public sentiment, and describes the way that their “propaganda” created a hawkish, war-mongering attitude within the populace.