author
Fürst von Karl Max Lichnowsky
1860–1928
A German diplomat at the center of Europe’s last prewar crisis, he is remembered for trying to warn his government how dangerous the summer of 1914 had become. His later memoir-like pamphlet made him one of the most discussed insider voices on the road to World War I.
1 Audiobook
My Mission to London, 1912-1914
by Fürst von Karl Max Lichnowsky
About the author
Born on March 8, 1860, in Upper Silesia, Karl Max Fürst von Lichnowsky was a German aristocrat and career diplomat. He entered the German Foreign Office in the 1880s and later served in a series of embassy posts before becoming Germany’s ambassador to Britain in 1912.
That London posting placed him in a crucial position during the July Crisis of 1914. He argued for restraint and believed Britain was likely to join France and Russia if war broke out, but his warnings did not carry the day.
Lichnowsky became especially well known for a 1916 pamphlet, later widely circulated, in which he sharply criticized German diplomacy in the lead-up to the First World War. He died on February 27, 1928, leaving behind a reputation as an unusually candid witness to one of Europe’s defining disasters.