Isvolsky and The World War - Based on the Documents Recently Published by the German Foreign Office

1926. First edition. 254pp. Count Alexander Petrovich Izvolsky (1856-1919) was a Russian diplomat remembered as a major architect of Russia's alliance with Great Britain during the years leading to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. As Foreign Minister, he assented to Austria-Hungary's annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908 in exchange for Austrian support for the opening of the Turkish Straits to Russian warships. In the resultant Bosnian Crisis of 1908–1909 the Powers did not accept the opening of the Straits. Izvolsky, publicly humiliated and destroyed by the debacle, resigned as Foreign Minister in 1910. This book on his career and the lead-up to the First World War is based on four volumes containing the diplomatic correspondence of Isvolsky between 1911 and 1914, published by the German Foreign Office. It contains the following chapters: Isvolsky's Earlier Career, The Year 1911, Isvolsky and Poincare, The First Balkan War, The Second and Third Balkan wars, Towards the World War, and Conclusion. The book is bound in the original purple cloth covered boards with gold titling on the spine. The case of the book is in very good condition with shelf wear and some light soiling to the boards and bumping to the top front corner. There is fading along about 1" of the top edge and 1/2" of the spine edge of the front board and the spine is also faded with some soiling and light staining. The spine ends are bumped. The contents are tight and clean. This copy was presented to the Royal Historical Society and there is a circular stamp of the Society on the title-page with a similar stamp overlaid with a 'cancelled' stamp on the half-title page. There is an inscription reading "Presented by Lady Prothers, May 1927" on the front free endpaper (Lord Prothers, Sir George Walter Prothers, attended the 1919 Paris Peace Conference as an advisor to the Foreign Office).…