Friday, June 4, 2010

1914 Redux: Watching Austria, Hungary

In a 2008 post, "Why the heck should I care about Iceland?" I said:
...Reading Mr. Evans-Pritchard's Balkan reference, you can almost hear a muted drumbeat of 1914. Spooky.
During his time at Trinity College, Cambridge Mr. Evans-Pritchard probably read a bit of European history; in April of this year he got me going again when I said:
Gather round kids while Uncle Ambrose tells us about the spring of 2010....
A very obscure evocation of a Solzhenitsyn title, "August 1914".
This meandering was prompted by this morning's headlines:

MarketWatch:
Report: Hungary official says economy 'grave'

MarketBeat:
Really? Now We’re Worried About Hungary?

ZeroHedge:
Europe's Core Is Burning, As Austria Next On The Implosion Radar; German, France CDS Blow Out

Here's hoping that I don't have to trot out Tuchman's "The March of Folly" as my next reference.
Or worse, her "The guns of August".