The last summer before the apocalypse of World War I...

Everywhere in Europe in June, 1914, there was talk of tensions among the alliances.  This time was also known as the "last summer" before World War I began.

It would be remembered with great nostalgia and sadness by those who survived World War I.  Let's check in on what was happening during that time:

Coco Chanel had just opened up a second store in Paris, on the Rue Cambon...where there is a Chanel store even today.

 Oskar Kokoschka, the painter, was finishing up his masterpiece, Bride of the Wind.

Sigmund Freud was writing his paper, "On Narcissim."

It was a beautiful June--but little did the peoples of Europe realize that by the end of the summer, over half a million Europeans would be dead and wounded in the opening month of the Great War.
In the years to follow, millions more would die.   The end of the war brought a fractured peace treaty...which led to the rise of Hitler and yet another war.   All who lived through both wars would say, that the last beautiful summer was that of 1914.   Thirty years later, much of great European cities in Poland, Austria, and of course, Germany, lay in ruins.