'European Elephants in the Room (are they the ones with the bigger or smaller ears?)

Abstract

On 4 August 1914 Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Secretary, reportedly stood in front of his office window looking out onto the dawn of St James Park as the street lamps were being extinguished and famously declared: 'The Lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime'. 4 August was the day the British declared war on Germany. His eerily prophetic statement came to represent the devastation of two world wars and the horrendous interwar period that followed.