When we think of the First World War, our minds inevitably drift to the mud of Flanders or the Somme. From a British perspective, the war was fought “over there”—a conflict of expeditionary forces where the homeland remained safe from land invasion.

But for the Central Powers, the war began with a terrifying reality: the enemy was at the gate. In this week’s podcast, I explored Alexander Watson’s Ring of Steel to understand the psychological shock of the Russian invasion of East Prussia and Galicia in August 1914.