Great war ghosts haunt Crimea as Putin's plans unclear

We don’t yet know what Putin’s real agenda is generally with Ukraine and specifically with Crimea. But it echoes the murky events that eventually led to the first global war, writes James G Neuger

WAR was coming to Europe and the French president Raymond Poincare was literally at sea.

Poincare’s trip across the Baltic Sea to St Petersburg to shore up France’s alliance with Russia in July 1914 cut him off from outside contact for days, adding one more layer of uncertainty to the chaotic, ultimately failed diplomacy that ended in the First World War.