The Emperor and the Peasant

<p> There was more to World War I than the Western Front. This history juxtaposes the experiences of a monarch and a peasant on the Eastern Front. Franz Josef I emperor of Austria-Hungary was the first European leader to declare war in 1914 and was the first to commence firing. Samuel Mozolak was a Slovak laborer who sailed to New York--and fathered twins taken as babies (and U.S. citizens) to his home village--before being drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army and killed in combat.</p><p> The author interprets the views of the war of Franz Josef and his contemporaries Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II. Mozolak's story depicts the life of a peasant in an army staffed by aristocrats and also illustrates the pattern of East European immigration to America.</p>