In "The Guns of August," Barbara W. Tuchman illustrates the precarious nature of European alliances and military strategies prior to World War I. She likens the continent to a disordered pile of swords, emphasizing how the situation was tightly interwoven. Removing one element, such as a nation or an alliance, would inevitably disturb the balance and provoke conflict among the others.

Tuchman highlights the fragility of peace in Europe, suggesting that the interconnectedness of countries made it nearly impossible to avoid war. The metaphor of the swords serves to convey the volatility of international relations at the time, where any single action could set off a chain reaction that would lead to widespread warfare.