| Description |
1 online resource (690 pages) |
| Contents |
Intro; Title Page; Copyright; Contents; List of maps; Introduction; Acknowledgements; 1. Prelude to war; 2. 'Wild with joy'; 3. The opening struggle; 4. From Mons to the Marne; 5. Digging in: the start of trench warfare; 6. Towards the first Christmas: 'mud and slime and vermin'; 7. Stalemate and the search for breakthroughs; 8. The Gallipoli landings; 9. The Entente in danger; 10. The Central Powers in the ascendant; 11. The continuing failure of the Entente; 12. 'This war will end at Verdun'; 13. 'Europe is mad. The world is mad.' |
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14. The Battle of the Somme: 'It is going to be a bloody holocaust'15. War on every front; 16. The intensification of the war; 17. War, desertion, mutiny; 18. Stalemate in the west, turmoil in the east; 19. Battle at Passchendaele; Revolution in Russia; 20. The terms of war and peace; 21. The Central Powers on the verge of triumph; 22. Germany's last great onslaught; 23. 'The battle, the battle, nothing else counts'; 24. The Allied counter-attack; 25. The turn of the tide; 26. The collapse of the Central Powers; 27. The final armistice; 28. Peacemaking and remembrance |
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29. ' ... to the memory of that great company'Bibliography; Maps; Index; Endnotes |
| Summary |
"A stunning achievement of research and storytelling" that weaves together all the major fronts of the Great War (Publishers Weekly). It was to be the war to end all wars, and it began at 11:15 on the morning of June 28, 1914, in an outpost of the Austro-Hungarian Empire called Sarajevo. It would end officially almost five years later. Unofficially, it has never ended: the horrors we live with today were born in the First World War. The Great War left millions of civilians and soldiers maimed or dead. It also left behind new technologies of death: tanks, planes, and submarines; reliable rapid-fire machine guns and field artillery; poison gas and chemical warfare. It introduced U-boat packs and strategic bombing, unrestricted war on civilians and mistreatment of prisoners. Most of all, the war changed our world. In its wake, empires toppled, monarchies fell, whole populations lost their national identities as political systems and geographic boundaries were realigned. Instabilities were institutionalized, enmities enshrined. And the social order shifted seismically. Manners, mores, codes of behavior; literature and the arts; education and class distinctions-all underwent a vast sea change. And in all these ways, the twentieth century can be said to have been born on the morning of June 28, 1914. "One of the first books that anyone should read in beginning to try to understand this war and this century." 'The New York Times Book Review |
| Notes |
Print version record |
| Subject |
World War, 1914-1918.
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HISTORY -- Military -- World War I.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9780795337239 |
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079533723X |
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0795337256 |
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9780795337253 |
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