The First World War

The First World War created the modern world. A conflict of unprecedented ferocity, it abruptly ended the relative peace and prosperity of the Victorian era, unleashing such demons of the twentieth century as mechanized warfare and mass death. With this volume, the author attempts to write a definitive account of the Great War. Probing the mystery of how a civilization at the height of its achievement could have propelled itself into such a ruinous conflict, the author takes us behind the scenes of the negotiations among Europe's crowned heads and ministers, and their doomed efforts to defuse the crisis. The author also analyzes the military conflicts by recreating the primary engagements and analyzing the strategies and tactics employed, particularly the contributions of geography and technology. No less central to the author's account is the human aspect, including both state leaders and those whose individual efforts history has not recorded.