Publisher's Synopsis
The First World War was a war of extraordinary intensity and one which has shaped the history of the twentieth century. It was the first conflict in which aeroplanes, submarines, and tanks played a significant role, the first in which casualties on the battlefield outnumbered those from disease. The USA's entry into the war and the part it played in the peace settlement signalled the arrival on the world stage of a new great power. The victors at Versailles took nationalism as one of their guiding principles; they also aimed at instituting their vision of liberalism and even democracy; the political consequences are still being played out. In this extensively illustrated book, an international team of experts explores the war in all its different aspects. From its causes to its consequences, from the Western Front to the Eastern, from the human consequences assessed. Chapters on economic mobilization, the impact on women, the role of propaganda, and the rise of socialism establish the wider social context of fighting which took place at sea and in the air and which ranged on land from the Flanders trenches to the Balkan mountains and the deserts of the Middle East. While the war was fought on many fronts and in many different ways, the unifying experience of participants was that of the trenches. The legacy of 'the war to end wars' in poetry and prose, in collective memory and political culture is with us still, eighty years after that first Armistice Day.
