Publisher's Synopsis
A General Sketch of the European War is a classic World War One history text by Hilaire Belloc. It is the object of this World War One history, and those which will succeed it in the same series, to put before the reader the main lines of World War 1 as it proceeds. Each such part must necessarily be completed and issued some little time after the events to which it relates have passed into history. The present first, or introductory volume, which is a preface to the whole, covers no more than the outbreak of hostilities, and is chiefly concerned with an examination of the historical causes which produced the conflict, an estimate of the comparative strength of the various combatants, and a description of the first few days during which these combatants took up their positions and suffered the first great shocks of the campaigns in East and West.
