A Brief History of the First World War

This account of the First World War begins with the dangerous arms race developing between Germany and Britain in the early 1900s. Europe seems poised for a war, which is ignited when the heir to the Austrian empire is assassinated in 1914. There follow the four dreadful years of trench warfare, with soldiers undergoing constant bombardment and dying in their hundreds of thousands. The final end is ominous too. While an influenza pandemic adds millions more to the global death toll, the peace negotiators in Versailles impose on Germany a harsh treaty that can be partly blamed for a second world war a mere 20 years later.

The series
HistoryWorld's Pocket History series aims to provide short, clear narrative accounts of important themes in world history. Each book consists of the history itself followed by a detailed timeline of the subject and an index. Together they provide a quick and reliable overview of the subject for anyone, from student of any age to pensioner, who wants to discover what happened where and when and why.