The First World War

Industrial and ironclad power reached its culmination in the war that engulfed Europe. As events would prove, however, the products of the industrial system of the 20th century, including the capacity of the system to transfer vast reserves of manpower from civilian to military employment at short notice, much more greatly favoured strategies of defence than offence. The outcome was a war of attrition and immobile fronts, eventually to be unlocked only when a second wave of industrial innovation yielded means—the tank, the aeroplane—to break the stalemate. This is a complete history of World War I. It is illustrated throughout and incorporates computer-generated cartography to bring the battlefields to life.