The Great War: 1914-1918

✍ Scribed by Ian F.W. Beckett

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 854
• Series: Modern Wars in Perspective
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The course of events of the Great War has been told many times, spurred by an endless desire to understand 'the war to end all wars'. However, this book moves beyond military narrative to offer a much fuller analysis of of the conflict's strategic, political, economic, social and cultural impact.

Starting with the context and origins of the war, including assasination, misunderstanding and differing national war aims, it then covers the treacherous course of the conflict and its social consequences for both soldiers and civilians, for science and technology, for national politics and for pan-European revolution.

The war left a long-term legacy for victors and vanquished alike. It created new frontiers, changed the balance of power and influenced the arts, national memory and political thought.

The reach of this acount is global, showing how a conflict among European powers came to involve their colonial empires, and embraced Japan, China, the Ottoman Empire, Latin America and the United States.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Half Title
Title
Page
Copyright
Page
Table of
Contents
List of maps and plates
Preface and acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Chronology
Dedication
Maps
1.
Another country?
Industrialisation and the state
Ideology and the nation-state
Notes and references
2.
Guns in August
Alliances and the European state system
Imperial Germany and Weltpolitik
Imperialism, capitalism and militarism
Vienna and the domestic imperative
From ‘Third Balkan War’ to world war
Notes and references
3.
Over by Christmas
Expectations of war
War plans
The failure of the war plans in the west
The Eastern Front
Notes and references
4.
Widening horizons
The contribution of empire
The Balkans and beyond
Distant waters
The economics of belligerency and neutrality
Notes and references
5.
Westerners and Easterners
Civil–military relations
The politics of coalition
Strategy and war aims: the Entente
Strategy and war aims: the Central Powers
Notes and references
6.
New ways of war
Science and war
The exercise of command
The war on land
The war at sea
The war in the air
Notes and references
7.
Nations in arms
Conscription and manpower
The voluntary spirit and its limits
The experience of military service
Morale and discipline
Notes and references
8.
War and the state
The growth of government
Economic management
War and industrial mobilisation
Food supply
State welfare
Management of morale
Notes and references
9.
War and society
Life and death
Class
Labour
Women
Social mores and leisure pursuits
Notes and references
10.
War, politics and revolution
Leadership
Opposition
Revolution
Notes and references
11.
Victors and vanquished
Defeat and revolution
The Paris peace conference and the peace
settlements
Political values and the politics of the ‘front
generation’
Notes and references
12. Wastelands?
Memory and commemoration
War and culture
War and the silver screen
War and history
Notes and references
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index