THE GREAT WAR: 1914-1918

Mankind will never stop rehearsing this bloody and melancholy story of the First German War and of the character of Germany. Mr. Terraine's version holds up well in the current spate of books on the subject and is both brief and complete. What Germany knew, right from 1888 when the Kaiser acceded to the throne, was that the inevitable war would have to be fought on two fronts. Little could the German ilitarists have dreamed what would happen. From the War's outbreak there was not a ingle ameliorating truce or conference. Men died between the lines and were left to ot. Bombers bombed indiscriminately. Merchant, neutral and hospital ships were sunk. Poison gas floated over Ypres in a bluish-white cloud. Civilians without regard to age r sex were starved or murdered. The very sky rattled with engines. At the very east 12,000,000 lives were lost. And all because the Kaiser had a mystical dream of German supremacy and liked to wear uniforms. If this seems too simple a view, it should be remembered that the War was in preparation for a quarter of a century and that Germany had had a secret alliance with Austria since 1879. During that time aiser Wilhelm II, as did Hitler later, became the victim of his own dreams... A straightforward review by an English historian which will be vividly, visually implemented by some 300 photographs so that the volume will double as a pictorial documentary of The Great War.