History of the Great War, 1914-1918

The First World War was not just fought in the muddy fields of France and Belgium on the Western Front.

It was a truly worldwide conflict.


Through the course of fifteen chapters, Carlton J. H. Hayes uncovers the complex causes, events and results of this infamous war that defined the twentieth century.

Rather than simply focusing on the famous battles of Verdun, the Somme, Ypres, Passchendaele, and the Marne, Hayes exposes the battles and conflicts that occurred on the Eastern Front, in the Balkans, in the Near East between the Ottoman and British Empires, in Africa and the Far East, and in the seas of the Atlantic and the Pacific.

Hayes orders the book chronologically so that the developments of the conflict across the world can be seen year by year. This work reveals the complex politics of both the Allied Powers and the Central Powers as each individual nation had aims and desires which they wanted to support while continuing to fight their common enemies.

As the Western Front began to be tied down in trench warfare the various other fronts around the world were also in conflict.

With the Anglo-French failures at the Dardanelles and on Gallipoli, the escalating U-boat raids in the Atlantic, Bulgaria’s conquest of Serbia and the crumbling of the Russian Empire on the East Front, it looked as though the Central Powers were close to victory.

Yet, in the end, the Allied forces did overcome the Central Powers and Hayes provides a thorough analysis of why and how they were able to do this.

“The magnitude, complication, deep-seated causes, intricate relations and numerous and far-reaching results of the struggle gave opportunity and unclear treatment. Yet the author has produced a work notable for good proportion and balance, for coherence and lucidity, for a just measure of relative values and for a penetrating perception of the truth.” Earl E. Sperry,



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