This book unravels the complicated and tragic events of the Eastern Front in the First World War. The author details Russia's sudden attack on German forces, despite her inadequate resources. A crushing defeat at Tannenberg was followed by Germany inflicting humiliation after humiliation on desperate Russian troops. For a while, those forces led by General Brusilov and facing Austria-Hungary fared better, but in the end this front too collapsed. Morale plummeted, the army began to disintegrate, and the Tsar was forced to abdicate - paving the way for the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917.

More than 80 years on, the Great War - and particularly the great battles such as the Somme and Verdun - continues to fascinate us and to cast long shadows over the world in which we live. For Britain, the effort and sacrifice involved in creating and sustaining its first-ever and biggest-ever mass citizen army, and in helping to defeat the main enemy in the decisive theatre of operations, left deep emotional and psychological scars that have influenced much of the nation's subsequent history and that are still felt today. In this volume Peter Simkins re-examines the struggle and sheds an interesting new light on the nature, course and effects of the fighting in France and Belgium from 1914 to 1916.

In this, the second volume covering the war on the Western Front, Peter Simkins describes the last great battles of attrition at Arras, on the Aisne and at Passchendaele in 1917. Then he moves on to relate the successive offensives launched by Germany in the spring and summer of 1918 in an effort to achieve victory or a favourable peace before American manpower proved decisive. Again, questioning and correcting several myths and long-held assumptions about the nature and conduct of war on the Western Front, the author also looks at the aftermath and legacy of the 'war to end wars'.

The First World War in the Mediterranean represented more than just a peripheral theatre to the war on the western front. This engaging volume includes details of allied attempts to capture Constantinople; bloody campaigning in Northern Italy; the defence of the Suez Canal and the defeat of the Turkish army in Palestine. The Arab revolt, skirmishes in North Africa and the entrapment of a huge allied garrison in Greece - the 'worlds biggest prison camp' as the Germans described it - are also covered. The result was the fall of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires and the birth of nations unknown in 1914.