Publisher's Synopsis
On 28 June 1914, two pistol shots shattered the peace of a sunny afternoon in Sarajevo. Those shots reverberated around Europe and shattered the peace of the world. This was the beginning of the Great Slaughter. Could it have been avoided? As well as dealing with the origin of the war, Woods traces the conflict through its development, looking at the role of all the major actors, and their imperialist aims. He shows how, in the midst of the despair of the trenches and the home front, a new consciousness was formed.
