Raging for over four years across the tortured landscapes of Europe Africa and the Middle East the First World War changed the face of warfare forever Characterised by slow costly advances and fierce attrition the great battles of the Somme Verdun and Ypres incurred human loss on a scale never previously imagined This book with a foreword by Professor Hew Strachan covers the fighting on all fronts from Flanders to Tannenberg and from Italy to Palestine A series of moving extracts from personal letters diaries and journals bring to life the experiences of soldiers and civilians caught up in the war