The First World War, now a century ago, still shapes the world in which we live, and its legacy lives on, in poetry, in prose, in collective memory and political culture. By the time the war ended in 1918, millions lay dead. Three major empires lay shattered by defeat, those of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottomans. A fourth, Russia, was in the throes of a revolution that helped define the rest of the twentieth century.

The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War brings together in one volume many of the most distinguished historians of the conflict, in an account that matches the scale of the events. From its causes to its consequences, from the Western Front to the Eastern, from the strategy of the politicians to the tactics of the generals, they chart the course of the war and assess its profound political and human consequences. Chapters on economic mobilization, the impact on women, the role of propaganda, and the rise of socialism establish the wider context of the fighting at sea and in the air, and which ranged on land from the trenches of Flanders to the mountains of the Balkans and the deserts of the Middle East.

First published for the 90th anniversary of the 1918 Armistice, this highly illustrated revised edition contains significant new material to mark the 100th anniversary of the war.

Sir Hew Strachan was born in Edinburgh in 1949, and was educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he was a Fellow between 1975 and 1992. He was Professor of Modern History at the University of Glasgow between 1992 and 2001, and founded its Scottish Center for War Studies. From 2002 to 2015 he was Chichele Professor of the History of War at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of All Souls College, and between 2003 and 2012 he directed the Oxford Program on the Changing Character of War. Since 2015 he has been Professor of International Relations at St. Andrews University. The first volume of his planned trilogy on the First World War, To Arms, was published in 2001, and in 2003 he was the historian behind the 10-part series, The First World War, broadcast on Channel 4. He is a Commonwealth War Graves Commissioner and a Trustee of the Imperial War Museum, and serves on the British, Scottish, and French national committees advising on the centenary of the First World War.

Introduction, Hew Strachan
1. The Origins of the War, Samuel R. Williamson, Jr
2. The Strategy of the Central Powers, 1914-1917, Holger Afflerbach
3. Manoeuvre Warfare: The Eastern and Western Fronts, 1914-1915, D. E. Showalter
4. The Strategy of the Entente Powers, 1914-1917, David French
5. The Balkans, 1914-1918, R. J. Crampton
6. Turkey's War, Ulrich Trumpener
7. The War in Africa, David Killingray
8. The War at Sea, Paul G. Halpern
9. Economic Warfare, B. J. C. McKercher
10. Economic Mobilization: Money, Munitions, Machines, Hew Strachan
11. The Role of Women in War, Susan Grayzel
12. The Challenge to Liberalism: The Politics of the Home Fronts, J. A. Turner
13. Eastern Front and Western Front, 1916-1917, Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson
14. Mutinies and Military Morale, Alexander Watson
15. War Aims and Peace Negotiations, David Stevenson
16. Propaganda and the Mobilization of Consent, J. M. Winter
17. Socialism, Peace, and Revolution, 1917-1918, John Horne
18. The Entry of the USA into the War and its Effects, David Trask
19. The German Victories, 1917-1918, Holger H. Herwig
20. The War in the Air, John H. Morrow, Jr
21. The Allied Victories, 1918, Tim Travers
22. The Peace Settlement, Zara Steiner
23. No End to War, Robert Gerwarth
24. Memory and the Great War, Modris Eksteins
Further Reading
Index