At the start of World War I in 1914, many global citizens believed it would be a short conflict that would settle old scores in a matter of weeks—but it was soon clear that was not going to be the case. From the Balkans to East Prussia, France, and Belgium, nineteenth-century warfare came face to face with twentieth-century technology and the ensuing, brutal clash of empires resulted in deadlock. And it was a truly global war, stretching from Europe to Oceania, from the Middle East to North America. It affected civilians as well as soldiers and governments, and for the first time, the world was faced with the fact that neutrality was practically impossible.
Understanding such a complex conflict is difficult, and over the last hundred years, it has been made even more so by a repeatedly blinkered approach to the history of it, with a focus almost entirely on English-language sources and a narrow view of the conflict through two main prisms—the Eastern Front and the Western Front. Ring of Fire will set out to rebalance our conceptions of a war that reshaped the world. Using access to an enormous quantity of primary material, largely untouched by general historians, the authors will tell the story of 1914 with a firm eye on presenting a comprehensive, inclusive people's narrative that draws on source material from over twenty languages.