The catastrophe which overtook Europe from 1914 to 1918 was a conflict so terrible and so gigantic that it is referred to simply as "The Great War". In this text, Corelli Barnett traces the history of the war from its origins in a Europe wracked with political and ethnic tensions, through the years of bitter struggle, appalling losses and destruction on a titanic scale, to its bitter end in the fatally-flawed armistice of 11th November 1918.