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Home / Periods / World War I & Interwar Era / World War I

War

World War I

1914–1918 CE

World War I was fought from 1914 to 1918 between the Central Powers and the Allied Powers. It began after the July Crisis and expanded into a global conflict involving Europe, the Ottoman Empire, colonies, oceans and eventually the United States. Trenches, artillery, machine guns, gas, submarines and mass mobilisation defined much of the war’s experience.

The war mattered because it destroyed empires, redrew maps and made modern total war unavoidable. It led directly into revolution, mandates, national self-determination debates, economic strain and unresolved grievances that shaped the twentieth century. The conflict also changed literature itself, producing lasting images of disillusionment, endurance and memory.

World War I historical fiction is strongly associated with Pat Barker's Regeneration novels, Sebastian Faulks's Birdsong, Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front and Ken Follett's Century trilogy. Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs series also uses the war's aftermath to shape detective fiction, grief and memory. The war’s consequences extended far beyond the battlefield into medical care, espionage, shell shock, class change, bereavement and postwar trauma.

Related people for World War I

Adolf Hitler1889–1945 Alice Wheeldon1866–1919 Anni Albers1899–1994 Arnold Wilson1884–1940 Arthur John Brock1879–1947 Arthur Maurice Hocart1883–1939 Benjamin Disraeli1804–1881 Bernard Montgomery1887–1976 Bertrand Russell1872–1970 Charles George Gordon1833–1885 Christiaan de Wet1854–1922 David Lloyd George1863–1945 Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig1861–1928 Edward VII1841–1910 Edward VIII1894–1972 Enver Pasha1881–1922 Erwin Rommel1891–1944 Franklin D. Roosevelt1882–1945 Franz Joseph I of Austria1830–1916 Franz von Soden1856–1945 Geoffrey H. Malins1886–1940 Georges Ladoux1875–1933 George V1865–1936 George VI1895–1952 H. H. Asquith1852–1928 Haile Selassie1892–1975 Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston1784–1865 Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener1850–1916 Ian Hamilton1853–1947 James Willcocks1857–1926 Jan Smuts1870–1950 Joe Hill1879–1915 Jomo Kenyatta1893–1978 Josef Albers1888–1976 Joseph Chamberlain1836–1914 Joseph Stalin1878–1953 Louis Botha1862–1919 Luisa Casati1881–1957 Mahatma Gandhi1869–1948 Manfred von Richthofen1892–1918 Mao Zedong1893–1976 Margaret Thatcher1925–2013 Mata Hari1876–1917 Maud Allan1873–1956 Menelik II1844–1913 Mikhail Gorbachev1931–2022 Muhammad Ahmad1844–1885 Mustafa Kemal Atatürk1881–1938 Napoleon III1808–1873 Neville Chamberlain1869–1940 Nicholas II of Russia1868–1918 Noel Pemberton Billing1881–1948 Otto von Bismarck1815–1898 Paul Kruger1825–1904 Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck1870–1964 Reginald Hall1870–1943 Robert Graves1895–1985 Rupert Brooke1887–1915 Siegfried Sassoon1886–1967 Sigmund Freud1856–1939 Victoria1819–1901 Vladimir Lenin1870–1924 Wilfred Owen1893–1918 Wilhelm II1859–1941 William Halse Rivers Rivers1864–1922 William Noel Hodgson1893–1916 Winston Churchill1874–1965 Woodrow Wilson1856–1924

Series

Series about World War I (3 series)

The Codebreakers in Order

by Roseanna M. White 3 books 4.7(2,842)

The Codebreakers trilogy centres on Britain’s wartime intelligence services during the later years of the First World War. Cryptographers, field agents, aviators, photographers and medical workers confront intercepted messages, enemy deception and personal loss while their private relationships become entangled with national security.

Shadows Over England in Order

by Roseanna M. White 3 books 4.7(2,699)

Shadows Over England follows a found family of former London street thieves whose unusual skills are recruited for British intelligence before and during the First World War. Each novel pairs espionage and wartime danger with a romance involving characters forced to reconsider loyalty, identity and the meaning of…

Dusk and Dawn in Order

by Eve Edwards 2 books 4.5(50)

Dusk and Dawn is a two-volume First World War romance centred on Helen Sanford, a young nurse of German heritage, and Sebastian Trewby, an aristocratic artist drawn into military service. Their relationship begins in wartime London and is tested by class difference, the Battle of the Somme, battlefield…

Books

30 Best Novels About World War I

Non-Fiction

30 Best Non-Fiction Books About World War I

Histories, biographies and reference works are listed separately from the historical novels above.