A Concise History of Two World Wars (ePub)

This new ebook combines both concise histories of WWI and WWII in one book, written by Pat Morgan and Liam McCann respectively.

WWI

On 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo, a Bosnian Serb student shot the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The assassination plunged the world into a global conflict that was to scar human history and redefine the meaning of the word 'war'.

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand provided the spark that ignited smouldering enmities, but World War I had been a long time coming. Decades of burgeoning imperialism and the formation of complex alliances brought the world's great powers face to face in what would become known as the Great War.

On one side were ranged the Allies of Great Britain, France and Russia; on the other the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. As time went on and the killing continued, all the world's powers were drawn into battle and the war's deadly influence touched every corner of the planet.

More than seventy million military personnel were mobilised during World War I - and more than nine million of them died. The grim figures also included twenty million wounded and eight million missing in action.

When the war ended in 1918, four empires had ceased to exist, the map of Europe had been redrawn and a generation of young men had been lost. The combatants had given their all, but their valiant sacrifice was in vain. This book tells the story of the conflict dubbed 'the war to end wars'.

WWII

By 1938 a second war in Europe seemed inevitable. It had only been twenty years since the war to end all wars, and the horrors of conflict were still fresh in the mind, but that didn't stop all sides re-arming and preparing for yet more bloodshed.

The settlement at the end of World War One was neither clean nor decisive, and it punished Germany by confiscating territory and forcing the people to pay reparations to help rebuild France and reduce the Allied debt to America. This led to deep-seated anger and resentment among its people.

This erudite and moving book explores the underlying causes of the Second World War, its biggest battles and decisive campaigns. From the evacuation at Dunkirk, the Blitz and the Battle of Britain to the failure of Operation Barbarossa and the D-Day Landings in Europe, as well as the war in North Africa and the Pacific, this concise history of the conflict also examines the Final Solution and the ethics surrounding the dropping of two atom bombs on Japan.