The Great War: A World War I Historical Collection

From Colonel Robert Dalessandro, director of the U.S. Army's Center of Military History, comes and amazing new account of the First World War.

The Great War: A World War I Collector's Vault offers a dramatic new way to experience the breadth and the scope of the "War to End War," from the corridors of power where statesmen and royalty watched the course of battle, to the muddy trenches where the soldiers fought, struggled, and longed for home. Tucked inside the book you'll find replicas of wartime artifacts: aircraft silhouette cards, tank blueprints, a German field-engineering manual, a mimeographed Trench Order and Sector Map, orders from HQ, a press pass into the Versailles Treaty negotiations, and more.

Along with these pieces of history, you'll be immersed in a gripping narrative, richly illustrated by seldom-seen images.

Lear the story of the Great War as only an award-winning military historian could tell it. The Great War: A World War I Collector' Vault is you exclusive invitation to explore the defining conflict of the 20th century.

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1: Our Last Summer — The world stage before August 1914: a political and socio-economic overview; the Balkan Crisis and the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand; the politics and science of mobilization; the war by the years
• Chapter 2: A War of Attrition — The war before the entry of the United States; 1914 and the violation of Belgium; 1915 stalemate and other fronts; and the bloody Somme.
• Chapter 3: The Yanks Are Coming — America's entry into the war; the arrival of American troops; the 1918 Allied advance; the American Meuse-Argonne campaign.
• Chapter 4: The Armistice — The day the war ended; the Versailles Treaty; the Watch on the Rhine; the occupation of Germany; Plan 1919, and Europe redrawn.

Col. Robert J. Dalessandro, USA (Ret.), is chairman of the U.S. World War One Centennial Commission. He has been director of the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center and chief of military history at the U.S. Army Center of Military History, and is currently deputy secretary of the American Battle Monuments Commission. He is revisor for Stackpole's Army Officer's Guide and author of Willing Patriots: Men of Color in the First World War, American Lions: The 332nd Infantry Regiment in Italy in World War I, and Organization and Insignia of the American Expeditionary Force. Dalessandro lives in northern Virginia.

Erin Mahan works for the Department of State, Washington.