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. These entries are useful for linking battlefield novels with home-front stories, medical fiction, espionage, shell shock, class change and postwar trauma.

Related people for World War I

Adolf Hitler1889–1945 Alice Wheeldon1866–1919 Arnold Wilson1884–1940 Arthur John Brock1879–1947 Arthur Maurice Hocart1883–1939 Benjamin Disraeli1804–1881 Bertrand Russell1872–1970 Charles George Gordon1833–1885 David Lloyd George1863 – 1922 Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig1861–1928 Erwin Rommel1891–1944 H. H. Asquith1852–1928 Haile Selassie1892–1975 Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston1784–1865 Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener1850–1916 Jomo Kenyatta1893–1978 Joseph Chamberlain1836–1914 Luisa Casati1881–1957 Mahatma Gandhi1869–1948 Manfred von Richthofen1892–1918 Maud Allan1873–1956 Menelik II1844–1913 Muhammad Ahmad1844–1885 Mustafa Kemal Atatürk1881–1938 Napoleon III1808–1873 Noel Pemberton Billing1881–1948 Otto von Bismarck1815–1898 Paul Kruger1825–1904 Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck1870–1964 Robert Graves1895–1985 Siegfried Sassoon1886–1967 Victoria1819–1901 Vladimir Lenin1870–1924 Wilfred Owen1893–1918 Wilhelm II1859–1941 William Halse Rivers Rivers1864–1922 Winston Churchill1874–1965 Woodrow Wilson1856–1924

Series

Series about World War I (2 series)

Shadows Over England in Order

by Roseanna M. White 3 books 4.7

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…

A Name Unknown (Shadows Over England)

by Roseanna M. White

4.7

A Song Unheard

by Roseanna M. White

4.8

An Hour Unspent (Shadows Over England)

by Roseanna M. White

4.7

The Codebreakers in Order

by Roseanna M. White 3 books 4.7

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.