In 1914 dynamic, prosperous countries across Europe at last mobilized the vast armies they had spent so many years preparing. Each nation was confident of victory. Instead Europe destroyed itself. The First World War, or Great War, re-mains the fundamental tragedy that still haunts us all nearly a century after its out-break. It was a war that baffled those who fought it: what was meant to be a grab for imperial loot or a lightning settling of scores turned into an unwinnable night-mare with millions of men trapped and killed by hideous technologies. Ultimately almost all the principal states engaged in the war were ruined, with even the notional winners irreparably damaged: the imperial loot proved worthless and the world was doomed to a further, even more terrible settling of scores only twenty years later. Norman Stone is one of the most extraor-dinary of modern historians, and World War One: A Short History is a brilliantly written, distressing, often very witty account, which makes a familiar story fresh and surprising.