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History & Civilization +1 more

The Great War

The First World War from the assassination in Sarajevo to the trenches, colonial battlefields, collapsing empires, American intervention, and the Treaty of Versailles.

27 min readReading time
13Sections

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Chapters

13 total
  1. 01Prologue
  2. 02Chapter One - One Gun, Two Corpses
  3. 03Chapter Two - Serbia Says Sorry (Kinda)
  4. 04Chapter Three - Germany’s Blank Check of Death
  5. 05Chapter Four - Russia Trips Over Itself
  6. 06Chapter Five - Belgium, You Good?
  7. 07Chapter Six - Trenchlines and Landmines
  8. 08Chapter Seven - Blood in the Colonies
  9. 09Chapter Eight - Gallipoli and Other Nightmares
  10. 10Chapter Nine - Gas, Rats, and Madness
  11. 11Chapter Ten - America Sits, Then Stands
  12. 12Chapter Eleven - Collapse
  13. 13Chapter Twelve - Versailles: The Dumbest Treaty
Edition notes and short pages
Dedications, notices, acknowledgments, author notes, and short passages from this book.

The Great War

The Great War
Blood, Mud, and Morons

by James Johnson

Dedication

To everyone who ever got dragged into something stupid
because someone with a title said it was a good idea.

You deserved better.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


THANK YOU TO the soldiers who wrote it down,
the fools who caused it,
and the historians who tried to make sense of the wreckage.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR


JJ WRITES SHARP, honest, and occasionally pissed-off books about history, power, and the people who somehow keep messing everything up. He doesn’t romanticize. He doesn’t sugarcoat. He just tells it straight.

You can find more of his work at: jjarchives.com

COPYRIGHT


© 2025 JAMES JOHNSON. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the author’s written permission, except for brief quotations used in reviews or analysis.

This book is a historical narrative based on real events, public records, and scholarly research. All interpretations and opinions are solely those of the author. Every effort has been made to present accurate facts, but this is not an academic textbook. If you’re here for footnotes and neutrality, you’re in the wrong trench.