The years leading up to the outbreak of World War I saw fundamental developments in technology. Every aspect of human affairs was touched by them, and the style of war was transformed. Participants in the 1914-18 conflict were to witness the birth of air combat, the first true underwater war, the use of the internal combustion engine and radio-telegraphy for military ends, and the appearance of chemical warfare. This flood of inventions and developments - coinciding, as it did, with rising levels of industrialization and unprecedented increases in population - ensured that a whole generation would be virtually wiped out before the guns were silenced. John Terraine has studied World War I from various angles - military, political, economic, psychological, ideological - and here, in this book, he concentrates on the nuts and bolts, the technology of the war. His study is set against the background of the strategy of the high commands, which proved tactically so difficult to implement; the armies of the Western Front grinding to a halt and digging in, contrasting so starkly with the sweeping movements in the east; the desperate attempts to break out of the deadlock by means both orthodox and unorthodox, using all the tricks that the new technology could offer; the fighting that wore down all the armies involved; and the final push that, at last, stopped the carnage.