Adapted for young readers from The American Heritage History of World War I.

Two pistol shots touched off World War I. The date was June 28, 1914; the victims of the assassin's bullets: Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie. These two shots sparked a war that was to rage for four years, involve all of the most powerful nations of the world, and become—next to World War II—the most bloody and costly conflict in man's history.

In this colorful narrative of the First World War, Robert Leckie tells of the tensions between European powers that had been building up to that fateful day in 1914. He tells of the alliances formed as more and more nations joined the conflict. He tells of America's attempts to remain neutral and President Wilson's final decision to send the doughboys "over there".

Here are the names that stand out in history—Hindenburg, Churchill, Pershing, Nivelle, Ludendorff, Rickenbacker, Foch, Allenby, Richthofen—and the battlefields on which they fought—the Marne, the Dardanelles, Verdun, Belleau Wood, Amiens, Argonne Forest, the trenches of the western front. And here are the new weapons that made this the first truly modern war—the submarine, the tank, the machine gun, the airplane.

Filled with contemporary paintings and sketches, maps and prints, this young readers' adaptation of The American Heritage History of World War I is a realistic and stirring account of the first great war of the modern era.

From the book