And Half the Seed of Europe: A Genealogy of the Great War, 1914-1918

The First World War, or Great War as it became known, was ravaging the human family one century ago, changing forever the nature of military combat and restructuring the twentieth century in a way that was unimaginable before its course. With more than 35 million casualties, the Great War ranks among the deadliest conflicts in all history. While the Great War was hoped to be the War to End All Wars, it instead launched a series of geo-political struggles that defined the future century, and in the shadow of which we still live today. By the end of the War all the major combatants-including the United States-were engulfed in its flames and hostage to its fortunes. But the war was also very personal, shaping the lives of those who went to war, their loved ones, their families, and their future. That story of family is rarely examined in terms of the impact of the Great War. In this book, several family members, British and American, are the context for an understanding of how the War shaped our lives both in the past, and going forward. In the stories of individual combatants, and their family relationships, lie the clues to understanding who we are, where we came from, and where we might choose to go. Although the Great War is lost to living memory, its history lives on in the families whose grandparents, parents, spouses, and children engaged in the most titanic struggle in human history at that time.