War and Peace, 1914–1918

Abstract

Not fond hopes or dire prophecies could keep the Great War from being declared in solemn, leaden increments in the late summer of 1914. The warring parties didn’t begin to feel the consequences until fall. The lag-time was longer in the ‘States, which stayed neutral for the next two-and-a-half years and partly protected thereafter from the slaughter in Europe, and on a lesser scale in the Near- and Middle East, and in Africa.

War and bloodshed will find no place in the twentieth-century drama, as before long they will find none on the stage of the civilized world.

H. Potter, “The Drama of the Twentieth Century” (1900)¹