Part I

The Great War Years: 1900–19

In this part . . .

The Great War (1914–18) dominated the first two decades of the century. Long before it broke out people talked excitedly or apprehensively of the coming war, as if they were waiting for a thunderstorm to clear the air. No one imagined how long or appallingly destructive this ‘thunderstorm’ would prove.

The world that entered the twentieth century was that of the white man. Half the globe, including nearly the whole African continent, was ruled from Europe. The whole world seemed shaped by Western ideas and Western principles; increasingly, it even wore Western clothes. The new century seemed set to mark the final triumph of the West. The Great War put an end to that idea.

To many people the twentieth century appeared to herald a new age of science and technology, when human beings would show how they could apply their minds to the happiness and progress of humankind. These years certainly saw great advances in medicine and technology. But they also saw scientific ideas applied to cruelty, death, and destruction.

These were the catastrophic opening years from which the twentieth century never fully recovered.