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The further backward you look,

The further forward you can see.

--Winston Churchill

It was the beginning of the 20th century; one that arguably ranks as one of several that saw the most change of the last ten centuries. While we tend to be hopeful and optimistic when a new year comes around, we are even more excited and kook forward to better things happening at the turn of a new century. The 20^th century, however, with its new and more deadly weapons was one of the most violent in human history.

Many books have been written about “The Great War,” which later was called World War I. This book, however, provides an unusual and engaging account about the home front during that war as seen from over 150 newspaper articles taken directly from the Shenandoah Evening Herald in Schuylkill County (The Coal Region) in Pennsylvania. The stories give an indication of what it was like to live during that time—which was not that long ago—and yet is so vastly different from America today. Furthermore, the articles mirror what was going on throughout the entire country.

We also feature a number of fascinating and colorful individuals, some who did not make it back and others who became famous after returning from the war—namely, a prime minister, several presidents and even a satanic dictator. Further we highlight a few of the horrific battles of that calamitous conflict. The appendix includes all Schuylkill County residents who were killed, all nurses who enlisted and all volunteer ambulance drivers who served in the war.

It all started in the early 1900s with the Russo-Japanese war from 1904-05. The Russian revolution followed, which lasted from 1905-07. Then, one small terrorist act in distant Sarajevo in 1914--the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand--did not appear to mean very much to the rest of the world, but was a tipping point. Franz Joseph I who was Ferdinand’s uncle simply said, “It is God’s will.” Clearly it wasn’t anything to suggest that the shooting episode would result in World War I that had such huge consequences for the entire world. Just as the radio audience in America in 1941 did not know where Pearl Harbor was, the newspaper readers in the United States in 1914 did not know where the strange name Sarajevo was located. The “little problem” in the Balkans, however, eventually resulted in a cataclysmic catastrophe.

Shortly afterward, empires on both sides clashed: World War I was underway and soon the world would be on fire. That small shooting episode by an obscure nobleman caused the European tinderbox to ignite and trigger a series of events that led to a global conflict. The world would not be the same again. In just one month, a small group of men with belligerent attitudes and hubris changed the course of the 20th century.

Meanwhile, the United States pursued a policy of non-intervention for the next several years until 1917. The conflict was unprecedented in the bloodshed, havoc and destruction it caused. Nevertheless, the complex war continues to fascinate us: it was a cataclysmic debacle that fashioned our modern world.And the long shadow of the war still remains over us to this day.

The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.

--Ferdinand Foch