Rare and unseen photographs of the First World War.

Author and editor Duncan Hill has drawn upon the extensive archives of The Daily Mail provide contemporaneous eyewitness accounts and photographs (many never previously seen) of The Great War.

“The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime,” said British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey in 1914 on the eve of the conflict that plunged Europe into darkness for four long years in which Ypres, Verdun, Gallipoli, and Somme would become household names.

The assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the event that plunged the continent into darkness, but it was merely the catalyst to a long-expected confrontation between Europe’s two great power blocs. It had been 40 years since the major powers had taken to the battlefield, and there were many keen to show their might and mettle. The ensuing grim reality of trench warfare and catastrophic loss of life are graphically depicted in this book.