That is why the true Poets must be truthful.' - Wilfred Owen 'I feel in the profoundest sense that nothing can ever be the same - that, as artists, we are traitors if we feel otherwise: we have to take it into account and find new expressions, new moulds for our thoughts and feelings.' - Katherine Mansfield Poems, Short Stories, Books, and Propaganda Posters Though the War's reach was global, the indelible losses were intensely personal.
Troops deployed from numerous continents, battles fought across borders, and advanced weapons resulted in ten million killed.
War and war stories were not new, but the Great War was different. The early assurances in England that 'it will all be over before Christmas' were dead wrong. Here's a selection of poems, shorts stories, and books about the war's raw brutality, in contrast with patriotic verses and platitudes. The First World War inspired established authors, soldiers, combat nurses, and grieving family members to write about the horrors and devastating losses they experienced.
