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The History of the First World War: Firepower, Industry, and the Numbers Behind Victory and Defeat, 1871-1923
Paperback
Series: The Past That Built the Present
EconomicsTechnology & EngineeringWorld War I
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Sep 3 2026
Pages: 434
Weight: 1.63
Height: 0.88 Width: 7.50 Depth: 9.25
Language: English
Everyone knows Germany was billed 132 billion gold marks at Versailles. Almost nobody knows the real figure was 50 billion, and that the men who drafted the rest never expected it to be paid.
This book covers 1871 to 1923, from the frontier stone set down after Sedan to the last treaty signed at Lausanne, because the war was decided by things put in place long before 1914. Written by an accountant rather than a historian, it argues that the war was won and lost in factory output, freight tonnage and shell counts. Where the sources disagree, it gives both figures and names who said what.
Inside, you'll find:
- The eight-day bombardment before the Somme, 1,732,873 rounds, and why it failed anyway - set against the 3,561,530 fired before Messines a year later, which did not.
- A blockade built to strangle Germany's nitrate supply, and the laboratory process that canceled it: an army that had planned on 29 kilotons of fixed nitrogen a year was burning that much every ten weeks.
- The 1918 influenza pandemic at 17.4 million dead, the 2018 peer-reviewed figure, beside the 50 to 100 million still quoted everywhere.
- Russia losing 3 million men into captivity, which is to say more prisoners than Britain lost dead.
- The Langemarck legend of the schoolboy volunteers, and the 30 percent of casualties the records actually support.
- German field artillery alone firing 222 million rounds.
It is for readers who want to know how the thing was actually run: what it cost, who made it, and where every number came from. No military background is needed, and none is assumed.
Four years, and someone was counting every shell.
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