"Departing from traditional histories, A War in Words tells the story of the First World War entirely through the diaries and letters of its combatants, eyewitnesses and victims. Powerful individual stories are interwoven to form an extraordinary narrative that follows the chronology of the war, in words written on the battlefield and on leave, under occupation and under siege. Soldiers and civilians record with passion, fear and humour their experiences and intimate thoughts, never intended for publication." "The book starts with the testimony of a Serbian teenager, one of Archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassins. Each chapter focuses on one important episode of the war told from opposite sides of the conflict. A German and a British solider are dug into the parallel lines of trenches on the Somme. An Australian and a Turk describe brutal bayonet-charges on the beaches at Gallipoli. A Polish woman endures a gruesome siege and an initially patriotic German schoolgirl, exposed to the loss and pain of war, gradually escapes into a world of adolescent love."--Jacket.