BookBright
ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSThe War to End All Wars is a nonfiction history of World War I written for young readers, drawing on eyewitness accounts, letters, photographs, and primary sources to bring the conflict vividly to life. In the summer of 1914, Europe looks stable on the surface: royal families are intermarried, trade ties run deep, and most people expect disputes to be settled at the conference table. But beneath that surface, the great powers of Europe have spent years arming themselves, signing military alliances, and competing for colonies and influence, until the whole continent is, as Russell Freedman puts it, armed to the teeth. When a nineteen-year-old Serbian nationalist named Gavrilo Princip fires two shots at Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in the streets of Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, a chain reaction of ultimatums, mobilizations, and declarations of war pulls nation after nation into a conflict that will engulf the world.
Free Battle of the Books questions for The War to End All Wars
SPOILERSEvery one of these has the same answer, and that is the point. In a real battle the question is read aloud with a dozen other books in play, and students have a few seconds to place it. Here is what a battle might ask about The War to End All Wars. Use them as a quiz, a trivia round, or BOTB practice.
Where in the book they come from
- Early in the book
In what book do German soldiers march off with flowers stuffed in the muzzles of their rifles?
✓ Answer
The War to End All Wars by Russell Freedman
Walter Limmer described the scene in a letter home. Battalions left for the front with helmets and tunics decked with flowers, handkerchiefs waving, the crowds cheering. Almost everyone expected a short, glorious campaign.
- First half
In what book is a new armored vehicle disguised as a mobile water carrier to keep its purpose secret?
✓ Answer
The War to End All Wars by Russell Freedman
When the British developed the first armored, tracked vehicles, officials covered them with tarpaulins and put out the word that the strangely shaped objects were mobile water carriers, or tanks. The cover name stuck. Tanks first went into action in France in 1916 during the Battle of the Somme.
- First half
In what book does a captain say baby rats use his sleeping face as a soft landing?
✓ Answer
The War to End All Wars by Russell Freedman
British captain Bill Murray wrote to his family about the five families of rats living in his dugout roof, two feet above his bed. He said the baby rats practiced somersaults all night long after discovering that his face provided a soft landing when they fell.
- Second half
In what book does a German general aim to make a French army "bleed to death" at an old fortress?
✓ Answer
The War to End All Wars by Russell Freedman
Erich von Falkenhayn chose Verdun because the French would defend it at all costs. He believed bleeding France white there would break its will to continue fighting.
- Second half
In what book does a famous passenger liner sink in fifteen minutes after a torpedo strikes off Ireland?
✓ Answer
The War to End All Wars by Russell Freedman
On May 7, 1915, the Lusitania was torpedoed off the southern coast of Ireland. About 1,200 of the 2,000 passengers drowned, including 128 Americans, helping turn American opinion against Germany.
- Near the end
In what book do five hundred American soldiers become trapped in a ravine and known as the Lost Battalion?
✓ Answer
The War to End All Wars by Russell Freedman
Major Charles Whittlesey and his men of the 77th Division were surrounded in the Argonne Forest in October 1918. Of 554 men, only 194 climbed out alive after a five-day siege.
