"It does not take long to tell the difference in the sound of the explosion of a gas, shrapnel, or high explosive shell," Carl Andrew Brannen said of his introduction to trench warfare. As that nineteen-year-old marine from Texas had quickly learned, the first big war of the twentieth century promised new horrors on the battlefield. In this intense journey through the beginnings of modern war, C. A. Brannen's memoirs and battlefield snapshots are complemented with a unique set of contemporary and retrospective photographs. Seventy-five years after World War I, the author's son retraced his...