The Cruellest War Books in Order

The Cruellest War returns to the First World War, this time through General Griffin’s sons and the Redwood family. It begins in 1914, when war is still imagined by many young men as a short, honourable adventure.

That belief does not survive contact with Belgium.

In Weeping, Sad and Lonely, two Griffin sons are regular soldiers and three more join as second lieutenants, using family influence to cross the Channel with the first British Expeditionary Force. They arrive in a war that is still mobile, confused, and not yet understood by the men commanding it.

The later books follow the war as movement hardens into trench line. Ypres, ammunition shortages, the collapse of old plans, the invention of the air war, the growth of industry, and the coming need for a Big Push all press in. Wareham pays attention to the families as well as the front, because war changes inheritance, money, marriage, politics, and expectations at home.

The tone is bleak without being ornamental. The title tells you what kind of war this is, but the books are also about adaptation. Officers, soldiers, politicians, industrialists, and relatives all try to understand a world that has turned strange in a matter of months.

Read the series in order, starting with Weeping, Sad and Lonely, then Hopes and Fears How Vain, Praying That We Meet Again, When Autumn Leaves Are Falling, and Sadly Breathes The Song. The progression from August 1914 toward the disasters of 1916 is the point.