'The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our life-time.' Sir Edward Grey, British foreign secretary, 3 August 1914.

Drawing on a wealth of material from the

Guardian archives

When the Lamps Went Out presents a surprising, immediate, sometimes bleakly humorous, sometimes horrifying insight into life during the Great War.

We see Boy Scouts patrolling the British coasts, David Lloyd George addressing women war workers, Charlie Chaplin impersonators on the Euston Road and Vesta Tilley at the Ardwick Empire. We see suffragist nurses on the Western Front and Bolsheviks in Glasgow, Pathan soldiers in Flanders and Anglo-Japanese armies in China. Small countries are saved – and aliens persecuted.New technologies – from picture houses to the first reports of gas weapons – are reported upon, as well as movie stars and John Buchan's bestsellers.

The bloody battles, defeats, and victories are all here but

When the Lamps Went Out focuses on the women, men and children who lived, loved, defied, perished, and survived in the war to end all wars.