Author(s): David Stevenson

War

Winston Churchill told the House of Commons in 1940, 'During the first four years of the last war the Allies experienced nothing but disaster and disappointment. That was our constant fear: one blow after another, terrible losses, frightful dangers . . . we repeatedly asked ourselves the question: How are we going to win?'. At the end of 1917 Britain and France faced a strategic nightmare. Their great offensives against Germany had been calamitous, leaving hundreds of thousands of young men dead and wounded for negligible territorial gains. Despite America's entry into the war the US army remained tiny, the Italian army had been routed, and Russia had dropped out of the conflict. The Central Powers now dominated Central and Eastern Europe, and Germany could move more than forty divisions to the Western Front. Yet only one year later, on 11 November 1918, the fighting ended in a decisive Allied victory. In his new book David Stevenson retells the story of the final year of the First World War. Drawing on original research in the archives of seven countries, he goes to the roots of this dramatic reversal of fortune, analysing the reasons for Allied success and the collapse of Germany and its partners. Everything from food supply to finance, strategy to technology, logistics to morale, is explored in an assessment that lays bare the nerve-racking decisions taken on both sides and the sheer uncertainty faced by their leaders. Ironically Stevenson traces Germany's 1918 disaster to 'Operation Michael', the great spring offensive that tested the British army to the uttermost and led to Field Marshal Haig's famous 'With our backs to the wall' order to his troops to fight to the last man. Global in its canvas and examining every fighting theatre, this is a compelling study of one of the most significant turning points in modern history.