When an armistice was finally signed in the forest of Compiegne outside
of Paris, the Great War had shuddered to an end, but not before it had
been fought on three continents, three oceans, and nine seas. Studies of
World War I tend to focus on the Western front, the muddy trenches of
France and Belgium, which is particularly problematic considering the
final year of the conflict, when offensives in the Balkans, the Middle
East, Italy, and the West all ended with decisive victories for the
Allied powers. Alan Palmer embraces the full scope of the war and
illuminates many of the major players -- Allied generals Sir Douglas
Haig, Sir Edmund Allenby, Ferdinand Foch, and John J. Pershing; Central
Powers generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff; as well as
David Lloyd George, Britain's prime minister. Victory 1918 is rife
with tales of horrible misunderstandings such as the Austrian emperor
Charles's appeal for peace on September 14, 1918, which was thought by
the Allies to be a trick and, if taken seriously, could have saved as
many as a quarter of a million lives. As he ably shifts between the
diplomatic big picture and the local horrors of the trenches, Palmer
presents the war in all its banality and valor.
