Victory 1918 - Hardcover

Images of World War I are usually dominated by the spectacle of romantic youth being mercilessly ground up in the mud of Ypres and the Somme. Even histories of the Great War tend to focus on the Western Front with, perhaps, a look at the massive battles on the Russian Front while declaring the Middle Eastern, African, and Balkan theaters to be mere "sideshows." Distinguished historian Alan Palmer revises this received wisdom in his excellent book Victory 1918.

Historians have usually argued that the German Army exhausted itself in its final gambit, a titanic push toward Paris in the late months of 1918. Palmer disagrees, contending that Allied offensives in Italy, Greece, Mesopotamia, and France kicked the props out from under the German Empire in the early months of the war's final year. A comprehensive survey of Allied military and diplomatic actions throughout the war, Victory 1918 reveals many global issues that weighed on the minds of British and French war planners. For instance, Field Marshal Earl Kitchner, England's colonial enforcer, squelched a possible jihad throughout India, the Middle East, and Africa by appealing to Mecca's spiritually powerful Sherif Hussein in 1914. This diplomatic coup severely reduced the impact of Sultan Mehmed V's call to arms from Constantinople, meaning Britain could then field more divisions in Flanders. Lucid and entertaining, Victory 1918 is a fresh portrait of a conflict that established the political and military contours of the 20th century. --James Highfill

The veteran British historian and biographer (Twilight of the Hapsburgs: The Life and Times of Emperor Franz Josef, 1995, etc.) summarizes the causes, battles, and results of WWI. Palmer begins by declaring that this war ``determined the political and social character of the twentieth century'' and, like any other war, ``must never be romanticized. His chronicle is far from romantic. With plodding sobriety, Palmer takes readers from country to country, battle to battle, strategy session to surrender, always displaying his firm grasp of the facts, and just the facts, of relevant geography, culture, and character. Determined not to mythologize, he mentions only in passing such notables as Sergeant York (a corporal at the time), and manages to make the exploits of T. E. Lawrence (``Lawrence of Arabia'') rather ordinary. Only occasionally do details sparkle: In 1917 an Ottoman leader defending Jerusalem ordered carpets to line his defensive trenches; a German corporal, A. Hitler, received the Iron Cross for action in 1918; in a Balkan battle, pursuing British and Greek divisions witnessed the horror of bombardment from the air (a novelty at the time)the shattered remains of men and horses, stenching entrails intermingled. This was a war that involved camels and horses as well as tanks and airplanes, a war that featured hand-to-hand fighting, muddy trenches, barbed wire, mustard gas, and appalling destruction of property and life over its four years: Palmer calculates that, on average, 230 soldiers died every hour. Of special interest to American readers will be his account of the reluctance of Gen. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces, to allow his soldiers to fight under foreign command, and his criticism of Woodrow Wilson, who visited England late in 1918, for his ``condescension of manner'' and an ungracious speech he delivered at a banquet in Buckingham Palace. Rich in detail, comprehensive in scope, pale in color. (6 maps, 23 illus., not seen) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.