1918 - Softcover

Gregor Dallas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0712671544 ISBN 13: 9780712671545

Publisher: Pimlico, 2002

Synopsis

On the night of 7 November 1918 French troops at La Capelle, on the Western Front, noticed a soft halo develop in the fog over no man's land. They heard the rumble of cars, then perceived the vague form of a huge white flag: the Germans were crossing the line to seek peace. But who were these Germans and what exactly did they represent By the time they had signed an armistice, four days later, not even they knew. The Kaiser's Reich had collapsed and Germany faced chaos, while the war in Eastern Europe continued. This book traces the transition from war to peace across Europe. It follows the movement of armies over the northern plains, their collapse, their demoblization, and the effect this had on the material life of people. In Russia there had already been a revolution. In Germany, there were attempts to overthrow the provisional republican government. In Poland new wars broke out. At the same time, there was celebration in the West at the announcement of the Armistice. And the United States entered European politics with a new part to play. Dallas follows these dramatic events from the perspective of five capitals: Berlin, Paris, London, Moscow and Washington. In Berlin the cabarets and beer halls are open, while there is shooting in the streets. In the walled city of Paris, the peacemakers assemble to respond to the call for a League of Nations. Pantomime season opens in London, where Lloyd George holds elections and reorganizes his War Cabinet; John Maynard Keynes of the Treasury worries about debts. Contemporaries describe Moscow as a scene of desolation; but Lenin insists on setting up the Third International. Washington is divided between those who want to open America to the world, and those who would prefer the world to go away. The start of peace is more complex and fascinating than the start of war; it sets the habits and builds the patterns of life for generations to come.

About this title

About the Author

Gregor Dallas was born in London, received his university education at the University of California at Berkley, and now lives in France. He is also the author of 1815: Roads to Waterloo, about the establishment of peace in Europe at the end of the Napeolonic Wars.

From Publishers Weekly

Dallas (The Final Act: The Roads to Waterloo) provides a meticulously detailed and intensive study of the years 1918-1919, when the Great War ended and the victors formulated a peace intended to resolve, once and for all, the underlying causes of the world's conflicts. In this, of course, the Allied leaders failed more completely than even the most pessimistic among them could have imagined. Dallas shows us how this failure arose from the irreconcilable objectives of the prevailing nations, from the mutual incomprehension of Lloyd George, Clemenceau and Wilson and from sheer lack of critical information. Germany had decisively lost the war, yet refused to acknowledge that fact even as it collapsed into political chaos. England and France clashed over reparations and over a military guarantee against future German aggression. For the United States, Wilson focused on vaporous abstractions at the expense of fact-based policy. In the East, Russia's war with itself and with Poland was just hitting stride. Dallas's strengths in his account of these pivotal years include his recognition of how geography influenced both the war's endgame and the fashioning of peace and his adroit sketches of the leading players at the peace conference. In addition to that of the heads of state, the author captures the work of the economists and administrators, such as John Maynard Keynes, Herbert Hoover and, from Germany, Walter Rathenau. These and so many others worked themselves to exhaustion to formulate peace, but, as Dallas demonstrates, chaos, bitterness and contradictory demands from all sides made a lasting peace impossible, and another war inevitable. Illus.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pimlico
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0712671544
• ISBN 13: 9780712671545
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 640