Armistice 1918 - Hardcover

Lowry, Bullitt

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0873385535 ISBN 13: 9780873385534

Publisher: Kent State Univ Pr, 1944

Synopsis

The five armistices arranged in the fall of 1918 - those of the Allies and the United States with Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, Austria, Hungary, and Germany - determined the course of diplomatic events for many years after World War I. The armistice with Germany, the most important of the five, was really a peace treaty in miniature.
Bullitt Lowry, basing his account on a close study of newly available archives in Great Britain, France, and the United States, offers a detailed examination of the process by which what might have been only simple orders to cease fire instead became extensive diplomatic and military instructions to armies and governments. He also assesses the work of the leading figures in the process: British prime minister David Lloyd George, French prime minister Georges Clemenceau, and American presidential envoy Edward M. House, as well as supporting cases of generals, admirals, and diplomatic advisors.

About this title

About the Author:

Bullitt Lowry is a professor of history at the University of North Texas.

From Publishers Weekly:

Beginning on October 3, 1918, with Germany's initial armistice inquiry to President Woodrow Wilson, Lowry's exhaustive study follows the murky negotiations based on Wilson's Fourteen Points that led to the Compiegne Armistice signing on November 11, 1918. This is dense history, but Lowry, who teaches history at the University of North Texas, makes much of his account of the backbiting, threats, jealousy and ignorance, that arose from both national and personal interests read like a novel. The Supreme War Council, whose key members included Georges Clemenceau, Lloyd George, Marshall Ferdinand Foch and President Wilson, was wary not only of the Germans' intentions (they seemed "prepared to admit lack of success in the war, but not defeat" as Lowry puts it) but also of one another?as each country differed in its goals (i.e., total vs. partial disarmament, freedom of the seas, evacuation and reparations, leniency vs. vengeance). While this isn't the first study of its kind, Lowry's is definitive rather than derivative, with over 600 footnotes, an index and selective bibliography. Though the book is occasionally weighed down by its own density, Armistice 1918 will be invaluable to scholars and historians while others will revel in its trenchant insight into the minds and machinations of men and the inevitable consequences. Photos and maps not seen by PW.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Kent State Univ Pr
• Publication date: 1944
• ISBN 10: 0873385535
• ISBN 13: 9780873385534
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 245