---------1-58567-157-6-------
Instead I found history rewritten and the American contributions not just downplayed but actively mocked.
I eventually stopped reading this absurdly biased book when I got to the part (early on) where the author scorns the AEF, the U.S. forces, for losing 9000 men in their first day of fighting in the Argonne – a rate of loss he claims to be higher than anything else in the war. Have the 60,000 lost by the British on the first day of The Somme been relegated to the memory hole? Can the four years of bungled leadership and slaughter of the French and British armies be ignored: a British army whose courage is certain, but whose history of losses is bitterly encapsulated by a phrase describing their decimation in the first months of the war as »The First 100,000.« For almost any day of actual battle that the British generals sent their men forward nine-thousand lost was trumpeted as a smashing victory!
This pathetic attempt to highlight Pershing's flaws leading the AEF over the genocide committed upon British soldiery by Haig and upon the French by Joffre and Foch and Nivelle was enough for me to realize that Mr. Dallas is of that breed of monomaniacally Anglophile WWI historians who occupy a special roost amongst the vultures picking at the corpses of the prior century. Factor in Dallas's apparent amnesia with respect to one of history's most infamous slaughters and one must wonder at what, exactly he might be fleshing out except the long-dead corpse of British martial and imperial glory.
Rather than trust your own background on the war to allow reading this fat book with balance, consider some others instead:
(a) Dallas holds the Germans 110% responsible for the war. Read Niall Ferguson's »The Pity of War« instead for a view that strongly supports the idea the Brits need not have entered the war at all and did so through the sly manipulation of fact and public opinion. Read McCullough's »How the First World War Began« for a detailed look at the manipulations of British and French militarists in the 20 years prior to 1914. For that matter read David Fromkin's »Europe's Last Summer« for a more studied view, albeit one leading to the same conclusion as Dallas.
(b) Dallas considers the Americans to be bumpkins and military incompetents. For alternative views read Mosier's »The Myth of the Great War« (or almost any contemporaneous German military report of their reaction to the arrival of one million fresh American troops on the front). Even Fleming's »The Illusion of Victory« presents a more considered view within its critique of the Wilson government's trampling of liberties at home to feed the hungry maw of the Franco-British war machine.
(c) Dallas considers the leadership of the British war effort to have been an astute bunch. For alternative views consider Laffin's »British Butchers and Bunglers of WWI« or Denis Winter's »Haig's Command.« For anglophilia that at least honors not the butchers but those who actually fought and died read any of Lyn MacDonald's books.
I admit I never got to the parts of this book where it, presumably, treats with the armistice and the creation of the peace. It seems certain that you'd do better to read Fromkin's »A Peace to End all Peace«, or the aforementioned Fleming book, or Macmillan's »Paris, 1919: Six Months that Changed the World.«
Two stars for a good example of how malleable history can be at the hands of apologists for fools.
The peace was negotiated until 1926; the Treaty of Versailles- June, 1919- was first on the agenda so Europe could contain Germany as soon as possible- at least on the Western Front. The war in the East was germany's problem for a while. However, the treaty was just the beginning of how the Paris Conference played a role in changing the whole world. Nearly every country on Earth was held in the balance after the war that was to end all wars; four empires died their timely deaths, leaving behind the debris of centuries. All wanted what they believed was rightfully theirs: self determination.
The Great War did what Napoleon failed to do: it ended the Age of Empire. Prior to the war, European Empires ruled the world through their colonies, money and weapons. But the 1918 armistice and the peace worked out in Paris ended that age of domination. The men meting out peace created countries, changed borders, gave promises of independence. They shaped the world- and its problems- we live in today.
Although the USA was not in the trenches for long, it had the biggest hand to play- because the United States was the only major player left with any money. Therefore, Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations theory and Fourteen Points (he really had nothing but a theory to offer) had to be accepted first so Europe could get funding to contain Germany. France insisted any peace plan had to keep Germany far from its borders. France's self interest was a demilitarized Germany. France, the victim of Germany, did not win here.
Soon enough, Germany wanted to punish France- For the Germans believed it did not lose the war. They thought France, backed by the USA, decided to blame its losses on them. It is a fallacy France let Germany roll over them during WWII. It was a mere 20 years earlier French soil was soaked with the blood of millions of Europeans, most of them Frenchmen. When Hitler invaded, France wanted to keep the orphans of the Great War from the fate of their fathers.
Chamberlain, blamed for Hitler's land grab, was in the same position. England was not ready to fight again. By letting Hitler take the Sudetenland, hopes were high that was as far as he would go. The area was mostly German anyway (and intensely anti-semetic). A more perceptive negotiator would have seen Hitler was determined to even the score over WWI. But so many turned a blind eye, since no one wanted another war.
Signs of The Great War can be found all over Europe; very few were untouched by its impact. No country anticipated a brutal war that would go into a stalemate within months. Not one country believed the battle could last four years.
Dallas spells all this out in a book that I could not stop reading. He takes on each country, its current status as of 1918, and its war and peace interests. Dallas is honest; he uses the leaders' personalities as part of the process- because that's how the peace was finally made.
'1918' is a must read for many reasons, especially anyone interested in how Europe was forced to cut the roots to its empires. The book shows how a war that could have been fought longer finally ended, with France finally achieving victory over its invader. it also shows the perils of peace. Haste fomented resentment; haste laid the ground work for the next brutal war- only 20 years later.
'1918' is also a fascinating read for those curious how we got to where we are today. One example: Iraq became a country created by the Paris Conference. History haunts us all.