With Our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918

FINANCIAL TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR and DAILY TELEGRAPH BOOKS OF THE YEAR

Shortlisted for the 2012 DUKE OF WESTMINSTER MEDAL FOR MILITARY LITERATURE

At the end of 1917 Britain and France faced a strategic nightmare. Their great offensives against Germany had been calamitous, leaving hundreds of thousands of young men dead and wounded for negligible territorial gains. Despite America''s entry into the war the US army remained tiny, the Italian army had been routed, and Russia had dropped out of the conflict. The Central Powers now dominated Central and Eastern Europe, and Germany could move over forty divisions to the Western Front. Yet only one year later, on 11 November 1918, the fighting ended in a decisive Allied victory.

Stevenson''s rich and compelling book retells the story of 1918, and with penetrating original research goes to the very roots of this instrumental turning point in modern history.