With Our Backs to the Wall Victory and Defeat in 1918

By David Stevenson

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. 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. This book retells the story of 1918, using original research to go to the very roots of this instrumental turning point in modern history.