To Win a War: 1918, the Year of Victory

As an Englishman, I was extremely pleased when I first read the synopsis of this book. John Terraine is a widely respected author of British military history, whose book "Douglas Haig: The Educated Soldier" set the tone for a new perspective on the First World War. Terraine clearly has nothing but admiration for the soldiers who fought it out in the trenches of France and Flanders, but this account is a challenge to the commonly held view that the Generals of the time were "reactionary bunglers" at best, and "callous, uncaring butchers" at worst. Terraine's account demonstrates that this was certainly not the case. Allied strategy and tactics did evolve, and the main proponents of this were the British, the first to utilise tanks in warfare. It is clear that the key to the final Allied success was in the initial resistance to the German Spring Offensive. The Allied line may have been stretched, but it was by no means broken. Terraine's opinion on the Versailles settlement is also interesting. According to him, the peace failed not because it was too punitive, but because it was neither punitive enough, not moderate enough. It was an ineffective go-between which left too many issues unaddressed. In all, it was hardly a reward which reflected the heroic actions of the soldiers on the ground. An excellent read.

Terraine, although firmly belonging to the unfashionable "Haig was right" school, produced an informative and exhaustive study of the little known last few months of the First World War. At times overly detailed with battlefield information, and laboured with the axiom that victory in the First World War was due purely to the steady attrition of the German forces, the text effectively details the evolution of tactics in the last stages of the war. Other historians and commentators, such as Basil Liddell Hart or Denis Winter, would interpret the events entirely differently but Terraine shows remarkable erudition in arguing the alternative. Read in conjunction with the works of Martin Middlebrook, especially Middlebrook's work on the German offensives of early 1918, Terraine's book illuminates how the last months of the Great War were fought in the West. Thoroughly recommended for the history buff.