DAVID STEVENSON
With Our Backs to the Wall
Victory and Defeat in 1918
ALLEN LANE
an imprint of
PENGUIN BOOKS
ALLEN LANE
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First published 2011
Copyright David Stevenson, 2011
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical,photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book
ISBN: 978-1-84-614501-8
List of Illustrations
. Kaiser Wilhelm II reviewing Army Group Rupprecht, June 1918 (Imperial War Museum)
. Haig reviewing Canadians (Imperial War Museum)
. Senior commanders at German headquarters, Spa (Bettmann/Corbis)
. Foch and Pershing (Corbis)
. Boroevi (Imperial War Museum)
. French and British infantry near Nesle, 25 March 1918 (Imperial War Museum)
. British troops by the St Quentin Canal, 2 October 1918 (Imperial War Museum)
. Italian infantryman, late 1917 (Imperial War Museum)
. Australian Light Horse near Jericho, 17 August 1918 (Imperial War Museum)
. French interrogation of a German prisoner, by Edouard Vuillard (Muse dHistoire Contemporaine BDIC , Paris)
. Austrian fighter squadron over the Brenta, 1917, by Max Edler von Poosch (Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna)
. Gotha IV bomber (Imperial War Museum)
. American heavy artillery pounds the Meuse-Argonne (Bettmann/ Corbis)
. Royal Field Artillery at the Battle of the Canal du Nord, 27 September 1918 (Imperial War Museum)
. Machine-gun crew (Imperial War Museum)
. American troops with German prisoners at the Battle of the St Quentin Canal, 29 September 1918 (Imperial War Museum)
. A German transport column on the AlbertBapaume road during Operation Michael (Imperial War Museum)
. French supply trains (Susan Yates)
. Overturned British locomotive (Imperial War Museum)
. American troop train in Lorraine (Susan Yates)
. Senegalese by a field kitchen on the Aisne (Susan Yates)
. British and German wounded at an advanced dressing station during the Battle of Ephy, 18 September 1918 (Imperial War Museum)
. Austro-Hungarian infantry sergeant captured by the British in Italy (Imperial War Museum)
. A Convoy, North Sea, 1918 , by Sir John Lavery (Imperial War Museum)
. In the Gun Factory at Woolwich Arsenal, 1918 , by Sir George Clausen (Imperial War Museum)
. Shop for Machining 15-inch Shells , by Anna Airy (Imperial War Museum)
. Train carrying heavy artillery shells to the Front near Bourg-et-Comin (Aisne) (Susan Yates)
. Moroccans quarrying under supervision (Susan Yates)
. Women peat diggers in Alsace (Susan Yates)
. Two WAACS lay wreaths at the British cemetery, Abbeville, February 1918 (Susan Yates)
. British troops at Valenciennes station (Susan Yates)
. French troops and civilians in the textile town of Fourmies (Nord), 9 November 1918 (Susan Yates)
Pictures 18, 20, 21 and 2732 courtesy of Susan Yates, from 19141918 Us and Them: A Pictorial History of the War on the Western Front (ISBN 9780956019301), copyright Susan Yates
List of Maps
. Europe, 1918
. The Western Front: German offensives, MarchJuly 1918
. Michael
. Georgette
. BlcherYorck to Marneschtz-Reims
. The Western Front: Allied offensives, JulyNovember 1918
. Railway network on the Western Front, 191718
. The Italian Front
. The Balkans
. The Middle East
. Austria-Hungary
. The War at Sea
List of Tables
German and British casualties, 21 March 1918
Gas production, 191418
Gross merchant shipping tonnage lost to enemy action, 1 July 191711 November 1918
U-boats lost/entering commission, 191418
U-boats lost/entering commission, 1918
American troops embarked per month, 1918
War expenditure, 191418
American gross domestic product, 191318
United Kingdom gross domestic product, 191318
British coal exports to France, 191318
Coal stocks of French railway networks, 191618
Gross domestic products, 1914
German crude steel output, 191418
German coal and lignite production, 191318
German agricultural production, 191318
Workers on strike in Germany, 191618
Abbreviations
AC | Austen Chamberlain papers, Birmingham University Library |
ACS | Archivio centrale di stato, Rome |
ADM | Admiralty papers, TNA |
AEF | American Expeditionary Force |
AFGG | Les Armes franaises dans la Grande Guerre (French official history) |
AFL | American Federation of Labor |
AIF | Australian Imperial Force |
AIR | Air Ministry papers, TNA |
AMAE | Archives du Ministre des Affaires trangres, Paris |
AMTC | Allied Maritime Transport Council |
AMTE | Allied Maritime Transport Executive |
AN | Archives nationales, Paris |
ANC | Allied Naval Council |
AOK | Armee Oberkommando (Austro-Hungarian high command) |
ASE | Amalgamated Society of Engineers |
ASL | Auxiliary Service Law |
BA-MA | Bundesarchiv-Militrarchiv, Freiburg im Breisgau |
BDF | Bund der Frauen |
BDFA | British Documents on Foreign Affairs |
BEF | British Expeditionary Force |
BEV | Beveridge papers, British Library of Political and Economic Science |
BHStA | Bayerische Hauptstaatsarchiv, Munich |
BL | Manuscripts Department, British Library |
BTY | Beatty papers, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich |
CAB | Cabinet papers, TNA |
CAS | Chief of the Admiralty Staff (Germany) |
CCAC | Churchill College Archive Centre, Cambridge |
CGS | Chief of the General Staff |
CGT | Confdration gnrale du travail (French trade union centre) |
CID | Committee of Imperial Defence |