NOVEMBER 1918 Last Act of the Great War, Brook-Shepherd. WW1 Amiens-Armistice

Description: NOVEMBER 1918 The Last Act of the Great War GORDON BROOK-SHEPHERD LONDON: COLLINS 1981 First edition. The final act of the Great War portrayed in this book spans the last hundred days of the conflict -from the surprise blow struck by the British at Amiens on 8 August, the 'Black Day of the German Army', down to the signing of the Armistice in the Forest of Compiegne which lowered the last curtain three months later. But Gordon Brook-Shepherd's vivid and masterly account is not simply another re-construction of that familiar contest on the Western Front; nor is it a purely military narrative. For the first time all the sub-plots in the story are given their proper weight as we see Germany's allies being knocked out one by one on such contrasting battlefields as the deserts of Palestine, the mountains of Serbia and the plains of northern Italy. The struggle of millions of civilians on the Home Front is not forgotten and, throughout, the military events are linked with the political dramas being played out in the palaces and chancellories of the continent, where two great empires were collapsing in turmoil. As far as possible the triumphs and tragedies are told in the words of the actors themselves, humble or mighty. Mr Brook-Shepherd's original eyewitness sources range from the eighty-nine-year-old former Empress Zita of Austria-Hungary (the last surviving member of Europe's old ruling order), to private soldiers who fought on both sides of the barbed wire. He has drawn on hundreds of contemporary letters and memoirs in four languages, many of them hitherto unpublished, as well as on the archives of the principal combatant nations, and he has visited all the battlefields described. The result is a panorama rich in colour and human interest: the German War-lord Ludendorff, cracking under the strain of those final months; his sovereign, Kaiser Wilhelm, as ineffective in battle as he had been bombastic in peacetime; the hapless young Austrian Emperor Charles, husband of Zita, struggling to salvage something of his eleven-nation empire as the roof falls in over it; Britain's Prime Minister Lloyd George, always striving to break the hypnotism which the Western Front exercised over his Generals; his colleagues, 'Tiger' Clemenceau in Paris, demonstrating to his Generals that war was too serious a business to be left to them; and, brooding over the whole scene from a distance of three thousand miles, the chilling figure of President Wilson, determined to destroy an ancient European way of life about which he understood little and cared less. On Armistice Day itself, to which Mr Brook-Shepherd devotes a gripping dawn-to-dusk chapter, there was wild celebrating back in all the victorious capitals. On the battle-fronts, however, victor and vanquished alike were in a strangely sombre mood, reflecting that same question posed so often on both sides of the barbed wire: 'Wozu ?', 'What's it all for?' If this book has an unspoken moral, that is it. 23 x 15 cm. 461 + b/w photo plates. HB/DJ NOVEMBER 1918 The Last Act of the Great War GORDON BROOK-SHEPHERD LONDON: COLLINS 1981 First edition. The final act of the Great War portrayed in this book spans the last hundred days of the conflict -from the surprise blow struck by the British at Amiens on 8 August, the 'Black Day of the German Army', down to the signing of the Armistice in the Forest of Compiegne which lowered the last curtain three months later. But Gordon Brook-Shepherd's vivid and masterly account is not simply another re-construction of that familiar contest on the Western Front; nor is it a purely military narrative. For the first time all the sub-plots in the story are given their proper weight as we see Germany's allies being knocked out one by one on such contrasting battlefields as the deserts of Palestine, the mountains of Serbia and the plains of northern Italy. The struggle of millions of civilians on the Home Front is not forgotten and, throughout, the military events are linked with the political dramas being played out in the palaces and chancellories of the continent, where two great empires were collapsing in turmoil. As far as possible the triumphs and tragedies are told in the words of the actors themselves, humble or mighty. Mr Brook-Shepherd's original eyewitness sources range from the eighty-nine-year-old former Empress Zita of Austria-Hungary (the last surviving member of Europe's old ruling order), to private soldiers who fought on both sides of the barbed wire. He has drawn on hundreds of contemporary letters and memoirs in four languages, many of them hitherto unpublished, as well as on the archives of the principal combatant nations, and he has visited all the battlefields described. The result is a panorama rich in colour and human interest: the German War-lord Ludendorff, cracking under the strain of those final months; his sovereign, Kaiser Wilhelm, as ineffective in battle as he had been bombastic in peacetime; the hapless young Austrian Emperor Charles, husband of Zita, struggling to salvage something of his eleven-nation empire as the roof falls in over it; Britain's Prime Minister Lloyd George, always striving to break the hypnotism which the Western Front exercised over his Generals; his colleagues, 'Tiger' Clemenceau in Paris, demonstrating to his Generals that war was too serious a business to be left to them; and, brooding over the whole scene from a distance of three thousand miles, the chilling figure of President Wilson, determined to destroy an ancient European way of life about which he understood little and cared less. On Armistice Day itself, to which Mr Brook-Shepherd devotes a gripping dawn-to-dusk chapter, there was wild celebrating back in all the victorious capitals. On the battle-fronts, however, victor and vanquished alike were in a strangely sombre mood, reflecting that same question posed so often on both sides of the barbed wire: 'Wozu ?', 'What's it all for?' If this book has an unspoken moral, that is it. 23 x 15 cm. 461 + b/w photo plates. Very good condition. Dust jacket edge worn. Gift inscription on the half-title page but otherwise clean and tidy. Get images that make Supersized seem small. THE simple solution for eBay sellers.

Price: 6.99 GBP

Location: Carlisle

End Time: 2025-02-10T12:01:34.000Z

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