The Imperial War Museum Book of 1918: Year of Victory

'When is this awful nightmare to end?' was the question in countless people's minds at the beginning of 1918. But by November a young infantryman in France could write: 'I feel as if a great black cloud has been lifted from the world, and that the sun is shining again for the first time for years'.
The dramatic series of events that produced the astonishing change of mood reflected in those quotations is the subject of this new volume by distinguished military historian Malcolm Brown - a volume which provides the authentic voice of the British soldier in 1918. Published on the eightieth anniversary of the 1918 Armistice, it tells the story of a year which, Malcolm Brown argues, has been unduly neglected in favour of its more famous predecessors, the years of the Somme and Passchendaele. Yet the casualty lists on all sides were longer in 1918, and never was there a year with more remarkable turns of fortune and intensity of action. At one time there was a serious fear that Britain might have to evacuate her troops from the continent and that the war would be lost. Only a matter of weeks later, however, Germany's armies were retreating in disarray and her leaders were suing for peace.