With our backs to the wall: victory and defeat in 1918

Historian David Stevenson's meticulously researched book starts as the new Russian communist government makes a separate peace with Germany and her allies, releasing nearly a million troops from the Eastern Front. Allied losses during the previous three years had been catastrophic and while America had come into the war, its intervention seemed likely to be too little too late. Stevenson describes how Ludendorff's doomed offensive Operation Michael proved disastrous for the Germans. He pinpoints the American action far earlier than anyone had thought possible as one of the key factors that led to the Allies' unexpected but overwhelming victory in 1918.