The Generals’ War: Operational Level Command on the Western Front in 1918

Known as the war to end all wars and the Great War, World War I was the stage for a new form of mass destruction and violent chemical warfare. When the Bolsheviks pulled Russia out of the war in 1917, the Germans turned their offensive moves to the eastern front in hopes of winning the war in 1918. But as fresh American troops entered the front, the scales tipped against Germany.Some of the most critical factors in the outcome of World War I were decisions made by the key commanders in Germany and in the Ally troops. The General’s War explores the military strategies of the most senior generals of the last year of the Great War. These six very different men included Germany’s Field Marshals Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff; France’s Marshals Ferdinand Foch and Philippe Petain; Great Britain’s Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig; and the United States’s General John Pershing. Although they may have not been known as great captains at the time, these six men determined how World War I played out on the battlefields of the western front between November 1917 and November 1918.A landmark analysis of the generalship that resulted in a casualty count of one and a quarter million soldiers, The General’s War is an intimate look at the senior commanders of the Great War.