1918: War and Peace [Hardcover]

Gregor Dallas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 19, 2001

On the night of November 7, 1918, out of the fog of "No Man's Land," French troops perceived the vague form of a white flag. Within four days Germany had signed the armistice at the forest outside Compigne.

Renowned historian Gregor Dallas traces the transition from war to peace across Europe from the perspective of five capitals: Berlin, Paris, Washington, London, Moscow. In Berlin the cabarets and beer halls are open, while there is shooting in the streets. In Paris, the peacemakers have assembled to draft the Treaty of Versailles and create the League of Nations. Washington is divided between those who want to open America to the world and those who would prefer the world to go away. A new theater season opens in London, where David Lloyd George holds new elections and reorganizes the War Cabinet and John Maynard Keynes worries about the debt. Moscow, still reeling from the Revolution of 1917, is a scene of desolation, but Lenin insists on setting up the Third International.

The silencing of the guns led to the collapse and disappearance of the German, Austria-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman empires; to revolution and civil disorder; to poverty and disease. The face of Europe was changed forever and the consequences of the peace in that autumn of 1918 would bear fruit twenty years later-when new horrors would await a new generation.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Dallas (The Final Act: The Roads to Waterloo) provides a meticulously detailed and intensive study of the years 1918-1919, when the Great War ended and the victors formulated a peace intended to resolve, once and for all, the underlying causes of the world's conflicts. In this, of course, the Allied leaders failed more completely than even the most pessimistic among them could have imagined. Dallas shows us how this failure arose from the irreconcilable objectives of the prevailing nations, from the mutual incomprehension of Lloyd George, Clemenceau and Wilson and from sheer lack of critical information. Germany had decisively lost the war, yet refused to acknowledge that fact even as it collapsed into political chaos. England and France clashed over reparations and over a military guarantee against future German aggression. For the United States, Wilson focused on vaporous abstractions at the expense of fact-based policy. In the East, Russia's war with itself and with Poland was just hitting stride. Dallas's strengths in his account of these pivotal years include his recognition of how geography influenced both the war's endgame and the fashioning of peace and his adroit sketches of the leading players at the peace conference. In addition to that of the heads of state, the author captures the work of the economists and administrators, such as John Maynard Keynes, Herbert Hoover and, from Germany, Walter Rathenau. These and so many others worked themselves to exhaustion to formulate peace, but, as Dallas demonstrates, chaos, bitterness and contradictory demands from all sides made a lasting peace impossible, and another war inevitable. Illus.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Although numerous studies focus on the origins, course, and consequences of World War I, few examine the process of how the war ended. Dallas, an independent scholar living in France and author of 1815: Roads to Waterloo, analyzes how peace broke out in 1918. The strength of Dallas's narration is that he compares events and people in Berlin, Paris, London, Washington, DC, and Moscow. By analyzing how the ceasefire was arranged, who the major participants were, and how the general population learned about the armistice, we gain insight into the lingering bitterness of the peace and interwar years. Unfortunately, the comparative approach sometimes leads to oversimplification. For example, in his discussion of Britain's continental commitment, Dallas does not apparently make use of the work of Michael Howard, preferring instead to focus on the old axioms of naval power. Dallas also makes some factual errors Emperor Karl was not Franz Joseph's grandson, Bryn Mawr College is not in Connecticut that detract from his narrative. Despite this the book is well written and will interest a wide audience. Frederic Krome, Jacob Rader Marcus Ctr. of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 620 pages
• Publisher: Overlook Hardcover; 1St Edition edition (April 19, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585671576
• ISBN-13: 978-1585671571
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,365,623 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Weighty Piece of History, September 4, 2001

By 

Mr Mondo - See all my reviews

This review is from: 1918: War and Peace (Hardcover)

Gregor Dallas has gifted the world with a splendid introduction for history laymen like myself on the question of what happened after the war ended and why we let it get that way. The short answer is that after November 11, 1918, Europe burned only at one end instead of both. Dallas's genius lies in giving you the overly-long answer and, as a consequence, a very nice bookstop once you have finished reading its contents.


If I sound a bit miffed about the length of the book, please don't take it quite that way. I found certain passages that soared upon the wings of swallows. Others, however, merely shuffled along like an arthritic elephant. Mr. Dallas's tome shuffles a bit too much. It needed tighter editing. I was also distracted by the number of typos I ran across, including one of my all-time favorites the "the the" mental stutter, which is liberally salted throughout the book.


So, what about Dallas's historical analysis of the events surrounding the Armistice and its aftermath? He's on his firmest and most fascinating footing when recounting mayhem, most notably Germany's descent into near anarchy, the swirl of conflicting groups contesting one another for control of Berlin or parts of it and the rise of paramilitary groups that ultimately curbed the unrest in a bloody, extra-legal manner.


Dallas's greatest achievement lies in reminding Western readers that when the guns fell silent in the trenches in France, they continued to roar everywhere in Europe east of the Oder. He takes the time to explain why the Bolsheviks were able to seize and consolidate their control of the new Russian state. There are plenty of books already out that will give you a much more thorough account of the convoluted fighting between Red and White armies between 1919-1921. Dallas, however, is interested in the question of how the vicious civil war in Russia and its outcome affected all of Central Europe in the interwar period. Poland's defeat of Russia in a brief war in 1920, often overlooked in Western accounts of the aftermath of the Great War, is placed in a much more appropriate context here.


This is a book you read once, put back on the shelf, then return to over the years as you learn more about that particular era of history. Dallas's palpable dislike of Communists along with Americans in general and liberals in particular may put off some more patriotic readers, but it doesn't detract from the book's worth as a reminder of what happens when peace is not waged with the single-mindedness, intensity and ingenuity of modern war.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally, the truth about Versailles, December 11, 2002

By 

William J. Rigby - See all my reviews

This review is from: 1918: War and Peace (Hardcover)

Five stars to Gregor Dallas! He has written one of the best history books on WW1 that I have read at any time and with a particular interest in WW1 this mean I have read many. It is eminently comparable to Massie's "Dreadnought" in depth and readability. Come to think of it, the one complements the other since there can be no better introduction to the origins of WW1 and no better narrative of the transition from war to peace.
I read Dallas' "The Final Act" which relates the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the transition to peace through the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Thus, his latest book treats the same process after the "War to End all Wars" and where appropriate he draws useful parallels. The difference between the two transitions is striking: after 1815, Europe remained peaceful for almost exactly 100 years, except for the altercation between France and the newly formed Germany of Bismarck in 1870, but after 1918 the peace lasted just over 20 years before another world war.
The seeds of WW2 were sown during the peace process which began with the armistice of November 11, 1918. The entry of the United States into WW1 came at a late hour and by the time US military intervention began to have any effect the war was virtually over. Indeed, we learn that the refusal of Pershing to integrate the US Expeditionary force into the allied command had two consequences. One was Pershing's naïve belief he could do what the allies could not by making mass frontal attacks. Both the British and French had taken years to learn this was not the way to win a war, but in the typical NIH syndrome that we seem to suffer from, Pershing refused to listen. Thus he made three attempts to break through the German lines and failed miserably each time, incurring horrendous losses quite on a par with anything the allied command had inflicted on their own forces. Meantime, both the British and French were forging ahead: Clemenceau expressed his frustration on two occasions at the slowness of Pershing to effect a contribution in accordance with the plan. Finally, on the 4th attempt, Pershing broke through, but by then the German flanks were in great danger from the allies on each side. Only in the last week of the war did the US army make a significant contribution, but Wilson took little time to announce it was America that won the war!
The book relates the formulation of Wilson's 14 points, written with his friend Colonel House (who was not a colonel at all!) without consulting either his cabinet or the Congress. He then sent the 14 points to the German government without informing the allies. This contrasts with Lloyd George, the British premier, who was careful not only to keep his cabinet informed, but also parliament, so that when he did make his policy speech, it was with the support of the elected representatives. A lesson of democracy, indeed, when compared to Wilson's method! Clemenceau equally was careful to keep all those that mattered informed of his thoughts and intentions.
Wilson's misplaced and naïve idealism in the end cost the allies a good deal as Dallas demonstrates. Wilson was never able to comprehend the French concern about the future and its imperative to prevent Germany from making war again. The British understood this very well, but placed themselves in the middle. The question of German reparations for the extensive damage they caused was a common aim of the allies, but Wilson did not really want to see Germany stuck with reparations, though in the end he accepted the principle he did not foresee enforcing any payments. In short, the intervention of Wilson directly lead to WW2 far more than any so-called 'appeasement' by Chamberlain or the French. While all parties concentrated on Germany's western borders, no one bothered too much about what was going on in Poland, nor for that matter in Germany itself. Thus the myth of the non-defeat of the German Army was allowed to fester and to lay the blame, later, on the Versailles Treaty not to mention 'appeasement'.
Reading other critiques on this site, I find the claim of errors by one critic nonsensical and, moreover, the allegation is unsupported by evidence. I also note the typos are not as frequent as alleged, but even more important, I wonder what typos have to do with the substance of the work? I accept the truth is hard for many of us to swallow, brought up on the usual myths of US hubris, but the critics should say so and not use subterfuge to denigrate a serious, excellent book.
This is an important book, because it overturns accepted ideas, places a perspective on the aftermath of WW1 not found, to my knowledge, elsewhere. It is thus not only a rattling well told story, but also a work of scholarship.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The World That Was No More, July 18, 2001

By 

"mrskurt" - See all my reviews

This review is from: 1918: War and Peace (Hardcover)

Dallas presents a thought-provoking, extremely interesting look at the end of the war and the process of peace negotiations. As it turned out, negotiating peace was harder than waging war, for the peace goals of the major players among the Allies varied greatly. The French wanted revenge, the British wanted money, President Wilson wanted a New World Order and his League of Nations-- and no one quite knew how to bring them all together into a manageable peace. Dallas probes the minds and souls of everyone from displomats to the front line soldiers (Allied and German) and renders a truly engrossing account of the forces which led to Paris in 1919 and a "peace" which paved the way for the eventual rise of Hitler and the horrors of the Nazis. Anyone interested in World War I will appreciate this book.