Jump to content
The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

The 100 Days


ejcmartin

Recommended Posts

I am looking to read a good book on the 100 Days. My preference is for something of the "big picture".

Suggestions most welcome.

Thank you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Amiens to the Armistice

ISNB 1 85753 149 3

By Dr. Paul Harris and Dr. Niall Barr

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1918 The Unexpected Victory - Gary Sheffield IIRC

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I concur on the Sheffield and Terraine books and have not read the other. Soissons 1918 would give you more about what French and Americans were doing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

John Toland's Last 100 Days is very good too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Amiens 1918 McWilliams & Steele is very good but may not be as broad as you want and if not neither would be Soissons 1918. That attack July 15? by Foch after failure of for the Gremans their last offensive was when the Germans began to lose the war, not the later Amiens battle.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

John Toland's Last 100 Days is very good too.

Guys

WW2 - you need his No Man's Land. Covers 1918 but is americentric.

Books on the actual last 100 days are by their very nature focused (often on the colonials eg Schreiber's Shock Army of the British Empire).

I would suggest looking at the whole of 1918 on all the fronts 'for the big picture' by reading in addition eg Palmer's Victory 1918, Brook-Shepherd's November 1918, Watt's The Kings depart which goes beyond Versailles.

Not yet read but often bibliography-ed (?) are Blaxland's Amiens 1918, Pitt's 1918:The Last Act or the Official History which is maybe too BIG.

Carl Hoehler

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you for all your suggestions. With two young children I could be reading these books for a few years! :rolleyes:

Time to do some ordering from the web!

Thanks again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

The Last Four Months - The End of the War in the West by Major General Sir F Maurice. Published 1919, gives a contemporary view. Interesting to compare/balance the more modern accounts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To get a combatants perspective Malcolm Brown's Imperial War Museum Book of 1918: Year of Victory is a good read.

Jon

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guys

WW2 - you need his No Man's Land. Covers 1918 but is americentric.

Oops. Hic semper erro. Getting my world wars mixed up :blink:

No Man's Land is a far superior book to Last 100 Days... as well as being about WW1, not WW2!

For Germanophones, Wolfgang Foerster's book on the mental collapse of Ludendorff is fascinating. So too the diaries of Thaer, who was on Ludendorff's staff.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll second Pitt and Terraine, having read them both. Terraine of course takes a very anglocentric and anglophilic view, and while his attitude was necessary to counter the mud-blood-and-bull**** brigade who'd preached to me in school history classes, in the broader picture I've got now, he is perhaps even a little jingoistic. Still, you can't judge this too harshly; he was fighting against some entrenched myths, and it is in large part due to his efforts that there is a more balanced view today.

I was disappointed in McWilliams and Steele. I don't know why... there just seems something about it. I won't argue with those who liked it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...