A History of the First World War
Volume 2 : 1918 : The Dreadful Victory

Following 1914, Max Gallo concludes his account of the First World War.

The author recounts these terrible years sealed Europe’s future and the outcome of this conflict which changed the world forever.

After the battle of the Marne, the army buried itself in the trenches and began a horrendous war that left the men lucky enough to still be alive broken. The slaughter was dreadful and the number of deaths in the millions. Civil society was shaken to its core. Women took over the workforce left behind by the men and begin to liberate themselves. The new face of atrocity was permanently burned into people’s minds.

“And now that we must win peace, it is perhaps more difficult than winning the war.” This sentence was uttered by Clémenceau on armistice day, with all the gravity of a 77 year-old man who watched in terror as Europe sunk into horror.

In 1918, the Dreadful Victory, Max Gallo brings the end of the conflict back to life. Eighty years later, the cycle opened by the First World War finally came to a close during the war in the Balkans. As people mourned those lost in battle, major change was taking place throughout the world.