With the aid of over 300 photographs, complemented by full-colour maps, The Western Front 1917–1918 provides a detailed guide to the background and conduct of the conflict on the Western Front in the final years of World War I.

After the first few months of World War I, the Western Front consisted of a relatively static line of trench systems which stretched from the coast of the North Sea southwards to the Swiss border. To try to break through the opposing lines of trenches and barbed wire entanglements, both sides employed huge artillery bombardments followed by attacks by tens of thousands of soldiers. Battles could last for months and led to casualties measured in hundreds of thousands for attacker and defender alike. After most of these attacks, only a short section of the front would have moved and only by a kilometer or two. After Gallipoli, Australians were moved to fight in France on the western Front, in battles including the Battle of the Somme. On the first day of the 1916 Battle of the Somme, 60,000 Allies were casualties, including 20,000 deaths. The principal adversaries on the Western Front, who fielded armies of millions of men, were Germany to the East against a western alliance to the West consisting of France and the United Kingdom with sizable contingents from the British Empire, especially the Dominions. The United States entered the war in 1917 and by the summer of 1918 had an army of around half a million men which rose to a million by the time the Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918. For most of World War I, Allied Forces, predominantly those of France and the British Empire, were stalled at trenches on the Western Front. With the last few men who served in World War I now dying out, and the 90th anniversary of the Armistice coming in November 2008, there is no better time to reevaluate this controversial war and shed fresh light on the conflict. With the aid of numerous black and white and color photographs, many previously unpublished, the World War I series recreates the battles and campaigns that raged across the surface of the globe, on land, at sea and in the air. The text is complemented by full-color maps that guide the reader through specific actions and campaigns.

"In this, the second volume covering the war on the Western Front, Peter Simkins describes the last great battles of attrition at Arras, on the Aisne and at Passchendaele in 1917. Then he moves on to relate the successive offensives launched by Germany in the spring and summer of 1918 in an effort to achieve victory or a favourable peace before American manpower proved decisive. Again, questioning and correcting several myths and long-held assumptions about the nature and conduct of war on the Western Front, the author also looks at the aftermath and legacy of the 'war to end wars'."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

This highly illustrated book covers the German retreat from the Somme, through the defensive battles of 1917, the Kaiserschlacht (Kaiser's Battle) of early 1918, to the final Allied offensive from August to the end of the War. The post-Armistice events are also covered as the implications of defeat sunk in on an exhausted nation and its shattered army. Each phase is analysed from the German point of view giving an original angle. The photographs vividly demonstrate life and events both at the front line in the trenches as well as in the rear echelons. This book will appeal to a wide spectrum of readers. Its highly illustrated nature is ideal for the general reader while its rare photographs and unusual angle will make it collectable by the more specialist reader.

This is a new release of the original 1936 edition.