The Kaiser’s battle
Martin Middlebrook

At 9.30am on 21 March 1918, the last great battle of the First World War commenced when three German armies struck a massive blow against the weak divisions of the British Third and Fifth Armies. It was the first day of what the Germans called the Kaiserschlacht (“the Kaiser’s Battle’), the series of attacks that were intended to break the deadlock on the Western Front, knock the British Army out of the war, and finally bring victory to Germany. In the event the cost of the gamble was so heavy that once the assault faltered, it remained for the Allies to push the exhausted German armies back and the War was at last over.

The clever blending of written and oral accounts from some 650 surviving British and German soldiers makes the book an extremely convincing reconstruction. The early German advance, capturing of positions and plundering of provisions, the British withdrawals and surrenders, the exploits of individual heroes, all come across in a personal and vivid fashion.