Armistice 1918 - Bullitt Lowry

The five armistices arranged in the fall of 1918 - those of the Allies and the United States with Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, Austria, Hungary and Germany - determined the course of diplomatic events for many years after World War I. The armistice with Germany, the most important of the five, was really a peace treaty in miniature. Bullitt Lowry, basing his account on a close study of newly available archives in Great Britain, offers a detailed examination of the process by which what might have been only simple orders to cease fire instead became extensive diplomatic and military instructions to armies and governments. He also assesses the work of the leading figures in the process: British prime minister David Lloyd George, French premier minister Georges Clemenceau, and American presidential envoy Edward M. House, as well as supporting casts of generals, admirals and diplomatic advisors. Lowry both adds to and contradicts traditional historical explanations. His final judgement on the armistice with Germany - that it is difficult to see what might have been done differently - is directed both at those who say the German armistice should have been simpler, speedier and more humanitarian and those who claim its terms should have been more severe.