he chronic shortages in essential goods, caused by dislocations of war, depletion of reserves and distribution problems which escalated dramatically after 1917, led to a raw struggle for collective and individual survival.

nholy marriage of anti-Semitism and anti-Bolshevism produced very different results in different European settings. It was only east of the River Rhine (and more dramatically east of the River Elbe) that anti-‘Judeo- bolshevism’ would lead to the pogroms and mass murders of Jews that became such a stark and gruesome feature of European history until 1945.

It did not take long before the notion of Jews as the main ‘beneficiaries’ of Bolshevism spread beyond the Russian borders.

Russia and the majority of its population, the revolution of 1917 and the subsequent civil war thus constituted perhaps more immedi- ately life-changing events than the Great War itself, largely because violence was now both internalised and universalised

As the Bolshevik leadership was well aware, their ambition to unleash class war would invite stubborn resistance from those ‘propertied classes’ that Lenin knew were poised to offer ‘frantic resistance’

violence carried out by non-state actors was unlikely

totalisation process at work in the First World War generated a brutalisation both of war and society by establishing new and unprecedented levels of acceptable violence which prepared the way for, and were only surpassed by, the horrors of the Second World War, during which the number of killed civilians exceeded that of combatants.

In the absence of functioning states, militias of various political persuasions assumed the role of the national army for themselves (often against armed opposition from other groups), while the lines between friends and foes, combatants and civilians, were far less clearly demarked than they had been during the Great War.

new about the post-war conflicts was that they occurred after a century in which European states had more or less successfully managed to assert their monopoly on legitimate violence, in which national armies had become the norm and in which the fundamentally important distinction between combatants and non-combatants had been codified

in the exposure of Eastern and Central Europe to two currents of revolution, the revolutions of national self-determination and the social revolutions for the redistribution of power, land and wealth.

birth of these new nation-states in East-Central Europe and the Baltic region was generally most violent in those regions where national and social revolutions overlappe

sought to determine or defend their real or imagined borders through force and strove to create ethnically or religiously homogenous communities.

ntense in the vast territories of the defeated dynastic land empires – the Habsburg, Romanov and Ottoman empires – whose disappearance from the map provided the space for the emergence of new and often nervously aggressive nation-states.3

the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front was atypical for interwar Europe as violent upheavals, pogroms and civil wars remained a characteristic feature of post-war Europe’s everyday life.

The only escape route from the ‘sunless prison’ of a meaningless existence was the possibility of continuing the war through paramilitary activity – an activity that offered structure and purpose when it was most needed.

The Kyoto visits of Iemochi were ruinous for bakufu finances, and the necessity of main- taining an ever larger force and presence three hundred miles from the Tokugawa heartland worsened an already difficult situation

The shogun's position had always de- pended in the last analysis on force; it was therefore significant that bakufu ministers now thought it desirable to secure a specific court authorization of shogunal authority

He was obliged to show ritual humility in processions to imperial shrines, and his ceremonial deference to the emperor left little doubt of his subordi- nate position

The arrangements were made in apparent disre- gard of her own reluctance and that of the Emperor Komei, and the matter served to inflame loyalist indignation further as a demonstra- tion of shogunal disrespect.

1865-6 the great lords hardly granted the bakufu the courtesy of a reply to its summons, and a bakufu survey of Edo mansions turned up the fact that some of the lesser lords had gone so far as to rent their residences to commoners.2

Many of the lords, freed from duty at Edo, now trans- ferred their attention to Kyoto, which thereafter competed with Edo as center of a national politics.

irst of these was the moderation and virtual abolition of the system oisankin kotai, undertaken in order to permit economies to facilitate domain military preparedness.

Matsudaira Shun- gaku of Fukui was appointed seiji sosai (Supreme Councillor) and Hitotsubashi (Tokugawa) Yoshinobu koken (guardian), the latter ap- pointment specifically announced as made at "imperial request.

bakufu officials the wisdom of retreating from Ii's insistence on tradi- tional bureaucratic direction of bakufu and national affairs

Unfortunately the strains generated by Ii Naosuke's purge and the enforced absence through punishment of several of the daimyo who were most important to the Ansei reforms had changed this pattern of planned cooperation into one of competitive assertion and rivalry.

he great lords who had lobbied for the succession of Tokugawa Yoshinobu wanted cooperation to replace the costly control measures of the Tokugawa system.

ourt would designate certain daimyo to represent its interests in Edo;

ogunate ruled "in accordance with the orders of the court," which would thus set policy while the bakufu carried it out

The assassination of Ii Naosuke was followed by a series of efforts to bring court and bakufu together in a new and more cooperative struc- ture. It did not succeed.

Tempo fiscal and economic reforms in Satsuma and Choshu left those domains in much stronger position for the competition that lay ahead.

istance and size made possible relatively autono- mous responses to bakufu and imperialist demands,

harbored a centuries-old resentment of Tokugawa rule.

Also, the three domains were integrated territorial units with defensible borders along land communication routes that permitted vigilance over contacts with contiguous areas.

umiliation of Japan by the barbarians and the punishment of "our former lord . . . who, instead of securing action, was accused and punished."

ived in a world that was less structured by ritual than was that of their superiors, and com- munication with men from other domains was also easier for them than it was for their superiors

Ii's crime had been that of indifference to the imperial will, and it urged all Tokugawa retainers to turn with shame to the sun goddess of Ise in penitence. The loyalist years had begun

His personal rigidity and harshness were untypical of bakufu procedure and, indeed, of most of Japanese administrative history with its preferences for collegia! deci- sion makin

The court struck back; its directive to the bakufu, in a totally unprecedented breach of channels and security, was transmitted to the Kyoto representative of Mito and sent on to Edo by him to the consternation of the bakufu, which forbade Mito to divulge its contents to other quarters

akufu an- nounced that shogunal succession had gone to the young Iemochi of Kii. Thus Ii Naosuke had decided the two burning questions of the period within ten days, and quite on his own authority.

eassertion of bakufu control over dissidents was a matter of the highest priority and that other issues were secondary

ines were drawn for a showdown

. This marked the first time in the Tokugawa years that the court had presumed to disagree publicly with bakufu policy.

In the future, the bakufu's desire for daimyo support in difficult decisions would find it consulting them more frequently, and the court itself developed the tactic of suggesting that daimyo, or at least leading Tokugawa vassals like the gosanke, should be consulted again

it was a full year before it sent the text of the Shimoda treaty that its negotiators had worked out with Perry to the daimyo and the court.

it was an early indication that the court would consider itself involved in matters of foreign policy and defense

conomic difficulties and military unprepared- ness made it important for Japan to avoid military conflict until prepa- rations had been advanced

such titles became a matter of prestige and pride and helped lead to daimyo-court connections against which the early shoguns had guarded. Gradually and almost imperceptibly, the bakufu's "virtue" came to be identified with its ability to protect and insulate the court and country from outside contact.

hierar- chical scheme of obligations in which sovereign came to stand above shogun.

In samurai minds the identification of "country" with "virtue" tended to make absolutes of duty and action. "Loyalty" (chugi) became a "great duty" (taigi) and the supreme test of the moral individual.

but in Japan the nonfunctioning throne became idealized, and it ended as the focus of ethnic nationalism

"revere the emperor, drive out the barbarian!" (sonno-joi), loyal- ism wedded to antiforeignism became the most powerful emotion of mid-century Japan.

growing consciousness of the foreign danger had been one of the unsettling elements in the nine- teenth-century climate of opinion among informed intellectuals

barriers set by established and deeply routinized patterns of admin- istration made it difficult to initiate radical change

effort during the Tempo reforms to reclaim some vassals' holdings roused a storm of complaint, and yet his abortive efforts anticipated the measures that would be found necessary by future reformers when the crisis deepened in the 1860s.

entral authority, as Harold Bolitho's study of the fudai daimyo points out, had not grown;* if anything, the shift from strong to weak shoguns had resulted in bureaucratic immobility

the language of the nineteenth-century leaders increasingly stressed the "obliga- tions of the past" (sono sujisuji no gohoko) in a rigid adherence to tradition

Such efforts, though surely helpful to the government, were also evidence of the government's inability to fulfill the paternal role it had long ago set for itself

During those years Japan was devastated by crop failures that caused ruinous famines in central and northern areas. These combined with governmental inefficiency and unresponsiveness to encourage or provoke popular resistance

Japan's political crisis of the 1860s was preceded by serious internal difficulties and foreign danger that brought to mind formulations of Chinese historians who habitually coupled internal decline with border incursions made possible by that decline: "troubles within, disaster from without" (naiyu gaikan

s a member of a kumi he came under the supervision of the kumi head (kumigashira), who served as personnel officer for the group, assisted in advancing the careers of men under his supervision, and preparing and presenting to a higher authority the petitions for promotion or transfer.

ureaucratic system was totally defenseless against the pressures created by the hereditary retention of stipends by so many members of an underused aristocracy.

working out institutionally a satisfactory relationship between the two segments of the society.

rbaniza- tion and the spread of money economy created conditions that enabled merchants and manufacturers to become essential to the well-being of the warrior class.

The bakufu's Finance Office did more than regulate granary lands; it was charged with collecting revenue from all sources, rural as well as commercial, and with outlay

Thus as the daimyo of the Sengoku era carried out their new land surveys and drew the samurai away from their fiefs, they brought into being village communities that had bar- gained with the daimyo to provide an agreed-upon annual tax payment in exchange for varying degrees of village self-management.

That so small a staff could administer so large a domain can be explained in terms of what can be called the "power content" of the bakuhan system

number of basic problems in the transition of gover- nance from charismatic leadership to bureaucratic routine had yet to be solved

The Tokugawa bakufu re- mained essentially an expanded houseband in which the chieftain (now the shogun) governed through his hereditary vassals and other types of direct retainers. But in addition there were now two new groups of daimyo located

The outside lords and even the cadet and collateral daimyo were treated as allies existing outside this circle.

ontrol regulations became routine, when the surveillance of the daimyo by bakufu inspectors was carried out halfheartedly, as economic problems affected the samurai class, and as the bakufu's finances deteriorated, the central authority was weakened disproportionately.

but the many restrictions that proved so essential in the early years were softened or even abandoned.

Unlike the European monarchs, however, the shogunate, once a stable power structure had been achieved, did little to extend the powers of the central government and instead allowed many of these powers to decay

the bakufu was able to exer- cise a powerful influence on the country's commercial life. The bakufu also succeeded in regulating foreign trade by channeling it through chosen instruments at Nagasaki, Tsushima, and Kagoshima.

aimyo were obliged to contribute manpower, material, and funds for the construction and rebuilding of a series of shogunal castle and residences, palaces for the court nobility, and various public works projects

Although the daimyo gave up critical portions of their political autonomy to the bakufu, in actual practice they were left with consider- able freedom in the administration of their domains

The maintenance of dual residences, at home and in Edo, and the expenses of frequent travel between them imposed a massive drain on the daimyo's treasury, especially for the lords in western Japan. By the end of the eighteenth century for many daimyo, alternate attendance was costing a third or more of their annual income, and as a result many were in serious debt to merchant financiers.

As a method of assisting shogunal authority, this practice continu- ally affirmed Edo's political centrality

Daimyo were permitted to return to their home domains in alternate years (in some instances, in alternate half-years) but were required to leave their wives and children and ranking retain- ers in Edo as hostages.

his regulatory authority was spelled out in a series of codes (hatto) directed toward each of these groups

he Buke shohatto was read before the assembled daimyo at the inauguration of each new shogun.

As supreme proprietary overlord, the shogun assumed the right to regulate all lesser proprietors, be they courtier, priest, or warrior aristo- crat

The fact is that the Tokugawa shoguns, from the first to the last, considered the daimyo a necessary element of national administration. That is, the daimyo were not thought of as enemies of effective govern- ment but, rather, as necessities.

All in all, the Tokugawa house was remarkably successful in safeguarding its succession, thereby avoiding debilitating succession quarrels or the possibility of takeover by a subordinate house exercising power through a puppet shogun.

successful deification of Ieyasu as Tosho daigongen (Great shining deity of the east).

eepening relations between the Tokugawa house and the court, ultimately through intermarriage.

he shogun expended or requisitioned conspicuous financial resources to build palaces and residences for members of the court.

Hidetada could claim to be the "protector" of the Japa- nese homeland against foreign enemies.

e made conspicuous display of the shogun's authority to act in matters of high national policy.

Whereas Ieyasu was ac- cepted as chief of the military estate on the basis of his military suc- cesses, his successors did not have the opportunities to enhance their charisma through military exploits

Despite all that Ieyasu had achieved, the two shoguns who followed him did not have an easy time, for it was they who were given the task of consolidating the relations among shogun, emperor, and daimyo

the creation of a structure of political allegiances that could transcend the person of the hegemon,

agreed to the truce only to realize too late that the Tokugawa work gangs brought in to fill in moats had gone too far. Once the castle's defenses had been seriously weakened, Ieyasu renewed his attack in May of 1615. In this so-called summer campaign, he was successful. Osaka Castle was entered and burned

The first siege failed at a heavy cost in lives, and Ieyasu realized that a continuation of the assault using the same strategy could lead to humiliating defeat.

Ieyasu's nervousness was reflected in his demand shortly thereafter, on the occasion of celebrations in honor of Emperor Go-Mizuno-6's accession, that all daimyo swear a special oath of alle- giance to him as the head of the military estate

Ieyasu's move was no retirement, no effort to ease the pressures of official life. Rather, it was a way of making the Tokugawa succession more secure, both by setting a precedent of direct succession and by making sure that the next shogun was safely in place before Ieyasu's death,

It was clear to all that the Tokugawa reality and the Toyotomi memory could not coexist for long, but Ieyasu, hoping to avoid a war that would reopen the question of the ultimate loyalty of the military houses, felt constrained to put off the final confrontation until 1614-15.

Ieyasu was also sobered by the fact that he had few trust- worthy allies in the western provinces.

Finally, he granted daimyo status to eight rear vassals who had distinguished themselves in Ieyasu's eyes.

ighty-seven daimyo who had opposed Ieyasu were defeated and their lands confiscated.

battle was in doubt throughout the morning, but the defection of Kobayakawa turned the tide. Victory went to the eastern coalition

But their cause lacked a single charismatic leader who could keep them united, and it soon became apparent that major differ- ences of opinion divided the so-called administrative {bugyo) group from the generals.

Ieyasu by far the most experi- enced and powerful among the regents, and when on his own initiative he moved into the position in Osaka Castle vacated by Maeda Toshiie, he was recognized as the obvious tenka-dono (lord of the realm)

the structure was inherently unstable, and once Hideyoshi passed from the scene it began to fall apart.

eyasu cleverly took the opportunity to expand and strengthen his Edo Castle and carry out military and civil administrative programs

Meanwhile Ieyasu, and a number of daimyo whose domains were located at great distances from the takeoff point for the invasion of Korea, had been spared a debilitating involvement in the venture.

He chose the latter method, relying on the services of both old and newly enrolled vassals

daimyo of the seventeenth century had drawn their housemen, down to a fairly low level, away from their fiefs, thereby making them dependent on sti- pends paid out of the daimyo's granaries.13

Rather than displace the rural samurai and even some enfeoffed vassals left behind by the Hojo, Ieyasu used them as best he could, recogniz- ing the status they had held under the Hojo and using them as rural intendants or recruiting them into his and his retainers' vassal bonds.

But the transfer moved Ieyasu farther from the center of political affairs, and it uprooted him and his followers from the areas where their historic roots were deep- est and most secure. T

Ieyasu managed to stay in the east expanding his holdings, improving his military capacity, and perfecting his administrative machinery

He stood among the dozen or so largest daimyo of the land, and he was already gaining a reputation for having one of the most effective administrative and military organizations in the country

techniques adopted from times when the head of the Tokugawa line was simply one of many daimyo competing for local supremacy in central Japan.

resulting national polity was that unification was carried only so far. The daimyo domains, though giving up a portion of their hard-won autonomy, managed to survive as part of the system

aimyo enhanced their own powers of private control over their local domains (their kokka in a limited local sense), borrowing support from the very cen- tral authority that sought to constrain them.

government organization was the result of thefinal matura- tion of the institutions of shogunal rule at the national level and of daimyo rule at the local level.

, it is now standard in the study of electoral institutions to treat institutional characteristics as producing tendencies in party systems that are probabilistic, not deterministic in nature.

The psycholo- gical effect is driven by the anticipations, both by elites and voters, of the workings of the mechanical factor, anticipations which then shape both groups’ consequent behavio

The mechanical effect of electoral systems describes how the electoral rules constrain the manner in which votes are converted into seats, while the psychological factor deals with the shaping of voter (and party) responses in anticipation of the electoral law’s mechanical constraints

Duverger also stipulated a second proposition, that proportional representation (PR) electoral systems were a driving force behind the multi-party systems in many such countries he examined

National factors explain a great deal, concluded Duverger, but two-party systems are invariably associated with a particular type of institutional arrangement: the single-member district, plurality electoral system.

This secret wartime pact between the British and French governments to allocate defined spheres of influence across the Middle East once the Ottoman Empire had been defeated was not disclosed to Hussein

The British reaction was to dismiss this extensive claim to represent the Arab ‘nation’, but there was some sympathy for the idea of an Arab revolt which might potentially tie down thousands of Ottoman troops.

alliance with Great Britain, to provide military and naval protection, and accepted the principle of economic preference for the British Empire

Yet they were reassured by news of the secret talks between Abdullah and Kitchener that seemed to suggest the British favoured independent Arab states under British protection

The war was opening up the opportunity to fulfil a long-cherished ideal.

Far4 from being a proto-nationalist struggle for the sake of Arabism, this was a bid for dynastic security and an opportunity to replace the secularists in Istanbul with a genuine caliphate.

Ottoman forces in the region were strong enough to crush any premature revolt.

Thus to understand 1917 we need to see the global impacts of a war that left behind it the seeds of future conflicts around the world.

400 years of Ottoman rule in the Arab world was effectively over, even if, nearly a century of bloodshed in the region later, no one has yet been able to form a consensus on what should follow it

David Lloyd George committed precious British assets to the conquest of the Middle East.

Forged out of the crucible of two major wars, the USSR radically changed the nature of global politics for most of what remained of the twentieth centur

1917 appears less as the start of the final phase of the First World War and more as the starting point of the wars that would shape the rest of the twentieth century and beyond.

superior ability of the French and British to manage their home fronts thus played a critical role in delivering victory.

‘the price civilians believed they could and should pay for victory or peace was not limitless

Indeed the extent of the economic crisis in Germany raised serious doubts about the ability of Germany to win the war in any meaningful sense, regardless of what its armies did on the battlefield.

Inflation ran rampant, robbing Germans of both purchasing power and savings.

the civilian economy became little more than an engine for providing resources to the army

German economy was simply incapable of meeting such a monumental challenge.

Germans had the additional responsibility of trying to prop up their faltering Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman allies

917, as America came formally into the war and the U-boat crisis abated, the French and British could take maximum advantage of such access. The Germans, by contrast, were reduced to taking resources from an already impoverished Eastern Front

If, however, they failed, the arrival of hundreds of thousands of fresh bodies would buy the Allies all the time they would need to grind the Germans down through attrition, superior firepower and the ongoing naval blockade that continued to cut deeply into German food and fuel supplies.

he end of yet another frustrating year of war set up a race of sorts

Tragically, though, they had too few reserves to push through the gap and the British planners had erred by not leaving any tanks in reserve to help keep the gap open. Even if they had, the tanks did not have the ability to sustain such a breakthrough

They argued that tanks could supplement artillery barrages by using their strengths of surprise and mobility; tanks, moreover, did not chew up the ground for the infantry as artillery shells did.

ritish and the French had invested heavily in tanks but thus far they had proven to be a disappointment due to mechanical problems and a poor doctrine for using them

Caporetto offensive succeeded beyond the Germans’ wildest imagination. Artillery destroyed Italian positions and the rapid collapse of Italian lines caused a panic and rout that sent 1.5 million Italian soldiers fleeing in disorder towards the presumed safety of the Piave river.

win not by trading punches as in a heavyweight fight, but by exploiting enemy weaknesses in something more akin to a judo match.

This new system of infiltration tactics required highly trained infantry and a new approach to artillery

more to disorient than to overwhelm.26 Into the breaches thus created the Germans sent specially trained soldiers who would bypass the enemy’s for- ward trenches in order to target the command and control centres behind them

the new artillery system used shorter and sharper barrages and included heavier concentrations of poison gas. Bruchmüller’s system also emphasised shorter barrages deliv- ered with little advance warning in order to maintain surprise and prevent the enemy from rushing reserves into the target area

ewer reserves with which to meet any future German offensives, such as the one that came the following spring.

In November Haig called a halt to an offensive that had done little to improve the Allies’ strategic situation.

The British adapted and scored local successes at places like Menin Road, Polygon Wood and Broodseinde, but the campaign as a whole failed to achieve Haig’s goals. As autumn brought worsening weather and shorter days, British gains slowed to a halt

Command confusion, strong German defences that better protected sol- diers from the effects of artillery and almost unprecedented levels of rain further slowed British advances.

Thereafter, however, little went as Haig had planned. The British were slow to exploit the shock of Messines, allowing the Germans to move reinforcements into the are

offensive in Flanders offered the best way to draw the Germans away from the French and give his ally the time it desperately needed.2

rench manpower was a dwindling resource and that the arrival of the Americans would be critical to Allied success

ost of these attacks were successful and caused casualties that by 1917 standards were proportionate to their accomplishments.

Pétain’s strategic vision aimed to use more force, mostly with artillery and tanks, aimed at smaller goals. He wanted his offensives limited in both space and time; if an offensive showed signs of failure, he would shut it down and look elsewhere.

reform of the French army designed to make it a modern force that fought with artillery, armour and aviation all working together to reduce casualtie

nstituted major reforms in the French army, ranging from better food and more leave to ordering French officers to spend more time in the trenches with their men.

He dealt harshly with soldiers who had threatened officers or encour- aged rebellion, but he also knew that the men had legitimate complaints.

ledged that they would still defend French soil, but that they would no longer attack under such murderous circumstances.

failure of Nivelle’s grand plan occurred among the French troops themselves. Furious at the gross incom- petence of their own leaders, thousands of them refused to attack

ritish generals were understandably reluctant to place their troops under foreign command even before the catastrophe on the Chemin des Dames; after it, they dug their heels in even deeper, with important consequences for 1918.

It severely damaged French relations with the British, in part because the British felt compelled to renew attacks around Arras to relieve pressure from the French, and in part because Nivelle, who had once been so free with information, refused to share critical details of the failure with Haig’s head- quarters.

intellectually incapable of stopping after having invested so much into the offensive’s success

ivelle continued to send in reinforcements in hopes of breaking the lines, but that decision only increased the bloodshed.

Nivelle had expected tanks and airplanes to help make his artillery more effective, but the cloudy, rainy weather grounded the planes and most of the tanks broke down in the difficult terrain.

Currie had trained his men in their specific tasks and, in part because his own aims were limited, he could match what he asked of them to the resources available.

Learning from Nivelle’s artillery methods and improving upon them, Currie was able to give his troops adequate cover for the attack

He also threatened to resign if the French government did not back him, thereby creating a military crisis as well as a diplomatic crisis because Nivelle had Lloyd George’s support.

he advantage of exceptional high ground and positions that were invulner- able to the kinds of tactical artillery bombardments that had worked at Verdun.

The ridge Nivelle planned to assault was a veritable cliff topped by a road, the Chemin des Dames, which afforded the Germans excellent visibility into the valley below. There would thus be no chance of achieving surprise

French would then use the methods Nivelle had allegedly perfected at Verdun to open a hole in the difficult terrain along the River Aisne

enemy at one point and then to attack another point where we will penetrate and will march toward his reserves in order to destroy them’.

His scientific and aggressive methods seemed to stand in marked contrast to the slow, slogging approach that Joffre, Foch and Henri-Philippe Pétain preferred

same Bolshevik virus that they had injected into the Russian body politic infected German soldiers, contributing to the radicalisation of the once-loyal German left, which had now ‘found a new model in the Bolshevik revolution’.

Germans had to deploy more men in the East than they had originally planned, even if major combat there had ended

n December, they opened negotiations from a position of strength and in the ensuing Treaty of Brest- Litovsk they seized more than 1 million square miles of Russian territory, along with enough raw materials to compensate for some of the losses suffered from the British blockade.

The failure of the Kerensky offensive led to a sharp decline in Russian morale and the virtual end of Russian support for continu- ing the war.

In the end, North American goods and American soldiers crossed the Atlantic safely throughout 1917 and 1918. The German submarine gamble had failed.

ensions continued to build, however, and the publica- tion of the Zimmermann Telegram in March seemed to demonstrate to the Americans that the Germans did indeed pose a clear and present danger to the United States

hey knew that the move risked antagonising the world’s most powerful neutral nation, the United States, but they determined that the gamble was worth it. Submarines could cut the British Isles from badly needed imports and, they hoped, without Britain the French could not continue the war.

major Allied offensives of 1917 proved to be failures, it is important to keep in mind that Allied generals did not have the luxury of remaining on the defensive

The French did not forget this intentional devastation when they drew up peace terms the following year.

provide Germany ‘monetary indemnities and vast territorial annexations’ to justify the high German casualties of 1914–16

German planners knew that a long war put pressures on the German home front that it might not be able to withstand for long.

both alliances had remained determined and capable of maintaining powerful armies in the field and functioning economies to support them.

neither side had broken financially or morally under the stresses and strains of three years of modern war.

United States emerged as the world’s unquestioned financial power and industrial giant.

but it eventually found a way to harness the energies and resources of the lands under its control. In doing so, it both inspired and terrified millions of people across the globe and set up a rivalry with the other beneficiary of 1917, the United States

Martin and others had expected the American contribution to Allied victory to be financial and naval. Even he didn’t expect the American army to do much to influence the outcome.

1917 represented the beginning of the end of the European imperial system and the start of a new system that, a generation later, would place the United States and the Soviet Union in a position of power over Europe.

important transition on the battlefield; the battles of Cambrai, Riga and Caporetto represented the start of a shift from the infantry-based age of mass assaults to the mechanical, combined-arms approach that featured infantry working with aviation, artillery and armour in various combinations.

None of them dared even to dream that victory might be attainable in the year to come. Many more worried about defeat.

the larger story of the year revolved around the continuing inability to break enemy lines then sustain that breakthrough.

Winning the war would require further monumental sacri- fices, but losing the war would mean accepting the devastating terms that the enemy demanded. The war was now about survival, not ideals

The privations of that winter were so intense that people remembered it, especially in Germany, as the ‘turnip winter’ and as one of the worst seasons of its kind in European history.

alreadystrong tensions produced by the war seemed to expand in the immediate post-war period,