This colourful map was produced by the War Office, printed by Waterlow & Son and available for public sale. It provides a summary of the British, American and Empire troops’ Hundred Days offensive leading to German surrender on 11 November 1918.
It shows the advance as distinctly ordered phases, coloured first yellow, then green, red and blue. Diagonal stripes in these same colours distinguish German withdrawals from retreats. Text descriptions and figures of prisoners captured by Allied forces are also supplied.
The language of the map suggests an inevitability to German defeat in which even withdrawals (such as to the Hindenburg line in February 1917) were part of the Allied plan. The map contributed to the public’s evaluation and official justification of the cost of four years of war.
Professor Stephen Badsey considers the huge volume of official documentation produced during and after World World One for both public circulation and as secret state records.
Professor David Stevenson explains how the war came to an end, and why Germany accepted the harsh terms of the armistice.
For much of the First World War, the Western Front remained almost static, with each side killing many of the other’s men but otherwise making little progress. Dr Jonathan Boff investigates why the war developed in this way and whether later depictions of wartime strategy were fair.
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