Book & podcast collection

On a Knife Edge: How Germany Lost the First World War

byHolger Afflerbach

Holger Afflerbach reassesses why Germany lost the First World War and argues that the outcome remained uncertain until relatively late in the conflict. Diaries, letters, memoirs, and military records illuminate strategic decisions, political divisions, battlefield opportunities, and attempts at negotiation. The book challenges narratives that treat German defeat as inevitable from the beginning or explain it through one fatal mistake. Afflerbach shows leaders operating on a knife edge amid exhaustion, resource limits, alliance pressures, and incomplete information, offering a more contingent account of how military advantage and political will finally collapsed in 1918.

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Publication date

2022

Format

Print edition

Pages

—

ISBN

9781108832885