Drawing on cabinet papers, memoirs, official histories and diaries to look at the war from the top, this book examines the background to the Allied triumph and its aftermath. The author also uses letters and reminiscences from officers and men to heighten the drama of neglected campaigns with almost forgotten incidents: prowling wolves around British bivoacs in the Vardar blizzard; weary troops marching towards Baghdad, to sleep where they halted; the cooks who declined the surrender of Jerusalem; and sandbags stuffed with seaweed in order to protect the treasures of Venice. "Victory 1918" is not only concerned with what happened in France and Flanders. There were four great armistices that autumn, as there had been battlefronts on three continents. Retracing the path to Compiegne through the four-year struggle allows the reader to consider if a broader strategic vision might have brought an earlier victory.