Most famous for creating Sherlock Homes and for his historical fiction, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was also intensely interested in military matters, writing multi-volume histories of the Boer War and the Great War in which his only son Kingsley served and died (of 'flu). This volume covers the first half of 1918, the climactic year of the war on the western front when the huge German Spring offensives beginning in March, at first carried all before them, before they were staunched after the Allies decided on a unified command under Marshal Foch. Doyle staunchly defends the record of his friend Gen. Sir Hubert Gough whose Fifth Army bore the brunt of the opening offensive and who was sacked as the scapegoat for his scratch army's reverses.