The Entente at the End: The Allied Experience of 1918

Dr Chris Kempshall is coming to Room G27, Edith Morley, Whiteknights campus on Tuesday 10 November for a talk titled The Entente at the End: The Allied Experience of 1918. It's part of the Department of Languages and Cultures' Armistice lecture series, so the timing is a bit on the nose — just a few days before the anniversary of the end of the First World War.

The talk looks at the final year of the war on the Western Front and asks how soldiers from Britain, France and the United States came to view one another during that stretch. It starts with the German Spring Offensive, which nearly broke the Entente alliance, and then moves to how the military leaders of Britain, France and America worked to pull things back together. From there, it follows the Allied counterattacks of August that swept the powers into the Hundred Days Offensive — the push that eventually won the war. It's a look at the war from the inside, focusing on the soldiers and the leaders who had to keep the alliance on track when it was under the most pressure.

Kempshall is a heavy hitter on this subject. He's the Historical Consultant for BlackMill Games, an Associate of the Imperial War Museum Institute, and a Visiting Senior Research Fellow in the War Studies Department of King's College London. He's also a Fellow of the Institute for Historical Research and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and he's a former President of the International Society for First World War Studies. If you've ever wondered how the different Allied armies actually got along when things were falling apart, this is a good place to start.

The talk runs from 18:30 to 20:00, so it's an evening thing rather than a midday slot. It's a free event, but you do need to register in advance to get a spot. If you're in Reading and have any interest in the First World War, it's a solid way to spend a Tuesday night.