Sir John W. Wheeler-Bennett tells the story of how the German Army, having survived the disaster of 1918, proceeded to dominate the political life of the German Republic, exercising a virtually paramount degree of power and influence by its very withdrawal from the active arena of politics: and of how, when later it was mistaken enough to play politics instead of controlling them, it began a descent which only ended in abject defeat - militarily, politically and spiritually. The author reveals the extent of the Army's responsibility for bringing the Nazi regime to power, for tolerating the...

In a major new study of the peace-making after the Second World War, not only in Europe but in the Far East, Sir John Wheeler-Bennett and Anthony Nicholls examine the policies set out in wartime conferences, and the gradually changing aims from the Atlantic Charter through the abortive Morgenthau Plan to the Yalta Conference, comparing them with the actual outcome in the five peace treaties that were eventually signed and the situation of a divided Germany. The Semblance of Peace is an important work of recent history, illuminating the questions of peace-keeping and of political forces in the...