By October 1918, shortly before the end of World War One, Germany’s last military offensives on the western front had failed, Allied armies were advancing and had been strengthened by a million fresh U.S. troops, and Germany’s defeat had become just an inevitable matter of time. But German armies were still conducting an orderly retreat, and the Allies had not yet reached Germany’s borders. Armistice negotiations were hastened to a conclusion by a mutiny of the German fleet and by outbreaks of armed insurrections in Germany. This permitted post-war German agitators, especially Adolf Hitler, to
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