World War One: History in an Hour (6 page)

The Hundred Days

Exhausted and demoralized, the last German offensive had come to an end. Now, instead, they faced the Allies’ ‘Hundred Days’ counter offensive. Starting on 18 July, the Allies pushed the Germans back beyond the River Marne. German dreams of reaching Paris were dead. The Battle of Amiens on 8 August saw the Germans lose 30,000 men, in what Ludendorff described in his post-war diaries as a ‘black day for the German army’. By the beginning of September the Germans were back on their Hindenburg Line, from where they had started their Spring Offensive almost six months previously. German soldiers were deserting or being taken prisoner of war at alarming rates. Huge numbers succumbed to the Spanish Flu.

On 29 September, Bulgaria became the first of Germany’s allies to surrender, its king, Ferdinand I, abdicating. Domestically, revolution in Germany was looming. Ludendorff wanted to accept Wilson’s Fourteen Points and its promise of non-punitive measures, a plan which the British and the French found far too lenient. Ludendorff urged also, in order to strengthen the German cause, the introduction of a ‘government [with] a broader foundation’. It was a devious move on Ludendorff’s behalf – pass the responsibility for a German surrender to a parliamentary government and then let them, not the military, take the blame for the nation’s defeat.

On 3 October the Kaiser duly appointed the liberal Prince Maximilian of Baden Chancellor of Germany. But it was not enough for Wilson – he demanded the Kaiser’s abdication. This was too much for Ludendorff who, having previously said the war was lost, was now keen to maintain hostilities. On 26 October he was dismissed.

Elsewhere Germany’s allies were falling. The year before, in October 1917, a joint German and Austrian–Hungarian offensive won the Battle of Caporetto against the Italians. A devastating blow for the Italians, they were pushed back to the River Piave, only fifteen miles from Venice.

Italian troops on the Isonzo river, c. 1918

In June 1918, the Austrian–Hungarians had tried but failed to destroy the Italians. The Italians waited four months before counter-attacking, by which time Germany was no longer in position to offer its ally reinforcements. During the course of the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, the Austrian–Hungarian empire as a political entity collapsed. On 28 October, Czechoslovakia declared its independence from the empire. The following day, the South Slavs did likewise, and was soon to become Yugoslavia. Hungary followed suite on 31 October. Austria signed an armistice on 3 November, and the Habsburg monarchy was no more. For Italy also, the war was over.

Turkey also surrendered. Damascus, part of the Ottoman Empire for 400 years, fell to the British on 1 October. More defeats followed and finally on 30 October, Turkey signed an armistice. The once powerful and far-reaching Ottoman Empire was finished.

German admirals, defiant and not ready to accept defeat, prepared to send their fleets out once more to do battle against the Royal Navy. On 29 October, sailors based in Kiel, sensing this to be a futile and suicidal mission, mutinied. The mutiny quickly spread, the province of Bavaria established a Socialist republic along Soviet lines. For the new German government, a stop to hostilities was now a necessity not just to end war but also to avert revolution.

Armistice

Hindenburg and Wilhelm Groener (Ludendorff’s replacement) went to see the Kaiser who had bolted to army headquarters in the Belgium town of Spa. Hindenburg, the monarchist, bowed his head in shame and left Groener to do the talking. The Kaiser remained defiant until the news came through: in Berlin, Prince Max had proclaimed a Socialist republic and had passed the chancellorship to the Social Democrat, Friedrich Ebert. Thus, on 10 November, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated. The 500-year rule of the Hohenzollern dynasty had come to an end. The Kaiser fled to the Netherlands and into exile, never again to step on German soil.

The French-German armistice delegation in the forest of Compiègne,
11 November 1918 (Ferdinand Foch second from right)

On 9 November, Matthias Erzberger, representing Ebert’s new government, met Foch and the French delegation in a railway carriage in the woods of Compiègne. Erzberger had come to seek an armistice; Foch to dictate its terms. Wilson’s Fourteen Points of leniency had gone – instead the French made such demands that Erzberger protested. Germany would have to forgo most of its military, large swathes of territory, and annul the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. From Berlin, Ebert brushed aside Erzberger’s protests and told him to sign.

Signed at 5 am, Paris time, the Western Front Armistice came into effect at 11 am – ‘the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month’. Tragically, during the intervening six hours there were many more deaths. The last recorded death was that of US soldier, 23-year-old Henry Gunther; as he charged, bayonet drawn, astonished German troops tried to warn him, before shooting him down. The time was 10.59. ‘Almost as he fell, the gunfire died away and an appalling silence prevailed.’

Paris Peace Conference

The Paris Peace Conference opened on 18 January 1919. Thirty-two countries were represented, including the new nations that had emerged from the break-up of the Austrian–Hungarian empire, but proceedings were dominated by Woodrow Wilson, Georges Clemenceau and David Lloyd George.

Paris Peace Conference, 1919
(L-R: David Lloyd George, Vittorio Orlando, Georges Clemenceau, Woodrow Wilson)

The conference produced five treaties, one for each of the defeated Central Powers, none of whom were in attendance, and each named after a Parisian suburb. The Treaty of Sevres officially closed down the Ottoman Empire and virtually abolished Turkish sovereignty. The Turkish government was ready to sign but followers of the nationalist leader Mustafa Kemal rebelled. The resultant Turkish War of Independence saw Kemal come to power to establish the Republic of Turkey in 1923. The Treaty of Trianon imposed strict punishments on Hungary. New boundaries were drawn in the Balkans, the Middle East and Africa.

Italy, lured into war by territorial promises, was treated dismissively during talks, causing its prime minister, Vittorio Orlando, to walk out. Italy was disappointed by its spoils of war. Orlando, heavily criticized by Italy’s rising right, led by Benito Mussolini, was soon ousted.

The terms of the German treaty, the Treaty of Versailles, were particularly harsh. On being presented with the document, Germany was given three weeks to comply. The German government complained that Wilson’s Fourteen Points had largely been ignored – with the exception of Wilson’s proposal to form a League of Nations. They argued that, having not been consulted, the terms were nothing less than a dictate. Ultimately, however, the German government was too weak to do anything but add its signature, which they did, on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

As a result of the treaty, Germany lost 13 per cent of its territory, all its colonies, the Rhineland was to be de-militarized, its army limited to a token 100,000 men and its navy to 15,000. The treaty declared Germany and its allies responsible for all ‘loss and damage’ caused during the war, for which it would have to pay reparations. The amount, announced two years later, was set at 132 billion marks (the equivalent today of about $440 billion or £210 billion). But it was Article 231, the ‘War Guilt Clause’, that caused the German public the greatest humiliation – forced into admitting that the whole conflict had been the fault of Germany. Foch said, ‘This isn’t a peace. It’s a ceasefire for twenty years’.

The War to End War?

The Treaty of Versailles, as well as causing deep resentment in Germany, satisfied none of the Allies. The British, who wanted to see Germany punished but not destroyed, felt the treaty too harsh. The French – having borne the brunt of the conflict – were determined to see Germany destroyed and thought it too weak. Within six months, Clemenceau, who became a scapegoat for France’s disappointment, was voted out of office. Wilson returned to the US to find a country increasingly isolationist in its outlook. The Senate neither ratified the Treaty or joined the League of Nations.

Germans throughout the country, rounded on the politicians that had signed the Treaty. The war had been lost, not by the German army, they claimed, but the politicians – the government had ‘stabbed the nation in the back’. After all, not since 1914 had a single foreign soldier stepped on German soil. H. G. Wells had coined the phrase ‘the war to end war’, used also by Wilson, but Lloyd George was more accurate when, mockingly, he said, ‘This war, like the next war, is a war to end war’.

The Weimar Republic came into being in February 1919, but the humiliation of defeat, the perceived treachery of Germany, and social and political discontent remained rampant. One ex-corporal spoke for many when he summed up the shame of Germany’s defeat. On the day of the Armistice, the soldier had been in a hospital recovering from a gas attack. He described how he sobbed into his pillow, blaming the ‘gang of wretched criminals’ that had betrayed the fatherland. ‘Hatred grew in me,’ he wrote, ‘hatred for those responsible for this deed’. His name was Adolf Hitler.

Appendix 1: Key People

The Three Kings

King George V of Britain, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (Georgie, Willy and Nicky) were all cousins. George and Wilhelm were both grandsons of Queen Victoria and Nicholas’ wife, the Empress Alexandra, was her granddaughter. They met, as a threesome, only twice. All three were considered feckless.

Kaiser Wilhelm II

Arrogant, extremely vain, and always seeking praise, Wilhelm II enjoyed a life of frivolity. His former chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, once remarked that the Kaiser would have liked every day to be his birthday. Much to Wilhelm’s delight, Queen Victoria made her grandson an honorary admiral of the Royal Navy for which, he said, he would always take an interest in Britain’s fleet as if it was his own. Born with a paralyzed left arm, considerably shorter than the right, Wilhelm needed help with eating and dressing throughout his life, and went to great lengths to hide his disability.

Kaiser Wilhelm II, c. 1918

A lover of all things military and a collector of uniforms (he owned 600, many he designed himself), Wilhelm’s knowledge of military matters was little more than that of an overenthusiastic schoolchild. During the war, his ministers and generals bypassed him, and Ludendorff, especially, became a
de facto
ruler of the country.

Following the war and his forced abdication, Wilhelm lived in exile in the Netherlands. His cousin, King George, described him as ‘the greatest criminal in history’. The Dutch queen, Queen Wilhelmina, declined ever to meet the fallen Kaiser but when the Paris Peace Conference requested Wilhelm’s extradition to face trial for war crimes, she refused.

In 1940, with Hitler’s armies bearing down on the Netherlands, the Dutch royal family fled to Britain. Wilhelm however did not, even refusing Winston Churchill’s offer of asylum. He preferred instead to live under German occupation, hoping that the Nazis would restore the monarchy. He died the following year.

Tsar Nicholas II

Nicholas II believed he ruled Russia by divine right and could see no other way but rule by autocracy. He paid little heed to either his advisors or his people, and ignored the political and social unrest fermenting in Russia. That he was despised and considered an anachronism had no effect on the Tsar. No believer in change, he undid the minor reforms he felt obliged to implement following the failed Russian Revolution of 1905.

Tsar Nicholas II, 1909
George Grantham Bain collection, Library of Congress

Following Russian reversals during the early stages of the First World War, he took personal command of Russia’s military, despite having no experience of military matters. It was a fatal error of judgement – because he could no longer blame his generals for the failure of Russia’s armies, defeat was now his personal responsibility. He left the running of the country to his wife, Alexandra, who, in turn, was overly influenced by the mercurial monk, Georgi Rasputin. This, together with the growing disillusionment of war, did nothing to help the Tsar’s cause.

Forced to abdicate in March 1917, following the February Revolution, Nicholas and his family and immediate entourage were imprisoned and held in various safe houses. The British government wanted to offer Nicholas asylum but King George, his cousin, refused it, fearing that the presence of the fallen Tsar in Britain could cause trouble.

On the night of 18 July 1918, they were all shot by the Bolsheviks, probably on the order of Lenin.

King George V

When, in 1917, King George V changed the family name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor, his cousin, Wilhelm II, joked, ‘I look forward to seeing the Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha’. George preferred shooting and stamp collecting than being in the company of politicians or intellectuals. Nor were politicians and intellectuals terribly impressed by the King. During his coronation in 1911, the English writer and caricaturist, Max Beerbohm, dismissed the King as ‘such a piteous, good, feeble, heroic little figure’. And David Lloyd George, on first meeting him, said, ‘The King is a very jolly chap . . . thank God there is not much in his head’.

King George V, 1923
George Grantham Bain collection, Library of Congress

Of the three cousins, George wielded the least power but consequently was the only one to survive in post. He died in 1936 to be succeeded by Edward VIII.

Horatio Kitchener 1850–1916

Lord Kitchener’s face and pointing finger proclaiming ‘Your country needs you’, often copied and mimicked, is one of the most recognizable posters of all time.

Born in County Kerry, Ireland, Kitchener first saw active service with the French army during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 and, a decade later, with the British Army during the occupation of Egypt. He was part of the force that tried, unsuccessfully, to relieve General Charles Gordon, besieged in Khartoum in 1885. The death of Gordon, at the hands of Mahdist forces, caused great anguish in Britain. As commander-in-chief of the Egyptian army, Kitchener led the campaign of reprisal into the Sudan, defeating the Mahdists at the Battle of Omdurman and reoccupying Khartoum in 1898. Kitchener had restored Britain’s pride.

Horatio Kitchener, 1914
Harris & Ewing collection, Library of Congress

His reputation took a dent however during the Second Boer War in South Africa, 1899–1902. Succeeding Lord Roberts as commander-in-chief, Kitchener resorted to a scorched-earth policy in order to defeat the guerrilla tactics of the Boers. Controversially, he also set up a system of concentration camps and interned Boer women and children and black Africans. Overcrowded, lacking hygiene and malnourished, over 25,000 were to die, for which Kitchener was heavily criticized.

The criticism however, did not damage Kitchener’s career. He became commander-in-chief of India, was promoted to field marshal, and, in 1911, Consul-General of Egypt, responsible, in effect, for governing the whole country.

At the outbreak of hostilities in 1914, Kitchener was appointed Secretary of State for War, the first soldier to hold the post, serving under Asquith’s Liberal government. Bleakly, he predicted a long war, a lone voice among the government and military elite, for which Britain would need an army far larger than the existing 1914 professional army, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). So Kitchener spearheaded a recruitment drive, appearing himself on the iconic poster. Hugely successful, Kitchener’s campaign recruited three million volunteers.

Popular with the public but less so with the government, the failure of the Gallipoli campaign saw Kitchener’s prestige fall. In June 1916, Kitchener was sent on a diplomatic mission to Russia aboard the HMS
Hampshire
. On 5 June, the ship hit a German mine off the Orkney Islands and sunk. Kitchener’s body was never found, leading to several conspiracy theories that he had become too much of an embarrassment and liability, and had been assassinated. David Lloyd George, then Minister for Munitions, was supposed to have been accompanying Kitchener but cancelled at the last minute – this merely added to the speculation.

Winston Churchill 1874–1965

Churchill admitted in 1915 to enjoying the war – in a letter to Lloyd George’s daughter, he wrote, ‘I know it’s smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment, and yet, I can’t help it, I enjoy every second of it’.

Academically weak, Churchill sought a career in the army, but took three attempts to pass the entrance exam for the Royal Military College in Sandhurst. In 1896, he served briefly on India’s North-West Frontier, writing up his experiences in a series of dispatches that brought him much attention. Churchill served as a cavalry officer during Lord Kitchener’s retaliatory campaign in the Sudan and took part in one of the last cavalry charges during the Battle of Omdurman in 1898.

Winston Churchill, 1904
IWM Collections, NYP 45063

In 1899, Churchill went to South Africa during the Second Boer War working as a correspondent for
The
Morning Post
, but was captured by the Boers and interned in a prisoner-of-war camp. Following a daring escape, he later joined the British Army on its way to relieve the British garrison besieged in the city of Ladysmith.

Churchill became a politician in 1900, serving as a Conservative Member of Parliament before swapping sides and joining the Liberal Party in 1904. He served for a year as Home Secretary during which time he became an advocate for eugenics, proposing compulsory sterilization for the ‘feeble-minded’ and separate labour camps for ‘tramps and wastrels’.

In 1911, Churchill was appointed the First Lord of the Admiralty. Continuing the policy established by his predecessor, Churchill, determined to keep Britain ahead of the Germans, expanded the navy by introducing Dreadnoughts, the most powerful battleships of the time.