by Norman Lowe
(c) Why did the war last so long?
When the war started the majority of people on both sides believed that it would be over by Christmas. However, Britain’s Secretary for War, Lord Kitchener, himself a successful general, told the cabinet, much to its collective dismay, that it would last nearer three years than three months. Though he did not live to see the end of the war (he was drowned in 1916 on his way to Russia, when his ship struck a mine and sank), he was one of the few who had judged the situation correctly. There are several reasons why the conflict lasted so long. The two sides were fairly evenly balanced, and although the main theatre of war was in Europe, it quickly became a global conflict. Other countries that had not been in the original alliance systems, decided to join in, some because they saw it as a chance to gain new territory, and others waited to see which side looked the more likely to win, and then joined that side. For example, Italy (May 1915), Romania (August 1916), the USA (April 1917) and Japan joined the Allied side, while Turkey (November 1914) and Bulgaria (October 1915) joined the Central Powers. To complicate matters further, troops from the British Empire – from India, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa – all played their part in the fighting, which eventually spread into the eastern Mediterranean, Asia and Africa.
The main countries involved in the war had very strongly held war aims which they were absolutely determined to achieve. The Germans, anxious to protect themselves from becoming ‘encircled’, aimed to take territory from Poland in the east and Belgium in the west to act as buffer zones against Russia and France. The French were obsessed with taking back Alsace-Lorraine, which the Germans had taken in 1871. The British would never allow Belgium, a country so near to their coast, to be controlled by a hostile power like Germany. Austria–Hungary was desperate to preserve its empire against the ambitions of Serbia. Right from the beginning these competing war aims meant that it would be almost impossible to reach an acceptable negotiated solution.
Once stalemate had been reached on the western front with troops bogged down in lines of trenches, the Allies were faced with difficult problems: the weapons available to the Central Powers as they defended their trenches were more deadly than those available to the attackers. German troops, using fixed machine-guns in trenches protected by barbed wire, had a huge advantage over the attackers, who relied too much on preceding artillery bombardments (see Section 2.2 for more about the problems of trench warfare). Another remarkable factor prolonging the war was the way in which propaganda helped to motivate and encourage the general public as well as the military on both sides. Morale was boosted and support for the war sustained by newspapers, posters, films and advertisements directed at all classes in society to make them proud of their own country and way of life, while spreading stories of horror and atrocity about the enemy. In Germany, in spite of food shortages, labour unrest and a general war-weariness, public support for the war continued. The defeat of Russia encouraged the German generals to continue the struggle and launch what turned out to be a last desperate attempt to break through on the western front in spring 1918, before too many American troops arrived on the scene. A combination of all these factors meant that there would have to be a fight to the finish until one side or the other was either overrun and occupied by the enemy, or was so completely exhausted that it could not carry on fighting.
(d) Why did the Central Powers lose the war?
The reasons can be briefly summarized:
Once the Schlieffen Plan had failed, removing all hope of a quick German victory, it was bound to be a strain for them, facing war on two fronts.
Allied sea power was decisive, enforcing the deadly blockade, which caused desperate food shortages among the civilian population and crippled exports, while at the same time making sure that the Allied armies were fully supplied.
The German submarine campaign failed in the face of convoys protected by British, American and Japanese destroyers; the campaign itself was a mistake because it brought the USA into the war.
The entry of the USA brought vast new resources to the Allies and made up for the departure of Russia from the war. It meant that the Allied powers were able to produce more war materials than the enemy, and in the end this proved decisive.
Allied political leaders at the critical time – Lloyd George and Clemenceau – were probably more competent than those of the Central Powers. The unity of command under Foch probably helped, while Haig learned lessons, from the 1917 experiences, which proved to be crucial to the allied victory in the final stages of the war. In fact some historians believe that the criticisms levelled at Haig are unfair. John Terraine was one of the first to present a defence of Haig, in his book Douglas Haig: The Educated Soldier (1963). Recently Gary Sheffield has gone further: in The Chief: Douglas Haig and the British Army (2011) he argues that, given the fact that the British had no experience of trench warfare, and that they were the junior partners to the French, Haig learned remarkably quickly and proved to be an imaginative commander. Haig made four outstanding contributions to the Allied victory. First, he took a leading part in reforming the army and preparing it for a major war before 1914. Then, between 1916 and 1918 he was responsible for transforming the British Expeditionary Force from an inexperienced small force into a mass war-winning army. Thirdly, his battles in 1916 and 1917 (the Somme, Arras and Third Ypres), though his troops suffered heavy losses, played a vital role in wearing down the Germans, whose losses were also heavy. Finally Haig’s generalship was a crucial component of the Allied victory in 1918. He had learned lessons about the effective use of tanks, and the avoidance of salients by using small groups of infantry attacking at different points along the trench line; his idea of transporting infantry in buses to accompany the cavalry was very effective. Eventually, too, there was a great improvement in the coordination between infantry, artillery and aerial observation. In the words of Gary Sheffield: ‘Douglas Haig might not have been the greatest military figure Britain has ever produced, but he was one of the most significant – and one of the most successful.’
The continuous strain of heavy losses told on the Germans – they lost their best troops in the 1918 offensive and the new troops were young and inexperienced. At the same time the forces available to the Allies were increasing as more Americans arrived, bringing the total of American troops to around two million. From July 1918 onwards the Germans were forced into their final retreat. An epidemic of deadly Spanish flu added to their difficulties and morale was low as they retreated. Many suffered a psychological collapse: during the last three months of the war some 350 000 German troops actually surrendered.
Germany was badly let down by her allies and was constantly having to help out the Austrians and Bulgarians. The defeat of Bulgaria by the British (from Salonika) and Serbs (29 September 1918) was the final straw for many German soldiers, who could see no chance of victory now. When Austria was defeated by Italy at Vittorio-Veneto and Turkey surrendered (both in October), the end was near.
The combination of military defeat and dire food shortages produced a great war-weariness, leading to mutiny in the navy, destruction of morale in the army and revolution at home.
(e) Effects of the war
The impact of the war was extraordinarily wide-ranging, which was not surprising given that it was the first ‘total war’ in history. This means that it involved not just armies and navies but entire populations, and it was the first big conflict between modern, industrialized nations. New methods of warfare and new weapons were introduced – tanks, submarines, bombers, machine-guns, heavy artillery and mustard gas. With so many men away in the armed forces, women had to take their places in factories and in other jobs which had previously been carried out by men. In the Central Powers and in Russia, the civilian populations suffered severe hardships caused by the blockades. In all the European states involved in the war, governments organized ordinary people as never before, so that the entire country was geared up to the war effort. The conflict cause
d a decline in Europe’s prestige in the eyes of the rest of the world. The fact that the region which had been thought of as the centre of civilization could have allowed itself to experience such appalling carnage and destruction was a sign of the beginning of the end of European domination of the rest of the world. The effects on individual countries were sometimes little short of traumatic: the empires which had dominated central and eastern Europe for over two hundred years disappeared almost overnight.
The most striking effect of the war was the appalling death toll among the armed forces. Almost 2 million Germans died, 1.7 million Russians, 1.5 million French, over a million Austro-Hungarians and about one million from Britain and her empire. Italy lost around 530 000 troops, Turkey 325 000, Serbia 322 000, Romania 158 000, the USA 116 000, Bulgaria 49 000 and Belgium 41 000. And this did not include those crippled by the war, and civilian casualties. A sizeable proportion of an entire generation of young men had perished – the ‘lost generation’; France, for example, lost around 20 per cent of men of military age. However, military historian Dan Todman, in The First World War: Myth and Memory (2005), argues that as time has passed, the public perception of the war has changed. He produces evidence suggesting that the ‘lost generation’ interpretation is something of a myth. Certainly casualties were severe but were not the wholesale destruction of a generation that was claimed. According to Todman, overall, just 12 per cent of fighting men died. Although some 20 000 British soldiers were killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, this was not typical of the war as a whole. In the circumstances, Todman insists, Haig had no alternative – his was the only rational strategy, and in the end, whatever the criticisms, the war was won. Still, many find it difficult to put aside the long-held perception of the war as a ‘futile mud- and bloodbath’, and no doubt historians will continue to find it a controversial topic.
In Germany, hardship and defeat caused a revolution: the Kaiser Wilhelm II was compelled to abdicate and a republic was declared. Over the next few years the Weimar Republic (as it became known) experienced severe economic, political and social problems. In 1933 it was brought to an end when Hitler became German Chancellor (see Section 14.1).
The Habsburg Empire collapsed completely. The last emperor, Karl I, was forced to abdicate (November 1918) and the various nationalities declared themselves independent; Austria and Hungary split into two separate states.
In Russia the pressures of war caused two revolutions in 1917. The first (February–March) overthrew the tsar, Nicholas II, and the second (October–November) brought Lenin and the Bolsheviks (Communists) to power (see Sections 16.2–3).
Although Italy was on the winning side, the war had been a drain on her resources and she was heavily in debt. Mussolini took advantage of the government’s unpopularity, to take over control – Italy was the first European state after the war to allow itself to fall under a fascist dictatorship (see Section 13.1).
On the other hand, some countries outside Europe, particularly Japan, China and the USA, took advantage of Europe’s preoccupation with the war to expand their trade at Europe’s expense. For example, the USA’s share of world trade grew from 10 per cent in 1914 to over 20 per cent by 1919. Since they were unable to obtain European imports during the war, Japan and China began their own programmes of industrialization. During the 1920s the Americans enjoyed a great economic boom and their future prosperity seemed assured. Within a few years, however, it became clear that they had made the mistakes of over-confidence and over-expansion: in October 1929 the Wall Street Crash heralded the beginning of a severe economic crisis which spread throughout the world and became known as ‘the Great Depression’ (see Section 22.6).
Many politicians and leaders were determined that the horrors of the First World War should never be repeated. President Woodrow Wilson of the USA came up with a plan for a League of Nations, which would settle future disputes by arbitration and keep the world at peace through a system of ‘collective security’ (see Chapter 3). Unfortunately the job of the League of Nations was made more difficult by some of the terms of the peace settlement reached after the war, and the peace itself was unstable.
In his recent book The Great War and the Making of the Modern World (2011), Jeremy Black makes the point that the war led to the final stage of the partition of Africa, when the peace settlement placed Germany’s colonies in Africa under the control of the League of Nations. The League allowed them to be ‘looked after’ by various member states. This meant that in practice, for example, Britain acquired Tanganyika, while Britain and France divided Togoland and the Cameroons between them, and South Africa gained German South West Africa (Namibia).
2.7 THE PROBLEMS OF MAKING A PEACE SETTLEMENT
(a) War aims
When the war started, none of the participants had any specific ideas about what they hoped to achieve, except that Germany and Austria wanted to preserve the Habsburg Empire, and thought this required them to destroy Serbia. As the war progressed, some of the governments involved, perhaps to encourage their troops by giving them some clear objectives to fight for, began to list their war aims.
British prime minister Lloyd George mentioned (January 1918) the defence of democracy and the righting of the injustice done to France in 1871 when she lost Alsace and Lorraine to Germany. Other points were the restoration of Belgium and Serbia, an independent Poland, democratic self-government for the nationalities of Austria–Hungary, self-determination for the German colonies and an international organization to prevent war. He was also determined that Germany should pay reparations for all the damage they had done.
American President Woodrow Wilson stated US war aims in his famous 14 Points (January 1918):
abolition of secret diplomacy;
free navigation at sea for all nations in war and peace;
removal of economic barriers between states;
all-round reduction of armaments;
impartial adjustment of colonial claims in the interests of the populations concerned;
evacuation of Russian territory;
restoration of Belgium;
liberation of France and restoration of Alsace and Lorraine;
readjustment of Italian frontiers along the lines of nationality;
self-government for the peoples of Austria–Hungary;
Romania, Serbia and Montenegro to be evacuated and Serbia given access to the sea;
self-government for the non-Turkish peoples of the Turkish Empire and permanent opening of the Dardanelles;
an independent Poland with secure access to the sea;
a general association of nations to preserve peace.
These points achieved publicity when the Germans later claimed that they had expected the peace terms to be based on them, and that since this was not the case, they had been cheated.
(b) Differing Allied views about how to treat the defeated powers
When the peace conference met (January 1919) it was soon obvious that a settlement would be difficult because of basic disagreements among the victorious powers:
France (represented by Clemenceau) wanted a harsh peace, to ruin Germany economically and militarily so that she could never again threaten French frontiers. Since 1814 the Germans had invaded France no fewer than five times. At all costs France’s security must be secured.
Britain (Lloyd George) was in favour of a less severe settlement, enabling Germany to recover quickly so that she could resume her role as a major customer for British goods. Also, a flourishing German economy was vital if reparations were to be paid. However, Lloyd George had just won an election with slogans such as ‘hang the Kaiser’, and talk of getting from Germany ‘everything that you can squeeze out of a lemon and a bit more’. The British public therefore expected a harsh peace settlement.
The USA (Woodrow Wilson) was in favour of a lenient peace, though he had been disappointed when the Germans ignored his 14 Points and imposed the harsh Treaty of Brest–Litovsk on Russia (see Section 16.3(b
)). He wanted a just peace: although he had to accept British and French demands for reparations (compensation for damages) and German disarmament, he was able to limit reparations to losses caused to civilians and their property, instead of ‘the whole cost of the war’. Wilson was also in favour of self-determination: nations should be freed from foreign rule and given democratic governments of their own choice.
By June 1919 the conference had come up with the Treaty of Versailles for Germany, followed by other treaties dealing with Germany’s former allies. The Treaty of Versailles in particular was one of the most controversial settlements ever signed, and it was criticized even in the Allied countries on the grounds that it was too hard on the Germans, who were bound to object so violently that another war was inevitable, sooner or later. In addition, many of the terms, such as reparations and disarmament, proved impossible to carry out.
Illustration 2.1 The three leaders at Versailles: (left to right) Clemenceau, Wilson and Lloyd George
2.8 THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES WITH GERMANY
(a) The terms
Germany had to lose territory in Europe: Alsace–Lorraine to France;
Eupen, Moresnet and Malmédy to Belgium;
