The Making of the First World War
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With the exception of freedom of the seas, Lloyd George considered the Fourteen Points sufficiently vague to allow of several interpretations. The Entente had also made widely contradictory wartime promises to allies or potential allies that were frequently incompatible with the underlying principles. Each Entente delegation at Paris also had to satisfy a public still imbued with the promises made them in return for their sacrifices. Despite American financial muscle, Wilson's position was weaker than it appeared. It was the first occasion any serving president had been absent from the United States during his term of office, and Wilson was widely feted on his appearance in London and then Paris. Wilson and his team, however, were inexperienced in the business of international politics compared with such accomplished and wily operators as Lloyd George and Clemenceau. Consequently, by humouring Wilson's overwhelming desire for the League of Nations, the Europeans wrested concessions on other Wilsonian principles. German collapse had also robbed him of a degree of leverage since the British and French were no longer dependent on US military and financial aid for survival, albeit the financial debt to the US was considerable. Wilson's absence from Paris between 14 February and 14 March 1919 was to prove unhelpful to his cause, though Lloyd George was also elsewhere for much of the same time. In Wilson's absence, House conceded more than Wilson would have liked, to try and speed agreement. More damaging, however, was a stroke Wilson suffered on 3 April 1919 following an attack of influenza, since the stroke appeared to exacerbate his inflexibility.
It followed a bruising series of confrontations between Wilson and Clemenceau over French demands to dismember Germany, Wilson at one point threatening to leave Paris altogether. There were many ways in which Wilson's interpretation of a suitable peace settlement contradicted that of his allies. He interpreted the issue of reparations only as compensating for ‘unlawful’ wartime action, such as the invasion of neutral Belgium. He did not anticipate that it would include reimbursement of war expenditure. The Fourteen Points had suggested that only Belgium and France could exact ‘restoration’ for civilian damages. Others, however, interpreted reparations rather more broadly. They were mindful of those the Germans had imposed upon Russia at Brest Litovsk and, even earlier, on the French in 1871. In addition, they bore in mind the Americans’ own refusal to maintain economic measures that would have generated funds for reconstruction, and the US refusal to write off allied debts. In order to achieve the League, however, Wilson was forced during the course of April to concede Germany's ‘war guilt’, wider reparations, and French occupation of the Saar and Rhineland for fifteen years.
Wilson had also intended that there should be ‘free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment’ of colonial claims based upon the interests of indigenous populations. Resenting Wilson's interference, neither the British, the British dominions nor the French were willing to forego their colonial claims: all favoured outright annexation of German and Turkish colonial possessions. Annexation, however, would have been politically embarrassing. The solution that presented itself as a means of placating anti-imperial sentiment was the mandate, an idea owing much to Smuts.
Further afield, the Chinese had assumed that Wilson's support for them would sway the other powers, but their case was undermined by promises already made to the Japanese, and wartime agreements between the Chinese and Japanese governments. Many in the American delegation felt Wilson had gone too far in appeasing the Japanese; the concessions being another factor in the opposition to the League being generated in the United States that was to humble Wilson's vision for future American influence in world affairs. That vision, however, had a particular resonance not just for indigenous intellectuals in China but also for those in Egypt, India and Korea. Those such as the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, the founder of the Egyptian nationalist Wafd party, Sa'd Zaghlul, and a later co-founder of the Chinese Communist Party, Chen DuXiu, all co-opted the Wilsonian rhetoric of self-determination in the cause of indigenous nationalism. Versions of Wilson's speeches were published by the Commercial Press in Shanghai and by the nationalist Ganesh Press in India. His ideals suffused movements such as the disorders in Egypt following Zaghlul's arrest in March 1919; the protests in India against the Rowlatt Public Order Act after March 1919; the Fourth of May Movement in China protesting against the cession of the Shantung peninsula to Japan as a result of the Versailles Treaty in May 1919; and the First of March uprising and aborted declaration of independence, which the Japanese ruthlessly suppressed in Korea in March 1919. The Vietnamese nationalist, Nguyen Ai Quoc, later to be known as Ho Chi Minh, failed to gain access to Wilson in Paris to press the claims of Indochina for concessions from the French. It has been argued persuasively that disillusionment with the failure of Wilson to effect real change was to turn many indigenous nationalists towards communism.
The details of the League of Nations had not been discussed while the United States was at war, leaving the Republicans to win domestic support for German unconditional surrender. Moreover, the mid-term elections in November 1918 had given the Republicans control of Congress, with a solid majority in the House of Representatives and a two-vote majority in the Senate. Wilson was not particularly influenced by domestic public opinion or interest groups, but he did have a developed sense of retributive justice which, in the short term, required appropriate punishment before Germany could be reintegrated into the new world order. Thus, the more the Germans resisted the idea of their ‘war guilt’, the more Wilson was convinced it was true. That at least accorded with American public opinion. But, in view of the Republican electoral success, Theodore Roosevelt ominously declared that Wilson and the Fourteen Points ‘have ceased to have any shadow of right to be accepted as expressive of the will of the American people’.19 Wilson also erred in not inviting a major Republican figure onto the Paris delegation, the choice falling on Henry White, a former ambassador to Paris with little influence in the party.
The League, under whose covenant signatories abjured recourse to war, was not something in which many Europeans had much confidence. They yielded, however, to Wilson's wishes to incorporate his vision of the League's covenant into the first twenty-six articles of the Versailles Treaty. Wilson hoped that the existence of the League would enable future adjustment of any faults in the peace treaties. He had to make some concessions to opposition in the Senate. Thus, he stated that the application of the Monroe Doctrine (1823) – by which the United States had long repudiated any European interference in the Americas – lay beyond the League's jurisdiction, and that it would not intervene in internal matters such as tariffs and immigration. It was not enough. Irish, Italian and German Americans all felt alienated by the settlement. Trying to convince Americans of the merit of the settlement, Wilson travelled 8,000 miles in twenty-two days in the course of September 1919, making thirty-two major speeches. The effort resulted in a physical collapse on 25 September 1918. He then suffered a serious stroke on 2 October 1919, which disabled him for a month, and from which he never really recovered. In its aftermath, Wilson declined to compromise further. He utterly rejected, therefore, Cabot Lodge's ‘fourteen reservations’ that implied some limited acceptance of Wilsonian principles. Wilson failed to build any consensus in the Senate, assuming that he held the moral high ground and that ‘the people’ would support him. The Republican-dominated Senate declined by fifty-three votes to thirty-eight on 19 November 1919 to ratify either the Treaty of Versailles or American participation in the League, on the grounds that the League infringed national sovereignty by compelling the United States to defend other nations against aggression. The League's General Assembly was thus convened for the first time in November 1920 without the Americans, the Senate having again voted against the treaty on 19 March 1920 by a majority of seven.
Relatively little of the Fourteen Points had survived in the peace settlement in the way Wilson had intended. Only lip service was paid to the four general principles. Arms control was to be attempted unsuccessfully on a limited
scale after the war, but free trade was to fall in the face of economic depression. Open diplomacy and freedom of the seas were never likely to recommend themselves to the great powers. Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France, Belgium freed and Poland given independence. On the other hand, the unrealistic aspiration of self-determination had led to the Italians gaining German-speaking areas, and substantial (and exploitable) German and other minorities in all the new states of central and Eastern Europe that emerged from the break-up of Austria-Hungary, including Poland. Through Wilson's inability to carry Americans with him, the League of Nations was doomed to failure. Arguably, the peace settlement was the best that could have been achieved in the circumstances. The idealism of the Fourteen Points, however, had fallen in the face of realpolitik, with damaging consequences for the future.
Despite his obvious incapacity, which Edith and Wilson's doctor, Cary Grayson, tried to conceal, Wilson still sought a third presidential nomination. He was rebuffed and his last public duty was to attend the inauguration of his Republican successor, Warren Harding, on 4 March 1921. Wilson died on 3 February 1924.
CHAPTER 12
THE LAST THROW
The Opening of the German Lys Offensive, 9 April 1918
IN EXPLAINING why Germany lost the First World War, historians have made much of the allied military victories in the ‘Hundred Days’, starting at Amiens on 8 August 1918. The allies had endured a painful ‘learning curve’ on the Western Front. The British in particular had improved immeasurably in operational techniques by 1918, although the degree to which improvement had occurred uniformly is hotly debated. Yet, how much was due to German strategic failures in their five successive offensives in the spring of 1918, a ‘covert military strike’ on the part of German soldiers, the allied blockade, or the collapse of Germany's allies? The real turning point was the strategic failures of Germany's First Quartermaster General, Erich Ludendorff, within a series of offensives beginning on 21 March 1918. Each successive offensive – there were to be five – diluted the opportunity for overall strategic success, with Ludendorff switching operational priorities between (and within) offensives with bewildering speed. Arguably, it was the significant shift in priorities between the first offensive on the Somme in March and the second, Operation Georgette, opening on the Lys on 9 April 1918, that did most to destroy the chance of a breakthrough. Accordingly, Churchill identified the opening of the Lys offensive as ‘the climax of the war’.1 It was a decision that raises the question of Ludendorff's fragile state of mind and his ultimate psychological breakdown in the autumn of 1918.
By the spring of 1918 Ludendorff's authority was unquestioned within Germany. Hindenburg and Ludendorff had assumed the supreme direction of German policy in August 1916 following the dismissal of Erich Falkenhayn as Chief of the General Staff. Hindenburg had replaced Falkenhayn at General Headquarters (OHL). Ludendorff had become First Quartermaster General. Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg believed that Falkenhayn's removal would end military interference in policy-making. In reality, the appointment of Hindenburg and Ludendorff dramatically increased OHL's interference in all aspects of policy. Its domination of strategic policy was epitomised by the reintroduction of unrestricted submarine warfare. Bethmann-Hollweg was dismissed on the threat of resignation by Hindenburg and Ludendorff on 13 July 1917 following a Reichstag Peace Resolution. OHL found his successor, Georg Michaelis, conveniently pliable. When Michaelis proved incapable of providing any degree of political leadership, the Kaiser replaced him on 1 November 1917 with a Bavarian Catholic from the Centre Party, Count Georg von Hertling. Hertling was more resistant, but OHL still increased its hold over foreign policy. Hindenburg and Ludendorff again used the threat of their own resignations to remove, first, the chief of the Kaiser's civil cabinet, Rudolf von Valentini, in January 1918, and then the Foreign Minister, Richard von Kühlmann, in June 1918. The latter had proclaimed that the war could not be won by military means alone.
Any negotiated peace was unacceptable to Hindenburg and Ludendorff, especially given the increasing turmoil in Russia. OHL's true ambition was well illustrated by the draconian annexation policies imposed on Russia at Brest Litovsk on 3 March 1918. The Bolsheviks yielded 90 per cent of Russia's coalmines, 54 per cent of its industry, 33 per cent of its railways, 32 per cent of its agricultural land and 34 per cent of its population. Similarly harsh terms were imposed on Romania in the Treaty of Bucharest on 7 May 1918, which, among other provisions, ceded Romania's oil fields to German and Austro-Hungarian control for ninety-nine years. These treaties did not exhaust OHL's territorial ambitions. At the time of the armistice in November 1918, OHL was pursuing ideas of a German sponsored puppet state in the Ukraine, enhanced German influence in Transcaucasia, and expansion into the Baltic provinces and Finland. At Spa on 2–3 July 1918, in a pause between the fourth and fifth German spring offensives, the German leadership effectively restated all of its long-standing war aims.
Hindenburg and Ludendorff were equally dominant domestically. Invocation of the Prussian Law of Siege in 1914 placed considerable local authority in the hands of twenty-four Deputy Commanding Generals responsible only to the Kaiser. They retained much of their independence until October 1918. They could imprison individuals without trial and acted as press censors. Military censorship soon metamorphosed into political censorship. The army became involved increasingly in key policy areas such as the provision of raw materials, food supplies and manpower. The War Food Office was established in May 1916 under the direction of Wilhelm Groener, former head of the General Staff's railways section. Military intervention was characterised by new agencies such as the Weapons and Munitions Procurement Office, established in September 1916. All such agencies were then incorporated into a new Supreme War Office under Groener on 1 November 1916. The creation of the Supreme War Office itself reflected the determination of Hindenburg and Ludendorff to raise war production dramatically through the so-called Hindenburg Programme of 31 August 1916, intended to increase artillery and machine guns by a third, and to double ammunition and mortar production.
In pursuit of its production goals, OHL attempted to introduce total labour conscription through the Auxiliary Service Law of 5 December 1916. The price of getting the law through the Reichstag was some concession to organised labour. In February 1917, however, Groener issued a decree prohibiting workers in key industries from leaving on penalty of conscription and, in March, many exemptions were cancelled. As industrial unrest grew, Groener branded strikers ‘curs’ in April 1917. In the light of the continuing disturbances, Bethmann-Hollweg promised post-war reform of the Prussian franchise in February 1917. The Kaiser was also persuaded to make the same commitment in April, but a suffrage bill failed to reach the final stage for approval until October 1918 as OHL delayed it. Strikes in January and February 1918 were ruthlessly suppressed by force. In March 1918, Ludendorff proposed reducing wages and, in June, Hindenburg demanded that all workers be placed under direct military supervision. Not surprisingly, Bethmann-Hollweg's former secretary, Kurt Riezler, recorded in April 1918 that Hindenburg and Ludendorff ran Germany as a ‘barely veiled military dictatorship’.2
Before the war it would have seemed unlikely that Paul von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff would have reached such heights of power: Hindenburg had retired in 1911, and Ludendorff had been sidelined in 1913. The choice of Hindenburg to command the German Eighth Army in East Prussia on 22 August 1914 following the dismissal of General Max von Prittwitz und Gaffron had an element of chance. After a routine career, Hindenburg had been sounded out as a possible future Chief of the General Staff in 1903 but had indicated that he did not feel equipped to deal with a position at court. He had been briefly considered as Prussian war minister in 1909. Though he had retired after commanding IV Corps, he was considered for a possible wartime field command in 1912. Nonetheless, it was fortuitous that Hindenburg was living at Hanover on a direct rail line to East Prussia, and that his steadiness seemed better suite
d than the characters of other potential candidates to work with the man appointed earlier that day to take over as Eighth Army's Chief of Staff. The sudden call left Hindenburg time ‘only to buy some woollen underclothing and to make my old uniform presentable again’,3 so that he arrived in East Prussia in Prussian blue rather than field uniform. The individual already appointed to restore the military situation was Ludendorff. As head of the General Staff's Operations Section, Ludendorff had pressed so hard for an increase in army size, and trod on so many toes in the process, that he had been sent off to a regimental command at Düsseldorf in January 1913. In 1914 Ludendorff had been recalled and led the improvised task force that captured the key Belgian fortress of Liège on 7–8 August. The two men met for the first time at 0400 hours on 23 August on the railway platform at Hanover station as the train stopped to collect Hindenburg.
Russian mobilisation had occurred faster than anticipated. Von Prittwitz, thoroughly alarmed as his forces were pushed back, had proposed to abandon East Prussia, and was dismissed. Arriving at their new headquarters on 23 August, Hindenburg and Ludendorff found that Eighth Army's able head of operations, Lieutenant Colonel Max Hoffmann, had already worked out a scheme for a counter-attack. This they promptly adopted, using strategic railways to concentrate against the Russian Second Army. It was defeated in a spectacular double envelopment at Tannenberg between 27 and 29 August 1914. The Russian First Army was then shattered around the Masurian lakes on 9 and 10 September. Tannenberg had actually been fought around Frögenau, but the nearby Tannenberg was deliberately chosen as the battle's name because it symbolised the reversal of the defeat there of the Teutonic Knights by the Poles and Lithuanians in 1410.