37 Roger Chickering, Imperial Germany and a World without War: The Peace Movement and German Society (Princeton, NJ, 1975).
38 Karl Holl, Ludwig Quidde (1858–1941): Eine Biografie (Düsseldorf, 2007); Wilfried Eisenbeiss, Die bürgerliche Friedensbewegung in Deutschland während des Ersten Weltkrieges: Organisation, Selbstverständnis und politische Praxis 1913/14–1919 (Frankfurt am Main, 1980); Ludwig Quidde, Der deutsche Pazifismus während des Weltkrieges 1914–1918, ed. Karl Holl (Boppard, 1979); James D. Shand, “Doves among the eagles: German pacifists and their government during World War I,” Journal of Contemporary History 10 (1975), 95–108.
39 Susanne Miller, Burgfrieden und Klassenkampf: Die deutsche Sozialdemokratie im Ersten Weltkrieg (Düsseldorf, 1974); Klaus Schönhoven (ed.), Die Gewerkschaften in Weltkrieg und Revolution 1914–1919 (Cologne, 1985); Hans-Joachim Bieber, Gewerkschaften in Krieg und Revolution (2 vols., Hamburg, 1981); A. Joseph Berlau, The German Social Democratic Party, 1914–1921 (New York, 1949); Carl E. Schorske, German Social Democracy, 1905–1917: The Development of the Great Schism (Cambridge, MA, 1955).
40 David W. Morgan, The Socialist Left and the German Revolution: A History of the German Independent Social Democratic Party, 1917–1922 (Ithaca, NY, 1975); John W. Mishark, The Road to Revolution: German Marxism and World War I, 1914–1919 (Detroit, 1967); Arthur J. Ryder, The German Revolution of 1918: A Study of German Socialism in War and Revolt (Cambridge, 1967), 1–139; Eric D. Weitz, Creating German Communism, 1890–1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State (Princeton, NJ, 1997), 62–83.
41 Friedhelm Boll, Massenbewegungen in Niedersachsen 1906–1920: Eine sozialgeschichtliche Untersuchung zu den unterschiedlichen Entwicklungstypen Braunschweig und Hannover (Bonn, 1981); Mary Nolan, Social Democracy and Society: Working-Class Radicalism in Düsseldorf, 1890–1920 (Cambridge, 1981).
42 John Peter Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg (2 vols., Oxford, 1966); Annelies Laschitza and Günter Radczun, Rosa Luxemburg: Ihr Wirken in der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung (East Berlin, 1971); Helmut Trotnow, Karl Liebknecht (1871–1919): A Political Biography (Hamden, CT, 1984); Annalies Laschitza and Elke Keller, Karl Liebknecht: Eine Biographie in Dokumenten (East Berlin, 1982).
43 Friedhelm Boll, “Spontaneität der Basis und politische Funktion des Streiks 1914 bis 1918: Das Beispiel Braunschweig,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 17 (1977), 337–66.
44 Robert F. Wheeler, USPD und Internationale: Sozialistischer Internationalismus in der Zeit der Revolution (Frankfurt am Main, 1975); Hartfrid Krause, USPD: Zur Geschichte der Unabhängigen Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands (Frankfurt am Main, 1975).
45 Stephen Bailey, “The Berlin strike of January 1918,” Central European History 13 (1980), 158–74.
46 Morgan, The Socialist Left, 90.
47 Dieter Grosser, Vom monarchischen Konstitutionalismus zur parlamentarischen Demokratie: Die Verfassungspolitik der deutschen Parteien im letzten Jahrzehnt des Kaiserreiches (The Hague, 1970).
48 Quoted in Feldman, Army, Industry and Labor, 136.
49 Helmut Weber, Ludendorff und die Monopole: Deutsche Kriegsziele (East Berlin, 1966).
50 Torsten Oppelland, Reichstag und Aussenpolitik im Ersten Weltkrieg: Die deutschen Parteien und die Politik der USA 1914–1918 (Düsseldorf, 1995).
51 Rudolf Morsey, Die Deutsche Zentrumspartei 1917–1923 (Düsseldorf, 1966).
52 Klaus Epstein, Matthias Erzberger and the Dilemma of German Democracy (Princeton, NJ, 1959); Wolfgang Ruge, Matthias Erzberger: Eine politische Biographie (East Berlin, 1976).
53 Quoted in Arno J. Mayer, Wilson vs. Lenin: Political Origins of the New Diplomacy (Cleveland, 1959), 133.
54 Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Reichstages (July 19, 1917), vol. 310, 3,570–2. See Bert Becker, Georg Michaelis: Preußischer Beamter, Reichskanzler, Christlicher Reformer 1857–1936: Eine Biographie (Paderborn 2007).
55 Jürgen Förster, “Ludendorff and Hitler in perspective: the battle for the German soldier’s mind, 1917–1944,” War in History 10 (2003), 321–44; Dirk Stegmann, “Die deutsche Inlandspropaganda 1917/18: Zum innenpolitischen Machtkampf zwischen OHL und ziviler Reichsleitung in der Endphase des Kaiserreiches,” Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen 2 (1972), 75–116.
56 Heinz Hagenlücke, Deutsche Vaterlandspartei: Die nationale Rechte am Ende des Kaiserreiches (Düsseldorf, 1997); Scheck, Alfred von Tirpitz, 66–76.
57 Hagenlücke, Deutsche Vaterlandspartei, 362–71. On the divisiveness of nationalist slogans, see Sven Oliver Müller, Die Nation als Waffe und Vorstellung: Nationalismus in Deutschland und Grossbritannien im Ersten Weltkrieg (Göttingen, 2002).
58 Reinhard Schiffers, Der Hauptausschuss des Deutschen Reichstags 1915–1918: Formen und Bereiche der Kooperation zwischen Parlament und Regierung (Düsseldorf, 1979).
59 Rudolf Morsey (ed.), Der Interfraktionelle Ausschuss 1917/18 (Düsseldorf, 1959); Udo Bermbach, Vorformen parlamentarischer Kabinettsbildung in Deutschland: Der Interfraktionelle Ausschuss und die Parlamentarisierung der Reichsregierung (Cologne, 1967).
60 Reinhard Patemann, Der Kampf um die preussische Wahlreform im Ersten Weltkrieg (Düsseldorf, 1964); Hartwig Thieme, Nationaler Liberalismus in der Krise: Die nationalliberale Fraktion des preussischen Abgeordnetenhauses 1914–1918 (Boppard, 1968).
61 Bailey, “The Berlin strike,” 171.
62 John W. Wheeler-Bennett, Brest-Litovsk: The Forgotten Peace, March 1918 (London, 1938).
63 Omar Bartov and Eric D. Weitz (eds.), Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands (Bloomington, IN, 2013).
64 Winfried Baumgart, Deutsche Ostpolitik 1918: Von Brest-Litovsk bis zum Ende des Ersten Weltkrieges (Vienna, 1966); Peter Borowsky, Deutsche Ukrainepolitik 1918 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Wirtschaftsfragen (Lübeck, 1970); Oleh S. Fedyshyn, Germany’s Drive to the East and the Ukrainian Revolution, 1917–1918 (New Brunswick, NJ, 1971).
65 Wolfram Dornik and Peter Lieb, “Misconceived Realpolitik in a failing state: the political and economical fiasco of the Central Powers in the Ukraine, 1918,” First World War Studies 4 (2013), 111–24; cf. Wolfram Dornik and Stefan Karner (eds.), Die Besatzung der Ukraine 1918: Historischer Kontext, Forschungsstand, wirtschaftliche und soziale Fragen (Graz, 2008).
66 Alfred Eisfeld, Deutsche Kolonien an der Wolga 1917–1919 und das Deutsche Reich (Wiesbaden, 1985), 72–130; Seppo Zetterberg, Die Liga der Fremdvölker Russlands 1916–1918: Ein Beitrag zu Deutschlands antirussischem Propagandakrieg unter den Fremdvölkern Russlands im ersten Weltkrieg (Helsinki, 1978).
6 The war ends
Despite increasing misery on the home front, growing unrest, the radicalization of the labor movement, and the polarization of opinion to the brink of constitutional crisis, the prospects for a German victory appeared brighter at the beginning of 1918 than they had at any time since the summer of 1914. To be sure, the American entry into the war in April 1917 promised eventual relief to the Entente powers, but staggering losses among the armies of these powers in the spring and summer of 1917 threatened to end the conflict before an American army could arrive in Europe. Renewed French and British offensives in 1917 failed again to break the strategic stalemate on the western front; they also brought the French army to the verge of collapse. Events elsewhere, meanwhile, turned catastrophic for the Entente. To the south, the Italian army suffered a crippling defeat. In the east, the war ended amid the dissolution of the Russian armies. The domestic beneficiaries of the Russian military collapse were the Bolsheviks, who seized power in November 1917 and immediately called for an end to the war. The other beneficiaries were the Germans, who began to sense a happy end to the war.
The Germans won the war in the east in 1917. The prospect of victory in the south and west in 1918 elevated spirits on the home front and dampened the domestic discord. Events appeared to ratify Ludendorff’s leadership. They also ratified his vision of the war’s conclusion and eliminated the final, frail poss
ibility of a negotiated peace.
“Peace feelers”
Although their armies were locked in combat, the belligerent sides remained in almost constant diplomatic contact throughout the war.1 Willing intermediaries were to be found in the neutral lands, above all in Switzerland. They included businessmen who had dealings in both camps, representatives of Europe’s minor royalty who had relatives in both camps, and members of the papal diplomatic corps. Many of these contacts were the stuff of novels: stories of intrigue, shadowy go-betweens, and secret meetings among agents armed with vague promises.
The year 1917 brought a flurry of such activity.2 Its overture came in December 1916, when, in the glow of victory over Romania, the Central Powers offered publicly to negotiate. In its ambiguity and haughty tone, the offer married Bethmann Hollweg’s hopes and Ludendorff’s designs. It produced only skepticism in the Allied camp. Its principal result was to ease the way towards the German decision, taken the next month, in favor of unrestricted submarine warfare. Then, however, revolution in Russia, the American entry into the war in the name of a “peace without victory,” and the Reichstag’s peace resolution all suggested new terms for a settlement short of the all-out defeat of one side or the other. The provisional Russian government explored a peace settlement with the Central Powers in the spring of 1917, even as it prepared a new offensive. In the wake of the papal peace note in the summer, which put pressure on diplomats on both sides, there were renewed contacts between the British and German governments.3 These “peace feelers,” like the many contacts before them, came to nothing. No formula could be found to draw the warring parties together, and the diplomatic impasse remained as stubborn as the strategic stalemate. Evidently, only a decision at arms – the military collapse of one side – could bring the war to an end.
This scenario was scripted in a sense on the first day of the war, although historiographical controversies about Germany’s aims in the war have tended to obscure this point. Professor Fischer has read Bethmann’s diplomacy in the worst possible light. The German chancellor, he argues, was no less convinced an annexationist than Ludendorff and the Pan-Germans; he disdained compromise on German war aims from the start, and his repeated public declarations in favor of negotiations were but empty propaganda.4 In response, Bethmann’s defenders have pleaded the moderation of the chancellor’s war aims, his genuine efforts on behalf of a negotiated peace after the fall of 1914, and the persistent rejection of his overtures by the French, British, and Russian governments.5 The storm over Bethmann has lent more weight to his views than they probably deserve. His was by no means the only – or even the most important – voice in the German government on the question of peace negotiations, particularly after the installation of the third OHL in 1916. In addition, a negotiated peace required a willingness to compromise on both sides; and, as Bethmann’s defenders have emphasized, the obstacles to compromise were only a little less formidable in the camp of the Entente than they were in Germany.
Whatever their public professions of good faith and willingness to negotiate, the diplomats of all the belligerent powers operated within compelling constraints, which frustrated the quest for a compromise to end the war. In the first place, the logic of coalition warfare bred cumulative commitments, which so inflated the war aims of both sides that compromise could be purchased only at an ally’s expense or at the risk of the coalition’s cohesion. When the Entente powers enticed Italy into the war in 1915 with the promise of Italian-speaking regions in Austria–Hungary, they tied their alliance together with an expanded program of war aims, which practically excluded a separate peace with Vienna. A separate peace between Germany and Russia – the object of much of Bethmann’s diplomatic efforts in 1915 and 1916 – foundered not least on the reluctance of the Austrians to offer concessions cut from their own territory.6
Calculations of timing posed another constraint. During the first two years of the war soldiers and civilian leaders on both sides clung to the hope that military action would soon decide the issue. As long as they believed that the next offensive might bring the great strategic breakthrough, they resisted the idea of a compromise peace. Early in 1917, however, these calculations changed fundamentally. Unrestricted submarine warfare and revolution in Russia persuaded the Germans that they had the greater short-term prospects for military victory. The entry of the United States in April then convinced the western Allies that they had the greater long-term prospects for military victory. On both sides, these calculations reinforced the diplomatic impasse.
In the last analysis, however, the most powerful obstacles to a compromise peace resided elsewhere. They operated on both sides, and they militated against negotiations virtually from the moment the war began. They had to do with the representation of the war – the conviction, universally shared, that the object of the fighting was to repel monstrous foreign aggression. The vast human and material sacrifices, which began to accumulate in the first weeks of the conflict, were thereupon debited morally, in Germany and elsewhere, to the malevolence of the enemy. The propaganda of war sealed the demonization of the enemy on both sides – in the images of British perfidy and German barbarism. Once the issues were defined in these terms, as moral absolutes, negotiation was virtually inconceivable. A compromise peace could neither balance the moral accounts nor vindicate the sacrifices. Compromise required an altogether different representation of the war – as a mistake. No government anywhere could have survived this terrible confession.
This logic worked with special force in Berlin. In Germany, the domestic impact of a compromise peace would have claimed more than the fall of a government. By the last two years of the war the debates on war aims and domestic political reform had defined the price of a compromise peace as the end of a semi-authoritarian constitutional system, in whose name Germany had – at least in the eyes of its leaders – entered and prosecuted the war. The decision to pursue a compromise peace thus lay in the hands of the German leadership, the political representatives of classes whose power and privilege would have been sacrificed in compromise (but validated in victory). The logic of political suicide appealed to few of these men – least of all to Ludendorff, whose views in the end counted the most.
The force with which the vectors of power in Berlin militated against compromise was evident in Richard von Kühlmann’s brief tenure in the Foreign Office. Kühlmann’s appointment as foreign secretary came in August 1917 as part of a German diplomatic offensive. His predecessor was Arthur Zimmermann, a man of remarkably little subtlety even for a German diplomat; the famous Zimmermann telegram, which had dangled territory in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico as the bait for a German–Mexican alliance, helped bring the United States into the war.7 Kühlmann, on the other hand, had spent much of his early career in the German embassy in London, where he acquired a reputation as a moderate. He was in office when, in November 1917, the Bolshevik government sued for peace. He hoped on this occasion to appeal to the left in Germany and even to split the western Allies by negotiating a peace that comported, in appearance at least, with the renunciation of annexations contained in the Reichstag’s “peace resolution.” He accordingly cultivated pro-German groups in the Baltic provinces and the Ukraine, in hopes of turning these lands into German clients. By these means, he advocated a more subtle kind of German imperial rule in the east – what David Stevenson has called “expansion under a cloak of self-determination.”8 All his skills were severely tested in the wake of Brest-Litovsk, when German ambitions in eastern Europe not only sowed additional tensions with the Bolshevik government but also threatened Germany’s own allies. Disputes over the disposition of Poland, Romania, and the Ukraine resulted in increasing discord with the Austrians, while German expansion into the Caucasus collided with the renewed movement of Turkish troops into the same region. Military skirmishes between German and Turkish forces ensued. Kühlmann’s efforts to urge moderation only stoked the soldiers’contempt for the civilian diplomats, whom they dismissed as
a “club of pussyfooters.”9 His warnings about the ill will that the OHL’s policies would sow in eastern Europe went unheeded. Hindenburg and Ludendorff suffered his presence a little longer. Then he announced in the Reichstag that military force alone could not bring the war to an end.
This was the last straw. Kühlmann was expelled from office in July 1918, along with the last breath of diplomatic compromise. Hindenburg and Ludendorff calculated that the outcome would rest exclusively on the force of arms. They also reasoned that the decision had to come in 1918, before the arrival of American armies in Europe could tip the balance irretrievably to the western powers. In their calculations about the timing and manner of the war’s end, they were right.
The enduring face of warfare
The determination of the OHL to force the issue by military means threw into high relief the vital connection between home front and battle front. That Germans at home were undersupplied, undernourished, unhappy, and cold was of utmost relevance to the trenches. Military power was in fact an index of conditions on the home front. Manifold shortages and discontent on the home front affected industrial productivity in many ways – from production bottlenecks to the stamina and morale of the workforce. These deficiencies translated directly into the fighting strength of Germany’s armies, most immediately via the supply of materials without which soldiers could not remain effective in the field – weapons, munitions, rations, and reserves of able-bodied men to replace the millions who had fallen casualty.
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