by Barrie Pitt
The greatest single shock to Ludendorff’s composure had undoubtedly been contributed by the events of August 8th. These had shaken the foundations of his staple faith – belief in the reliability and strength of his Army, and with that gone or at least severely impaired, he saw himself defenceless in a hostile world. It had so affected him that on the following day, either as a test of his own standing or as a genuinely sincere wish not to embarrass his nominal superiors, Ludendorff had suggested to Hindenburg that perhaps it was time for him to be superseded; and when Hindenburg had refused the suggestion, he repeated it to the Head of the Military Cabinet, who passed it on to the Kaiser.
Although His Imperial Majesty, in turn, declined Ludendorff’s resignation – showing him, indeed, ‘especial favours at this time’ – there was no doubt that he shared Ludendorff’s view of the developing situation. After hearing his Quartermaster-General’s reasons for suggesting his own replacement, the Kaiser had remarked, ‘I see that it is necessary to review conditions. We have come to the limit. The war must be brought to an end. Accordingly, I shall expect the Commanders-in-Chief at Spa in the course of the next few days.’
As it happened, no particular new threat to the German line developed before the conference at Spa – which took place on August 13th and 14th – and so Ludendorff was given a period of a few days in which to recover his spirit, but not sufficient, apparently, for him to regain any form of mental or moral initiative, for during the meetings of the first day (with the German Chancellor von Hertling and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, von Hintze) he announced bleakly and with only the harshness of his voice to remind them of his authority, that ‘we can no longer hope to break the war-will of our enemies by military operations’ and that ‘the object of future strategy must be to paralyse the enemy’s war-will by a strategic defence.’ These could hardly be deemed reassuring statements from the Fatherland’s foremost soldier.
And the following day, although Hindenburg repeatedly pointed out that much of France and almost all of Belgium still lay behind German lines while no hostile troops stood in arms on German soil, there was still an ominous lack of constructive thought from Ludendorff. His chief contributions to the discourse, in fact, were concerned with complaint of the deteriorating morale of the Home Front, coupled with dour announcements that everywhere stricter discipline was needed and that many more young men should be combed out from soft jobs at home and sent to serve with the colours.
Throughout the centuries, soldiers of many lands have chanted this refrain – as they felt power slipping from their hands.
After listening to his chief military adviser, the Kaiser could thus hardly be blamed for pessimism, and his suggestion that either the King of Spain or the Queen of Holland should be asked to act as mediator for an approach to the Allies, was the only positive idea to emerge from two days’ rather uncongenial wrangling. It was a pity that this idea was marred by the almost incredible naïvety of the soldiers – and possibly the Kaiser as well – as to the terms upon which the approach should be made, for they were thinking of an armistice that would allow them to withdraw their armies to shorter lines of defence, and there to reorganize them. If, during the armistice period, satisfactory terms for peace could be agreed – all well and good. If not, the fighting should then recommence.
It is inconceivable that Ludendorff would have allowed the Allies such a breathing space had the positions been reversed, for he was above all a practical soldier; yet he experienced no difficulty in believing that such a respite was almost a right which Germany could not be denied. He also considered that Germany’s sufferings throughout the war had been such that no other country would refuse her the right to occupy Belgium upon such a basis as to give Germany full control of the Flemish coast, and that even the King of the Belgians could be brought to see the necessity for the city and fortress of Liège becoming an inalienable German possession.
So invincibly set upon these two last points was Ludendorff, that during the first day of the Spa Conference he had abruptly cut short discussion on the Belgian question. ‘Why bring up Belgium?’ he demanded curtly. ‘That question is settled and is laid down in black and white!’ – and no further mention was made, that day, of the country for whose freedom the British Nation and Empire had gone to war.
With an outlook of such political unreality, it can be seen that Ludendorff was soon to experience many more rude shocks; and he was to be given no chance of recovery between them, for as day followed day, the strain increased. During the remainder of August – while his armies were being subjected to the tattoo which Foch (and Fortune) were beating on the German line from Soissons to Arras – Ludendorff was beset to extreme aggravation by both politicians and soldiers who visited him at his headquarters. The former inquired with plaintive but nerve-wracking monotony if the situation were really as serious as it looked; the latter suggested, with varying degrees of formality, alternative strategies to his own.
The politicians were of small account to Ludendorff at this stage – especially those who could not appreciate that control of Belgium was the least reparation the German Army and Nation should expect as recompense for all the suffering they had endured during the war – but the soldiers were important. They were also dangerous, for Ludendorff was perfectly well aware that even in the Fatherland’s present somewhat parlous condition, military ambition would still drive some of his co-evals to intrigue for his position. Both Generals von Böhn and von der Schulenberg considered that a retirement right back to the Antwerp–Meuse Line was advisable, and said so in no uncertain terms – and Ludendorff’s testy rejoinder that this line hardly existed except on paper could have done little to re-establish his own reputation for far-seeing efficiency. The fact that he had never had the labour to complete this line was of small account to those who wished, however obliquely, to undermine his authority.
It is by no means impossible that one of the most serious obstacles to Ludendorff’s return to equanimity of mind – so far as military criticism was concerned – was his mental image of the man who now commanded the armies in the east. Major-General Max Hoffmann had at one time been Ludendorff’s most important Staff officer, and it is true to say that since they parted, Ludendorff’s victories had been neither so economically gained nor so clearly triumphant: and the thought of that ungainly individual watching Ludendorff’s discomforture with his usual expression of sardonic amusement must have been exasperating in the extreme. Ludendorff had already had occasion to press the Kaiser for Hoffmann’s instant dismissal when, as early as January 2nd, the two had violently disagreed over the question of German annexations in the east, and since then, Hoffmann had impertinently suggested that Ludendorff’s fixed determination to cling fast to Belgium would in the end cause the downfall of them all. But the Kaiser had failed to respond, and Hoffmann remained in office. After the war, Hoffmann was to write of the Ludendorff Spring Offensive:
The first attempt, undertaken with all the means at our disposal, had failed, so that it was certain a fortiori that further attacks undertaken with diminishing resources could not hope for success. On the day that Ludendorff broke off the first offensive before Amiens, it would have been his duty to draw the attention of the Government to the desirability of opening peace negotiations.
If Hoffmann, thinking this, was many miles away, there were some who thought it close at hand. One of these was General von Kuhl, Chief-of-Staff to Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria and one of Ludendorff’s chief assistants before the opening of the offensive. As the other had been von der Schulenberg – who was now pressing for a retirement to the Antwerp–Meuse Line – Ludendorff had become isolated: and it was becoming increasingly obvious that owing to clear-cut differences of opinion between them, Ludendorff would shortly be forced to dispense with the services of the Chief of his Operations Section, Lieutenant-Colonel Wetzell – and another prop to his sense of security would fall away.
Against the vast and sombre background of the retr
eat to the Hindenburg Line, all this may seem trivial, but a speck of grit in the eye of a surgeon can divert attention and cause the death of the patient; and (to labour the simile) Ludendorff was not only suffering from impaired vision. His hand was beginning to shake.
An army reacts with surprising speed and sensitivity to weakening control, and if nothing could be now expected of the poorer elements in Ludendorff’s command, there is much evidence that frustration and concern were affecting its finest. About this time, one young officer – with a most distinguished record – became so infuriated with conditions in a comparatively quiet sector, that he noted savagely in his diary:
One is able to shake one’s head between two shellbursts over many matters of grave importance, such as that the Town Major of X has lost a terrier with black spots answering to the name of Zippi, and to follow with fascination the suit for maintenance of the servant-girl Makeben against Corporal Meger. The pro formas and returns, too, provide us with needful distraction. One is kept so fully occupied with the inner organization that time is scarcely left over for the little affair of holding the line. Indeed one is asked little about it. It often appears that collecting empty cartridge cases is of far greater importance.
Ludendorff’s grip was indeed slipping – with results which would, in turn, plague him further. And so the endless, enervating circle would revolve.
On August 22nd, Albert fell to the Allies; the 23rd was the day upon which the youngsters of Byng’s army had annihilated one German division and ruined six more; and on the 26th, the Canadians drove forward from Vimy Ridge to the northern hinge of the Siegfried Position, to smash through it on the 28th and reach the Wotan Position on the 30th: during which crucial period Ludendorff had been compelled to devote much of his time to discussions with the Spokesman of the Reichstag, Herr von Payer – yet another politician congenitally incapable of appreciating the reasons why Germany should retain control of Belgium. Von Payer was quickly dispatched back to Berlin, but Ludendorff’s blood-pressure, his temper – and of course, his nerves – had all suffered as a result of the rages precipitated by the arguments, and when, every evening, he read the military reports, they contained nothing but further severe shocks to his peace of mind.
Then on August 30th, all these troubles – and the Australian attack at Péronne–paled into insignificance before a series of developing catastrophes which threatened the German Cause to an infinitely greater degree. The Quadruple Alliance of the Central Powers began to break up, as a first token of which the Austrian Ambassador, Prince Hohenlohe-Langenburg, announced that his country intended to sue for a separate peace.
This was of such serious import that for the moment Ludendorff and the politicians acted in concert, and diplomatic telegrams shuttled between Spa and Berlin and Berlin and Vienna in frantic attempts to avert the defection of the closest, in blood and space, of Germany’s allies. On September 6th, word was at last received that the Austrian Baron Burian had agreed to withhold his appeal for peace for the time being, but only on the condition that Berlin took serious steps to persuade the Queen of the Netherlands to act as mediator with the Allies – and if this move had already been in the minds of Germany’s rulers, it can have been no balm to Ludendorff’s temper that they were now being forced into it by an ally for whom he had long felt little but contempt.
In the meantime, the Canadians had broken through the Wotan Position.
From then on, hardly a day passed without some military or diplomatic defeat for Germany, which to Ludendorff’s heightened sensitivity meant a humiliation for himself. Twenty-four hours after the agreement with Baron Burian, Austria changed her mind again and only a direct appeal to the Emperor Karl – whom Ludendorff loathed and distrusted – stopped an immediate appeal for peace.
Then on September 9th, after being forced both to authorize the evacuation of the Lys basin and finally to remove Lieutenant-Colonel Wetzell from his position, Ludendorff was called to yet another conference at Spa to endeavour to answer a string of questions directed at him by von Hintze, obviously acting as spokesman for a number of disgruntled politicians. As Ludendorff’s only answer to these questions was ‘The general idea of the defence is to remain where we are’, his authority in the eyes of those present could have been in no way increased, and his statement ‘I cannot agree that Austria may launch her “Universal Appeal for Peace” ’ must have been followed, in many minds, by the unspoken question as to how he intended to stop her. He could not even indulge in the emotional release of a fit of temper on this occasion, for the Kaiser was present.
On September 12th came the American elimination of the St. Mihiel Salient, followed three days later – in flat contradiction to Ludendorff’s wishes – by Austria’s appeal for peace, together with news which portended collapse of another of Germany’s allies – Bulgaria. That morning the Allied ‘Army of the Orient’ had attacked the Bulgarian front in Macedonia and there were already strong indications of the collapse which would in the end allow the Allies to drive forward twenty-five miles in three days, and break open the shield to the Danubian Basin. On the 19th, the whole of the Bulgar Army began to disintegrate – and then news arrived that the army of the only remaining German ally, Turkey, had been decisively beaten by the British in Palestine.
No peace, no rest, no gleam of hope on any horizon: in truth the trials of the First Quartermaster-General were numerous and intense. As he lacked genius, they were also insoluble.
Within a week, the first blow of Foch’s Grand Assault fell, and if first reports of the fighting in the Argonne were not indicative of disaster, any dawning hope Ludendorff may have felt as a result was quickly crushed by a telegram from von Hintze to the effect that Austria’s complete secession from the Quadruple Alliance was now considered certain and imminent. The following day brought the destruction of the Canal du Nord Line and the consequent turning of the Siegfried Position, the opening bombardment of the main fortifications to the south and the developing menace in the north, coupled with the warning from the local commander that the German troops opposite Ypres were unlikely to resist a determined attack. And as he watched – helplessly and with anguished gaze – the apparently inexorable disintegration of his Army, his ambitions and his professional reputation, Ludendorff received word that von Hintze was once more en route for Spa, in order to demand from Headquarters an open and unequivocal declaration of military possibilities. Would the First Quartermaster-General please attend?
Ludendorff travelled to Spa during the morning of September 28th and occupied his usual suite on these occasions, on the second floor of the Hotel Britannique. When he had first stayed there, he could afford to be amused by the name of his accommodation: now, no Fates would be propitiated by his staying elsewhere. The first news to greet him upon his arrival was of the opening of Plumer’s attack on the Passchendaele Ridge, and the obviously impending loss of positions held by the German armies, despite tremendous attempts to dislodge them, for the past four years.
In the early afternoon, he attempted the composition of the declaration of strategical aims for the morrow’s conference – a task akin to that given to the Israelites in the brickfields of Egypt. Wherever he looked, the armies of the Central Powers were in retreat, the fruits of their glorious victories despoiled, their strength wasted away; everywhere the enemy, grown immense in size and strength, crowded in towards the Fatherland, trampling into dust the results of his own ability and life-long industry, and of the valour and spirit of countless thousands of his gallant compatriots.
Now that spirit was gone. Mutiny at home; feebleness, irresolution and stupidity among the politicians; jealousy in the High Command; weakness in the Imperial Ruler. All these had served to undermine the noble power of the German Army, to whittle away their confidence in both his leadership and their own true purpose, and thus rob the German Nation of its Destiny.
And he himself was helpless, the instrument of power broken in his hand. Even as he strove to find some saving facto
r which might for the moment deflect the spite and envy of those whom he would face tomorrow, his personal staff brought him further news of encroaching defeat in the west – and disaster in the east, for Bulgaria had requested an armistice from the victorious Allied Army of the Orient. This indeed was a further blow, for the six divisions he had recently demanded from Hoffmann’s eastern command in order to help absorb the shock of the Grand Assault, must now be diverted to form some frail defence in Serbia.
There was no end to the labours expected of his Army, but only too evident an end to its strength.
And to his own. Helpless in the face of enormous difficulties, unable to find a loophole of escape because to his clouded vision none existed, fears for the future and the passions of the past combined to bring to a climax the strains and tensions of the past weeks, the past months, the past years. Railing at his staff, accusing all around him of deceit and treachery, accusing those at home of cowardice, the Kaiser of weakness and the Imperial Navy of blind arrogance in their belief in the efficacy of the over-rated submarine, he began to lose the last control of all – of himself.
With rising rage, the nerves grew ever tenser, the lungs, the veins, the arteries more congested, the heart overworked, and the speech thicker and more incoherent Fists clenched in fury, blood-vessels pulsing visibly at temple and brow, voice hoarse and mouth twisting with fury, he grew paler and paler as hysteria gripped him.
Shortly before four o’clock foam spluttered from his mouth, and he fell to the floor with a crash which shook the room – and was to re-echo through the corridors of the world.
That evening, pale and shaken, Ludendorff visited Hindenburg in the suite below and admitted that he could see no way out of the impasse into which Germany had been manœuvred; and sadly, Hindenburg – as ever – agreed with his chief subordinate. An armistice must be asked for, with all the loss of prestige and territory, honour and influence, which this would entail. In view of the Fourteen Points in the American President’s Peace Proposals – which would serve at any rate as a basis for discussion – it seemed likely that Germany’s aspirations in Belgium must be forgone, and quite possibly the fruits of the 1870 campaign in Alsace-Lorraine yielded up to French demands. Western fears of Bolshevism, however, should at least negate the demand for withdrawal in the east, so some recompense for all their sufferings would be saved from the wreckage of their hopes.