The Great War

by Peter Hart

  Anyone who knows the morale of our troops as it existed in those days must admit that it was comparatively easy for the Americans to perform heroic acts. I must confirm that the fighting value of the men in the trenches had sunk very low. A few days prior to this incident, we were unable to carry out a counter-attack because our men simply would no longer go over the top. Racing through the enemy barrage at the head of my company, I found myself in the front line with only one sergeant and four privates; the remainder of my company was ‘unaccounted for’. When I ran back to the rear, I saw my men, together with other companies and even their commanding officers, lying at the edge of the woods. To apply force would have been useless. Yet this state of affairs was quite comprehensible. 1) Our unit had been in the firing line since September 26, on which date the Allied forces launched their offensive. The protracted mental strain, inclement weather and soggy ground – we had to spend the nights in the open, without any kind of protection – had generally lowered the morale. 2) Many of our men were hardly fit for active service. The replacements that were sent to the front were poor in build and health as well as in training. These men were facing American troops who, so far as I know, were relieved every other day. Moreover, the Americans were strong and healthy-looking individuals; most of them were volunteers and, as I observed on my way to the prison camp, had at their disposal all kinds of auxiliaries. Provision dumps were located along the roads where everybody could help himself; and motor trucks were on hand in enormous numbers. I can readily see that these well-equipped troops found it easy to take our demoralised men by surprise.57

  Lieutenant Schleicher, 212th Reserve Infantry

  The Allied armies, British, French, American and Belgian, moved forward along most of the Western Front. They were winning all right, but casualties were still high – this was a truly murderous form of warfare. It is a sobering statistic that of the 1.2 million men serving in the BEF between August and November 1918, some 360,000 become casualties. This was unsustainable: the BEF was being consumed. The French and Americans were also suffering. This was Armageddon.

  But Germany was finally beaten; more than that, the Central Powers were finished. The bad news was pouring in from everywhere. The Turks were in disarray in Palestine and Mesopotamia, while the Bulgarians were falling back in Salonika. The German High Command knew it was beaten, but at the same time sought an exit strategy looking to resume the battle in 1919.

  The Armistice is militarily necessary to us. We shall soon be at the end of our strength. If the peace does not follow, then we have at least disengaged ourselves from the enemy, rested ourselves and won time. Then we shall be more fit to fight than now, if that is necessary.58

  Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, German Headquarters

  Both Hindenburg and Ludendorff clung to the idea that they could defend the German homeland and that their enemies were themselves tottering, at the end of their endurance.

  If the war should approach our own territory, if the feeling that he was protecting home and all that word meant entered into the heart of each man at the front, who knew full well the meaning of such terms as ‘theatre of war’, ‘battlefield’ and ‘lines of communication’, if the war with all its destruction threatened German soil, then I felt our 70 million Germans would stand like one man, determined and ready to sacrifice for their country all the mighty strength that still remained to them.59

  Quartermaster General Erich Ludendorff, German Headquarters

  Unsurprisingly, the Allies refused to fall into this obvious trap. They were collectively determined to impose conditions to any Armistice negotiations that would cripple the German war machine for the foreseeable future.

  The German military and political leaders twisted and turned, with more than an eye on posterity, trying to avoid being held personally responsible for defeat. And as they did so, the war went on. But there was no chance of a last-minute redemption for Germany, its effort to overcome the existing European order was doomed to failure. By this time Ludendorff was suffering the after-effects of a partial mental breakdown and seemed unable to maintain a consistent approach from one day to the next. Finally he offered his resignation after a dispute with the Kaiser on 26 October. He was replaced as Hindenburg’s Chief of Staff by General Wilhelm Groener, who was well aware that the game was up for Germany. With the capitulation of Bulgaria on 30 September, Turkey on 30 October, and the Austro-Hungarian acceptance of an armistice on the Italian Front on 3 November, Germany was left fighting alone and without hope.

  The final Allied offensives began on 4 November. The British Fourth, Third and First Armies attacked on a wide front. The attacks were broadly successful, but blemished as ever by painful casualties. Among those killed on that miserable freezing day was a man who would have a long-lasting impact – certainly on the British understanding of the Great War. Lieutenant Wilfred Owen of the 2nd Manchester Regiment was a promising poet who had served on the Western Front in 1917 until he was diagnosed with shellshock and sent back to Britain to recuperate. Here he encountered the far better known writer Siegfried Sassoon, at the Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh. Under Sassoon’s tutelage, Owen’s poetry blossomed, although it was not published until after his death. His war poems, such as ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’, ‘Strange Meeting’ and ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, have come to epitomise the popular view of the futility and pity of war. Tragically, he was killed as he led his men across the Sambre Canal under heavy fire. He is buried at the Ors Communal Cemetery.

  November was nearly always a miserable, desperate time for fighting, but with the war teetering to its long-awaited close, it was a particular trial in 1918. Wet weather hampered progress, but the Germans were still trying their best to hold back their pursuers, blowing up bridges, felling trees and blasting houses to block the roads. Booby traps and delayed-action mines added to the delays inflicted on the advance. As the British soldiers entered many of the towns and villages they encountered French civilians now finally freed from years of German occupation.

  As we rode in people began to run out of their houses, regardless of the shelling. By the time we reached the Grande Place we were surrounded by a seething crowd of people simply delirious with joy. I had a little chocolate for the children, but it did not go very far. Luneau was dragged off his horse and smothered with kisses. I was almost dragged off but I managed to stick on. They kissed my boots and lifted up their babies to be kissed, all laughing, sobbing and shouting, ‘Vive la France! Vive l’Angleterre!’ They fished out French flags from somewhere and hung them out of the window. They begged for French newspapers and any news we could give them. And all the time the Bosche was shelling the place and nobody cared a damn! As we dismounted at the house of the Mayor, a shell hit it and a splinter passed between Luneau and me – rotten luck if I get ‘done in’ with the end in view.60

  Major Thomas Westmacott, Headquarters, 24th Division

  The same thought was at the back of every soldier’s mind. Yet the advance continued unabated. For the British there was a peculiar irony in the site chosen by the German Seventeenth Army for a rearguard stand on 10 November: the Mons area where for the BEF it had all begun, thousands of lifetimes ago. By 04.30 on 11 November the Canadians had cleared away the last of the Germans and Mons was returned to British control. They were truly back where they started.

  THE SURRENDER NEGOTIATIONS were based on the framework of President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points, which he had first put forward on 8 January 1918. These attempted to set out a vision as to how the Great Powers could co-exist after the war. Although in some ways a fairly naive document, it at least provided a starting point for the negotiations. Under its provisions Germany was invited to surrender all its gains in the east, allowing for the creation of a strong independent Polish state. In the west, Belgium was to be evacuated and Alsace-Lorraine returned to France. The Allied political leaders were united in their desire to make sure that the Germans were not only down, but stayed down for the
foreseeable future. Hence crippling financial reparations were demanded to defray the exorbitant cost of the war damage suffered by the Allies. A minor hiccup arose over the American demand in the Fourteen Points for complete freedom of the seas, which worried the British as it would prohibit their habitual use of blockades as a legitimate weapon of war. This was, however, brushed under the carpet; no one wanted any lengthy hold-ups over this kind of complication. On 4 November, the Allied Supreme War Council offered Germany peace on the basis of the Fourteen Points, but also announced that it would be Foch who would negotiate the terms for an Armistice before a peace conference was convened.

  In Germany itself there was a tremendous state of political flux. The High Seas Fleet was in open mutiny and there were crowds demonstrating on the streets of Berlin. Prince Max von Baden, the recently appointed Chancellor, realised the game was up and on 8 November he despatched a joint military and civilian negotiating team led by a relatively moderate politician, Matthias Erzberger, charged with the thankless task of sorting out the terms for an Armistice with the forbidding figure of Foch. At the same time he advised the Kaiser to resign in order to avoid the onrushing spectre of civil war. The Kaiser refused and the Prince himself resigned on 9 November, to be replaced as Chancellor by the socialist parliamentary leader, Friedrich Ebert. Meanwhile, at the Army Headquarters at Spa in Belgium the Kaiser was being given a stern lesson in reality by General Wilhelm Groener, who suggested that Wilhelm II go to the front and die at the head of his armies, an invitation politely declined by the Kaiser, who instead chose ignominious exile in the Netherlands, crossing the border on 10 November. His more formal abdication would occur on 28 November, but to all intents and purposes Germany was now a republic.

  Foch, aided by Haig, Pétain and Pershing, had worked out exactly what was wanted from his negotiations with the German representatives: absolutely no chance that Germany would resume the war after a short armistice. The German armies would have just fourteen days to withdraw to Germany, and they would have to surrender 5,000 guns, 30,000 machine guns, 3,000 trench mortars and 2,000 aircraft. The German logistics system would also be effectively crippled by the surrender of 5,000 locomotives, 150,000 railway coaches and 5,000 lorries. At sea they had to give up 6 dreadnoughts, 160 U-boats and 8 light cruisers; while the rest of the High Seas Fleet would be interned in Allied waters – and even then the Royal Navy blockade would be maintained until the formal peace treaty was signed. Lastly, Allied armies would occupy the west bank of the Rhine, with fortified Allied bridgeheads at Mainz, Coblenz and Cologne standing out in an enforced demilitarised zone on the eastern bank. The German delegation finally met Foch in the inauspicious surroundings of a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest, where he gave them no real choice but to sign, which they duly did at 05.15 on the morning of 11 November, allowing just a few hours before the Armistice was promulgated to the world commencing at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

  Men carried on dying right up to the very end, but finally the rumble of the guns stopped at 11.00 on 11 November. The soldiers reacted in different ways. Maybe a few career soldiers or adventurers were disappointed, but most were delighted.

  Every man had a grin from ear to ear on his face. Nobody yelled or showed uncontained enthusiasm – everybody just grinned and I think the cause was that the men couldn’t find words to express themselves. I think of the man who every day has his life in danger and who dreams of home more than heaven itself – suddenly finds that the danger is past and that his return is practically assumed – that he has won after personally risking his life – no wonder they couldn’t say much – they simply grinned.61

  Captain Cecil Gray Frost, L Battery, 2nd Machine Gun Battalion, Canadian Machine Gun Corps, CEF

  Many reflected on the blessed relief from the tensions and unremitting horrors of the fighting. The draining hopelessness of the war was not always apparent until it was suddenly lifted. Suddenly they were free.

  ‘Dickie,’ said Captain Brown, ‘The bloody war’s over! It’s over!’ And it was. No more slaughter, no more maiming, no more mud and blood, no more killing and disembowelling of horses and mules. No more of those hopeless dawns, with the rain chilling the spirits, no more crouching in inadequate dugouts scooped out of trench walls, no more dodging snipers’ bullets, no more of that terrible shell fire. No more shovelling up of bits of men’s bodies and dumping them into sandbags, no more cries of, ‘Stretcher-bearers!’ No more of those beastly gas masks and the odious smell of pear drops which was deadly to the lungs. And no more writing of those dreadfully difficult letters to the next-of-kin of the dead.62

  Lieutenant Richard Dixon, 251st Battery, 53rd Brigade, Royal Artillery

  The French soldiers had good reason to rejoice, but at the same time many good comrades to mourn. The French Army had fought with incredible determination, always – somehow – just about managing to keep going in the face of adversity.

  Damn! A wave of joy swept over us. I don’t know if I’d tears in my eyes. Like the others, I must have shouted, ‘Vive la France!’ For a moment we were left breathless with happiness. Great sorrow is silent; so too is great joy. Then the shock passed; we recovered our power of speech and with it the reflex common to all Frenchmen, ‘We’ll have to drink a toast to that!’ Yes, but with what? There was no red wine in this poor little place, just a bottle of lousy sparkling wine Bebert dug up in a shop where the bastard made us pay 15 francs. We split it sixteen ways, hardly enough to wet your whistle!63

  Private Ernest Brec, 77th Infantry Regiment

  The Armistice was a glorious relief for the Germans, too, but even as they celebrated, they would have to face the bitter consequences of defeat.

  I read the fateful sheet with bated breath and growing amazement. What were the terms? Evacuation of the left bank of the Rhine as well as the right to an extent of forty kilometres … 150,000 railroad cars … 10,000 automobiles … 5,000 heavy guns … the blockade to remain in effect … the navy to be surrendered! It can’t be. This is ridiculous. It means a fight to the end. What a sudden change from the joy we had felt that morning! ‘This is what you get for your God-damned brotherhood!’ I shouted to the suddenly silent spectators. It was too much for me to bear and I hurried off to grieve in a lonely corner. The last of the rockets exploded; one siren after the other turned silent; but within me the storm still raged as I was convulsed to the very core of my soul by a deep and terrible anguish. It is sheer madness to subject an industrious and undefeated nation such as ours to these shameful terms.64

  Seaman Richard Stumpf, SMS Lothringen

  There was scant sympathy from the victorious Allies. During the Armistice negotiations the humiliated Erzberger had read out a statement to Foch protesting at the stringent terms demanded: ‘A people of 70 million men are suffering, but they are not dead.’ In his reply Foch encapsulated the Allied reaction to German anguish: ‘Très bien!’ The war was over, but the hatred would linger on.

  19

  A WORLD WITHOUT WAR?

  ‘Sooner or later, Germany will be starved and beaten. Austria will be resolved into its component parts. England has always won in the end.’1

  Minister for Munitions Winston Churchill

  THE GREAT WAR WAS A HUMAN TRAGEDY. Over the four years and three months of war around 2 million German soldiers died for the Central Powers, along with 1,100,000 Austro-Hungarians, 770,000 Turks and 87,500 Bulgarians; and for the Allies, around 2 million Russians, 1,400,000 French, 1,115,000 from the British Empire, 650,000 Italians, 250,000 Rumanians and 116,000 Americans. Taking all the countries across the globe it is estimated that just under 9,722,000 soldiers died through military action in the war. In addition, roughly 21 million were injured: some recovered relatively unaffected, but many were scarred or maimed for life. Nor do these figures really take into account the mentally traumatised, ranging from shell-shocked men who would never be sane again to the millions suffering from what we would now recognise as post-t
raumatic stress disorder. These figures also fail to consider the civilians killed by the war – approximately 950,000 who died from direct military action, but also a shocking 5,893,000 civilians who died from the impact of war-related famine and disease. These figures are sobering indeed.

  Germany had been at the very heart of the Great War. There had been many causes, many tensions, but in the end the German ambitions could not be restrained within the status quo of Europe in 1914. An unfortunate combination of bellicosity and inept diplomacy had left Germany facing war on two fronts. The military establishment, as represented by the Chief of General Staff, Helmuth von Moltke (the Younger), had staked everything on the gamble that in 1914 the superbly trained and disciplined German Army could swiftly defeat France and then use her central communications to move her armies over to smash the Russians in the east. Whether this was ever really feasible is a moot point, but it was certainly a high risk, driven by the fear of the increasing military strength of both Russia and France. In September 1914, the Battle of the Marne demonstrated that France would not be quickly defeated – the gamble had failed. With that failure, as Moltke the Elder and Schlieffen would both have recognised, Germany was almost certainly doomed to defeat. The addition of the British and Americans to the list of Germany’s enemies only made matters more certain. If there was a futility in the Great War it was not the actions of the Entente Allies in countering German aggression, but rather the futility of Germany trying to provoke, fight and win a war in circumstances that always militated against success. This is not to say that the Allies were blameless. France and Russia had their own motives for going to war and did little to sidestep it, while all three members of the Triple Entente were aggressive imperialist colonial powers seeking to consolidate everything they held and make further gains wherever possible.