Ring of Steel

by Alexander Watson

110.Hoffmann-Holter, ‘Abreisendmachung’, pp. 91–2.

  111.Mentzel, ‘Kriegsflüchtlinge’, pp. 172–3, and Hoffmann-Holter, ‘Abreisendmachung’, pp. 79 and 83–94. For Bohemia, see Zahra, Kidnapped Souls, p. 93. Also k.u.k. Militärkommando in Prag, ‘Demonstration in Prag’, 2 June 1917, p. 1, and k.u.k. Stationskommandant in Pilsen, ‘Unruhen in Pilsen’, 13 August 1917, p. 2. KA Vienna: MKSM 1917 (Karton 1305) 28–2/10–17.

  112.Hämmerle (ed.), Kindheit, p. 304.

  113.A. Hartmuth, letter from his sister, 19 January 1917. Author’s Collection.

  114.Morale reports, Bukovsko, pol. Bezirk Wittingau. AVA Vienna: MdI, Präsidium. Varia Erster Weltkrieg: Karton 33. More generally, see Healy, Vienna, pp. 64–8, and Davis, Home Fires Burning, esp. pp. 129–35.

  115.Ferguson, Pity of War, p. 275.

  116.Ullrich, Vom Augusterlebnis zur Novemberrevolution, pp. 58–60.

  117.Heumos, ‘ “Kartoffeln her oder es gibt eine Revolution” ’, pp. 256–7.

  118.D. D. Alder, ‘Friedrich Adler: Evolution of a Revolutionary’, German Studies Review 1(3) (October 1978), p. 279.

  119.For Adler and the assassination, see Alder, ‘Friedrich Adler’, pp. 270–84. For the public reception, see Healy, Vienna, p. 32, and for the student march, see morale reports, Vienna. AVA Vienna: MdI, Präsidium. Varia Erster Weltkrieg: Karton 33.

  120.Kriegsministerium, ‘Zusammenstellung der Monats-Berichte der stellv. Generalkommandos vom 15.12.16’. GStA PK Berlin: I. HA Rep Nr. 90A, 2685 (p. 4 of report).

  9. REMOBILIZATION

  1.Ludendorff, My War Memories, ii, pp. 409–10.

  2.W. Pyta, Hindenburg. Herrschaft zwischen Hohenzollern und Hitler (Munich, 2007, 2009), p. 246. For Hindenburg’s public image, see also ibid., pp. 115–53, and for his political ambition, pp. 246–83. Also Goltz, Hindenburg, pp. 14–25 and 33–42.

  3.M. Nebelin, Ludendorff. Diktator im Ersten Weltkrieg (Munich, 2010), pp. 35–6 and 81–97.

  4.Ludendorff, My War Memories, esp. i, pp. 2–12.

  5.Gudmundsson, Stormtroop Tactics, pp. 83–4. Foley, ‘Learning War’s Lessons’, pp. 472–5 and 487–503.

  6.E. von Wrisberg, Wehr und Waffen, 1914–1918 (Leipzig, 1922), p. 96. More generally, see M. Geyer, Deutsche Rüstungspolitik, 1860–1980 (Frankfurt am Main, 1984), pp. 98–103.

  7.Quoted in Nebelin, Ludendorff, p. 246.

  8.Feldman, Army, Industry and Labor, p. 169, and Kitchen, ‘Militarism and the Development of Fascist Ideology’, pp. 202–3.

  9.Feldman, Army, Industry and Labor, pp. 180–96.

  10.Ibid., pp. 194 and 291–300. See also Ludendorff, My War Memories, i, p. 342.

  11.W. Groener, Lebenserinnerungen. Jugend, Generalstab, Weltkrieg, ed. F. Hiller von Gaertringen (Göttingen, 1957), p. 350; Ludendorff, My War Memories, i, pp. 339–40; Nicolai, Nachrichtendienst, p. 115.

  12.See S. Gross, ‘Confidence and Gold: German War Finance, 1914–1918’, Central European History 42(2) (June 2009), pp. 242–3.

  13.Feldman, Army, Industry and Labor, pp. 152–9, 255–6 and 262–73. Also von Wrisberg, Wehr und Waffen, pp. 94 and 285–8.

  14.J. Thiel, ‘Menschenbassin Belgien’. Anwerbung, Deportation und Zwangsarbeit im Ersten Weltkrieg (Essen, 2007), p. 80, and Feldman, Army, Industry and Labor, pp. 198–9.

  15.Tampke, Ruhr and Revolution, p. 35.

  16.E. Ludendorff (ed.), The General Staff and its Problems: The History of the Relations Between the High Command and the German Imperial Government as Revealed by Official Documents, trans. F. A. Holt (2 vols., London, n.d.), i, pp. 76–9. For a good discussion, see Feldman, Army, Industry and Labor, pp. 172–3 and 301.

  17.Rauchensteiner, Tod des Doppeladlers, pp. 404–5. For the 1912 War Law, see Wegs, ‘Austrian Economic Mobilization’, p. 11. For the extent of the decline, see the figures in Gratz and Schüller, Wirtschaftliche Zusammenbruch, pp. 109–23. Only machine guns bucked the trend, but even here decline set in from early 1918.

  18.Feldman, Army, Industry and Labor, pp. 174–8, 186–8 and 200. The Third OHL’s calculations in insisting that the Reichstag must pass a law legitimizing the coercive measures are spelled out in Hindenburg’s letter to the Chancellor of 1 November 1916, reproduced in Ludendorff (ed.), The General Staff and its Problems, i, pp. 98–9.

  19.Feldman, Army, Industry and Labor, p. 209.

  20.Ibid., pp. 190, 197–217. The draft bill of 10 November, which was the same as that put before the Reichstag Steering Committee except in the detail that the age of obligation for Patriotic Service was raised by ministers from sixteen to seventeen, is reproduced in W. Deist (ed.), Militär und Innenpolitik im Weltkrieg, 1914–1918 (2 vols., Düsseldorf, 1970), i, pp. 515–19.

  21.Ludendorff (ed.), The General Staff and its Problems, i, p. 103, footnote, and the extract from the minutes of the Prussian State Ministry meeting of 1 December 1916 reproduced in Deist (ed.), Militär und Innenpolitik, i, p. 527.

  22.Feldman, Army, Industry and Labor, pp. 217–49.

  23.Ludendorff, My War Memories, i, p. 333.

  24.This follows Mai, Kriegswirtschaft, pp. 311–15. Feldman is more condemnatory but less convincing about the impact of the Auxiliary Service Law on the war effort. See his Army, Industry and Labor, pp. 308–16.

  25.J. Oltmer, ‘Zwangsmigration und Zwangsarbeit – Ausländische Arbeitskräfte und bäuerliche Ökonomie im Ersten Weltkrieg’, Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für deutsche Geschichte 27(1998), p. 142.

  26.U. Herbert, A History of Foreign Labor in Germany, 1880–1980: Seasonal Workers/Forced Laborers/Guest Workers (Ann Arbor, MI, 1990), pp. 87, 90 and 94–5. Also E. M. Kulischer, Europe on the Move: War and Population Changes, 1917–1947 (New York, 1948), p. 167, and, for an example of the controls, stellv. Gen Kdo. des XVIII. Armeekorps, order, 1 November 1915. AP Katowice: Oddział w Raciborzu: 18/237/4: 80: fo. 143.

  27.M. Stibbe, British Civilian Internees in Germany: The Ruhleben Camp, 1914–18 (Manchester and New York, 2008), esp. pp. 24–5.

  28.Thiel, ‘Menschenbassin Belgien’, pp. 39 and 79–85. For Bissing’s paternalistic instincts, see also Nebelin, Ludendorff, p. 253.

  29.L. von Köhler, Die Staatsverwaltung der besetzten Gebiete. Belgien (Stuttgart, Berlin, Leipzig and New Haven, CT, 1927), pp. 151–2, and Thiel, ‘Menschenbassin Belgien’, pp. 105–8, 123–4 and 136–7.

  30.Thiel, ‘Menschenbassin Belgien’, pp. 140–62, and M. Spoerer, ‘The Mortality of Allied Prisoners of War and Belgian Civilian Deportees in German Custody during the First World War: A Reappraisal of the Effects of Forced Labour’, Population Studies 60(2) (July 2006), p. 129.

  31.Thiel, ‘Menschenbassin Belgien’, pp. 202–6 and 220–37.

  32.Ludendorff, My War Memories, i, p. 336.

  33.R. Nachtigal, ‘Zur Anzahl der Kriegsgefangenen im Ersten Weltkrieg’, Militärgeschichtliche Zeitschrift 67(2) (2008), pp. 349–63, and H. Jones, Violence against Prisoners of War in the First World War: Britain, France and Germany, 1914–1920 (Cambridge, 2011), p. 40.

  34.See Jones, Violence against Prisoners of War, pp. 93–110.

  35.Article 6 of the Annex entitled ‘Regulations Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land’ to ‘Convention Concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land. 2d Peace Conference, The Hague, 18 Oct. 1907. IV’, in Conventions and Declarations.

  36.K. Rawe, ‘. . . wir werden sie schon zur Arbeit bringen!’ Ausländerbeschäftigung und Zwangsarbeit im Ruhrkohlenbergbau während des Ersten Weltkrieges (Essen, 2005), p. 75. Also Herbert, History of Foreign Labor, p. 90, Nachtigal, ‘Zur Anzahl der Kriegsgefangenen’, p. 352, and V. Moritz and H. Leidinger, Zwischen Nutzen und Bedrohung. Die russischen Kriegsgefangenen in Österreich (1914–1921) (Bonn, 2005), pp. 110–20.

  37.Nachtigal, ‘Zur Anzahl der Kriegsgefangenen’, p. 352, and Moritz and Leidinger, Zwischen Nutzen und Bedrohung, p. 116.

  38.Oltmer, ‘Zwangsmigration und Zwangsarbeit’, pp. 158–6.

  39.For the death figures, see Nachtigal, ‘Zur Anzahl der Kriegsgefangenen’, pp. 356
and 360–61. For the conditions faced by prisoners in the Ruhr mines, see Rawe, ‘. . . wir werden sie schon zur Arbeit bringen!’. Jones, Violence against Prisoners of War, pp. 127–222, offers the best description of conditions in prisoner labour companies in the front area. The percentage of German prisoners in prisoner labour companies refers to August 1916.

  40.Oltmer, ‘Zwangsmigration und Zwangsarbeit’, pp. 166–7.

  41.Helene Grus to stellv. Gen Kdo., V, A. K., 5 April 1918. AP Poznań: Polizei-Präsidium Posen 8991: doc. 30.

  42.L. M. Todd, ‘ “The Soldier’s Wife Who Ran Away with the Russian”: Sexual Infidelities in World War I Germany’, Central European History 44(2) (June 2011), pp. 257–78, and Daniel, War from Within, pp. 144–7.

  43.Kriegsministerium, order to stellvertretende Generalkommandos entitled ‘Anstiftung der Kriegsgefangenen zur Meuterei’, 20 May 1917. GLA Karlsruhe: 456 F109: Nr. 1.

  44.Stellv. Gen Kdo. des XVII. Armeekorps in Danzig to Landrat Thorn, 29 June 1917. AP Toruń: Starostwo Powiatowe w Toruniu (Landratsamt Thorn): Nr. 1025: fo. 129.

  45.See C. von Roeder, ‘Vom verhängnisvollen Einfluβ der Sabotageakte auf die Kriegführung’, in W. Jost (ed.), Was wir vom Weltkrieg nicht wissen (Leipzig, 1936), pp. 149–53. Roeder was the chief of the counter-espionage service (‘Abwehrdienst’) in Deputy Section IIIB of the German General Staff. While his account is exaggerated, he supplies interesting evidence, and much of what he claims is supported by contemporary documentation. For an example, see Order from Chef des Stellvertretenden Generalstab der Armee, Abteilung IIIb in Berlin, 8 April 1917. HHStA Wiesbaden: Preuβisches Regierungspräsidium Wiesbaden (405): Nr. 2739: fo. 200.

  46.The quotations are taken from a large, alarmingly orange poster issued by General Wagner of the stellv. Gen Kdo. des XVII. Armeekorps in Danzig, 4 May 1917. AP Toruń: Starostwo Powiatowe w Toruniu (Landratsamt Thorn): Nr. 1024: fo. 281. Cf. also Gouvernement der Festung Mainz to Territ. Komm. Mainz; Reg. Präsident Wiesbaden; Militär. Polizeistelle Mainz und Wiesbaden; Geh. Feldpolizei Bingen; Ic und F. G. A, 12 May 1917. HHStA Wiesbaden: Preuβisches Regierungspräsidium Wiesbaden (405): Nr. 2739: fo. 207, and stellv. Gen Kdo. des V. Armeekorps to Erzbischof von Gnesen und Posen Dr. Dalbor, 18 June 1917. AA Poznań: OA X 76.

  47.Regierungs-Präsident Wiesbaden, memo recounting a presentation by the stellvertretenden Generalstab der Armee, 27 January 1918. HHStA Wiesbaden: Preuβisches Regierungspräsidium Wiesbaden (405): Nr. 2739: fo. 244.

  48.Herbert, History of Foreign Labor, p. 99.

  49.Figure from German propaganda poster ‘Wer ist Sieger?’, AP Poznań: Polizei-Präsidium Posen 5024: doc. 196.

  50.Numbers from: B. Benvindo and B. Majerus, ‘Belgien zwischen 1914 und 1918: ein Labor für den totalen Krieg?’, A. Bauerkämper and E. Julien (eds.), Durchhalten! Krieg und Gesellschaft im Vergleich, 1914–1918 (Göttingen, 2010), p. 136, T. Scheer, Zwischen Front und Heimat. Österreich-Ungarns Militärverwaltungen im Ersten Weltkrieg (Frankfurt am Main, 2009), p. 22, Gumz, Resurrection and Collapse, p. 6, and L. Mayerhofer, Zwischen Freund und Feind – Deutsche Besatzung in Rumänien, 1916–1918 (Munich, 2010), pp. 40–41.

  51.For figures, see M. Huber, La Population de la France pendant la Guerre (Paris and New Haven, CT, 1931), pp. 391–2.

  52.Köhler, Staatsverwaltung der besetzen Gebiete, pp. 6–8, Mayerhofer, Zwischen Freund und Feind, pp. 46–52, and Scheer, Zwischen Front und Heimat, pp. 59–60.

  53.Quoted in D. Hamlin, ‘ “ Dummes Geld”: Money, Grain, and the Occupation of Romania in WWI’, Central European History 42(3) (September 2009), p. 457.

  54.Grebler and Winkler, Cost of the World War, pp. 76 and 97.

  55.Ludendorff, My War Memories, i, pp. 354 and 287–8.

  56.Verhandlungen des Reichstags. XIII Legislaturperiode. II. Session. Band 306. Stenographische Berichte. Von der Eröffnungssitzung am 4. August 1914 bis zur 34. Sitzung am 16. März 1916 (Berlin, 1916), p. 660.

  57.Stellvertreter des k.u.k. Chefs des Generalstabes to Chef des Generalstabes, 12 November 1916, pp. 18–19. KA Vienna: NL Bolfras, B/75C.

  58.Von Zeynek, Offizier im Generalstabskorps, p. 276.

  59.Skalweit, Deutsche Kriegsernährungswirtschaft, pp. 10–11; Grebler and Winkler, Cost of the World War, p. 83.

  60.Ludendorff, My War Memories, i, p. 354.

  61.Skalweit, Deutsche Kriegsernährungswirtschaft, p. 22.

  62.Mayerhofer, Zwischen Freund und Feind, p. 214.

  63.A. Arz von Strauβenburg, Zur Geschichte des Grossen Krieges, 1914–1918 (Vienna, Leipzig and Munich, 1924), pp. 189, 193 and 195–6. For the Habsburg officer corps’ mentality and its struggle with civilians over food, see Gumz, Resurrection and Collapse, pp. 176–92.

  64.Mayerhofer, Zwischen Freund und Feind, p. 212, and von Zeynek, Offizier im Generalstabskorps, p. 314.

  65.A. Hartmuth, letter from his mother, 24 October 1916. Author’s Collection.

  66.See BN Warsaw: Microfilm 89065: Jaszczurowscy v. Jaszczórowscy herbu Rawicz: ‘Wielka wojna światowa – Pamiętnik Tadeusza Alojzego Jaszczurowskiego’, p. 105, Romer, Pamiętniki, p. 97, and Hamlin, ‘ “Dummes Geld” ’, p. 464.

  67.For a good introduction to the priorities of the Central Powers in the east, see S. Lehnstaedt, ‘Imperiale Ordnungen statt Germanisierung. Die Mittelmächte in Kongresspolen, 1915–1918’, Osteuropa 64 (2–4) (2014), pp. 221–32.

  68.Ludendorff, My War Memories, i, pp. 206 and 189.

  69.Liulevičius, War Land, pp. 71–2, 96–9, 123–5 and 198, and C. Westerhoff, Zwangsarbeit im Ersten Weltkrieg. Deutsche Arbeitskräftepolitik im besetzten Polen und Litauen, 1914–1918 (Paderborn, 2012), p. 171.

  70.Quoted in Liulevičius, War Land, p. 66.

  71.Ibid., pp. 65, 92–3, 100–103. Also Ludendorff, My War Memories, i, pp. 198 and 202.

  72.Ludendorff, My War Memories, i, pp. 198–9. For recent historiography stressing similarities between Imperial German military and Nazi practices, see for example Hull, Absolute Destruction, esp. pp. 243–8.

  73.Liulevičius, War Land, p. 72, and Ludendorff, My War Memories, i, pp. 197–8. For troop numbers, see Sanitätsbericht, III, p. 7*.

  74.Westerhoff, Zwangsarbeit, pp. 143–77.

  75.Ibid., pp. 191–6, 211–21 and 298–303, and Liulevičius, War Land, pp. 73–4.

  76.A. Strazhas, Deutsche Ostpolitik im Ersten Weltkrieg. Der Fall Ober Ost, 1915–1917 (Wiesbaden, 1993), p. 47.

  77.Ibid., pp. 48–9. Also Liulevičius, War Land, pp. 75–6.

  78.Liulevičius, War Land, pp. 200–15.

  79.H. McPhail, The Long Silence: Civilian Life under the German Occupation of Northern France, 1914–1918 (London and New York, 1999, 2001), pp. 45–8 and 51. Also Armee-Oberkommando 1, ‘Armeebefehl betreffend Ueberwachung der Civilbevölkerung’, 16 May 1917, reissued 10 January 1918. GLA Karlsruhe: 456 f6/250.

  80.Schaepdrijver, ‘Belgium’, p. 391, and McPhail, Long Silence, pp. 137–9.

  81.Thiel, ‘Menschenbassin Belgien’, pp. 127–9, and Hull, Absolute Destruction, pp. 252–3.

  82.C. Gide and W. Ovalid, Le Bilan de la Guerre pour la France (Paris and New Haven, CT, 1931), pp. 175–7, and Fontaine, French Industry, pp. 16, 109–10 and 405.

  83.Hull, Absolute Destruction, p. 252, and McPhail, Long Silence, pp. 48, 93 and 226.

  84.For Bissing, see above. For factors moderating the conduct of his regime, see Hull, Absolute Destruction, p. 230, and for his economic policy, see Thiel, ‘Menschenbassin Belgien’, pp. 40–46.

  85.H. Pirenne, La Belgique et la Guerre Mondiale (Paris and New Haven, CT, 1928), p. 127, and C. de Kerchove de Denterghem, L’industrie belge pendant l’occupation Allemande, 1914–1918 (Paris and New Haven, CT, 1927), p. 28.

  86.Thiel, ‘Menschenbassin Belgien’, pp. 88 and 247, and Herbert, History of Foreign Labor, p. 106.

  87.B. Little, ‘Humanitarian Relief in Europe and the Analogue of War, 1914–1918’, in J. D. Keene and M. S. Neiberg (eds.), Finding Common Ground: New Directions in First World War Studies (Leid
en and Boston, 2011), pp. 141–3 and 146–9, and McPhail, Long Silence, pp. 61–88.

  88.A. Henry, Études sur l’occupation allemande en Belgique (Brussels, 1920), pp. 195–6 and 225.

  89.A. Solanský, ‘German Administration in Belgium’, unpublished PhD thesis, Columbia University (1928), p. 115, and P. Liberman, Does Conquest Pay? The Exploitation of Occupied Industrial Societies (Princeton, NJ, 1996), p. 77.

  90.Liberman, Does Conquest Pay?, pp. 73, 75 and 84. Also Thiel, ‘Menschenbassin Belgien’, p. 42.

  91.Conze, Polnische Nation, pp. 87–8 and 114–15.

  92.Ibid., pp. 70–72 and 102–5.

  93.See Westerhoff, Zwangsarbeit, pp. 203 and 233–4. Also, for documentation on the ‘Komittee den Notleidenden in den von deutschen Truppen besetzten Teilen Russisch-Polen’, see AA Poznań: OA X 40, and the report of the Regierungspräsident in Marienwerder to Oberpräsident of West Prussia, 15 May 1915, in AP Gdańsk: Rejencja w Kwidzynie (10): 10229: fo. 309.

  94.See, for the latest work on this state-building, J. C. Kauffman, ‘Sovereignty and the Search for Order in German-Occupied Poland, 1915–1918’, unpublished PhD thesis, Stanford University (2008).

  95.Kries, quoted in Conze, Polnische Nation, p. 71.

  96.Ihnatowicz, ‘Gospodarka na ziemiach polskich’, p. 457, and Conze, Polnische Nation, p. 132.

  97.See the official response to an anonymous memorandum criticizing the occupation and sent to the Archbishop of Posen and Gnesen, p. 7, in AA Poznań: OA IX 204. Also M. Bemann, ‘ “. . . kann von einer schonenden Behandlung keine Rede sein”. Zur forst- und landwirtschaftlichen Ausnutzung des Generalgouvernements Warschau durch die deutsche Besatzungsmacht, 1915–1918’, Jahrbücher für Osteuropas, Neue Folge 55(1) (2007), p. 9.

  98.Conze, Polnische Nation, p. 129, and S. Czerep, ‘Straty polskie podczas I wojny światowej’, in D. Grinberg, J. Snopko and G. Zackiewicz (eds.), Lata wielkiej wojny. Dojrzewanie do niepodległości, 1914–1918 (Białystok, 2007), p. 194. Also, the anonymous but informed and critical memorandum of 1917, pp. 13–18, in AA Poznań: OA IX 204.

  99.K. Dunin-Wąsowicz, Warszawa w czasie pierwszej wojny światowej (Warsaw, 1974), pp. 97, 170–75 and 180, and R. Blobaum, Jr, ‘Going Barefoot in Warsaw during the First World War’, East European Politics and Societies and Cultures 27(2) (May 2013), pp. 188–91. For a guide to German rations, see Offer, First World War, p. 30, fig. 1.1.