Ring of Steel

by Alexander Watson

  2.Ludendorff, My War Memories, ii, p. 543.

  3.See e.g. the Frankfurt Magistrat report on ‘Stimmung der Zivilbevölkerung’, 17 December 1917. HHStA Wiesbaden: 405: Nr. 6359: fo. 37. More generally, ‘Zusammenstellung der Monatsberichte der stellv. Generalkommandos an das preußische Kriegsministerium betr. die allgemeine Stimmung im Volke’, for November 1917 (3 December 1917), pp. 1, 39–40. GStA PK, Berlin: I. HA Rep 90A, Nr. 2685.

  4.Scheidemann in the Reichstag Steering Committee, 24 January 1918, reproduced in Michaelis, Schraepler and Scheel (eds.), Ursachen und Folgen, ii, p. 245 (doc. 327).

  5.Wetzell, quoted in Herwig, First World War, p. 394.

  6.For German knowledge of the French mutinies, see Generalquartiermeister, memorandum, 27 July 1917. GLA Karlsruhe: 456 F 109, Nr. 1. For conditions on the home front, see Becker and Krumeich, Grosse Krieg, pp. 121 and 127–8.

  7.Abteilung Fremde Heere, ‘Mitteilung über die britische Armee Nr. 4’, 1 January 1918. HStA Stuttgart: M33/2, Bü 536. For the planning of the Spring Offensive, see D. T. Zabecki, The German 1918 Offensives: A Case Study in the Operational Level of War (Abingdon and New York, 2006), pp. 93–112.

  8.For command, see Samuels, Command or Control?, ch. 8, and T. Travers, How the War was Won: Command and Technology in the British Army on the Western Front, 1917–1918 (London, 1992), ch. 3. For the troops, see Watson, Enduring the Great War, pp. 175–83.

  9.Rawlinson to Wilson, 18 April 1918, quoted in I. M. Brown, British Logistics on the Western Front, 1914–1919 (London, 1998), p. 191. For a full discussion, see D. T. Zabecki, ‘Railroads and the Operational Level of War in the German 1918 Offensives’, in J. D. Keene and M. S. Neiberg (eds.), Finding Common Ground: New Directions in First World War Studies (Leiden and Boston, MA, 2011), pp. 161–86.

  10.Zabecki, The German 1918 Offensives, p. 109.

  11.M. Middlebrook, The Kaiser’s Battle, 21 March 1918: The First Day of the German Spring Offensive (London, 1978), pp. 70–74.

  12.G. Fong, ‘The Movement of German Divisions to the Western Front, Winter 1917–1918’, War in History 7(2) (April 2000), pp. 229–30.

  13.Zabecki, The German 1918 Offensives, pp. 126–33.

  14.Ibid., pp. 125–6.

  15.‘What are you fighting for?’, propaganda leaflet, issued on 26 February 1918. HStA Stuttgart: M33/2 Bü 516.

  16.Postüberwachung der 5. Armee, reports of 10 January and 24 February 1918. BA-MA Freiburg: W-10/50794: fos. 35 and 45.

  17.L. Wernicke, diary, 21 March 1918. DTA, Emmendingen: 1040, II.

  18.Von Heydekampf, diary extract, reproduced in Michaelis, Schraepler and Scheel (eds.), Ursachen und Folgen, ii, p. 251.

  19.Middlebrook, Kaiser’s Battle, pp. 322–3. Also Samuels, Command or Control?, pp. 214–21.

  20.Müller, Kaiser and his Court, p. 344 (diary entry for 23 March 1918).

  21.Leutnant B. to Oberarzt Travers, 30 March 1918. HHStA Wiesbaden: Feldpostbriefe – Paul Travers: 1073, Nr. 8.

  22.Kitchen, German Offensives, p. 94.

  23.Watson, Enduring the Great War, p. 181.

  24.For a day-by-day analysis of the offensive, see Zabecki, German 1918 Offensives, pp. 139–73. For gains, see Stevenson, With Our Backs to the Wall, p. 67.

  25.W. Deist, ‘Verdeckter Militärstreik im Kriegsjahr 1918?’, in W. Wette (ed.), Der Krieg des kleinen Mannes: Eine Militärgeschichte von unten (Munich and Zurich, 1992, 1995), pp. 149–50. For an example of heavy infantry casualties, see the account of the losses of 1st Guards Reserve Division in H. Fuchs, diary, 30 March 1918. BA-MA Freiburg: MSg 1/2968.

  26.Zabecki, German 1918 Offensives, pp. 184–205.

  27.R. Foley, ‘From Victory to Defeat: The German Army in 1918’, in A. Ekins (ed.), 1918: Year of Victory (Auckland and Wollombi, 2010), p. 77.

  28.Zabecki, German 1918 Offensives, p. 199.

  29.R. Lechmann, letter to his sister, 28 April 1918. Private Collection (Author).

  30.Kuhl’s diary, quoted in Stevenson, With Our Backs to the Wall, p. 75.

  31.Thaer, Generalstabsdienst an der Front, p. 182 (diary entry for c. 18 April 1918).

  32.Zabecki, German 1918 Offensives, esp. p. 219.

  33.Lutz (ed.), Causes of the German Collapse, p. 69. Cf. also Gallwitz, Erleben im Westen, p. 340, and Görlitz (ed.), Kaiser and his Court, p. 374 (entry for 23 July 1918).

  34.Stevenson, With Our Backs to the Wall, pp. 112–69, and Griffith, Battle Tactics, p. 22.

  35.Major Ludwig Beck, quoted in Deist, ‘Verdeckter Militärstreik’, p. 151.

  36.For the state of front-line units in the last weeks, see the reports in A. Philipp (ed.), Die Ursachen des Deutschen Zusammenbruches im Jahre 1918. Zweite Abteilung. Der innere Zusammenbruch (Berlin, 1928), vi, pp. 321–86. For machine-gunners, see Summaries of Information. Fourth Army, Report No. 287, 1 October 1918, p. 7. TNA London: WO 157/199.

  37.For figures, see Deist, ‘Military Collapse’, p. 197, and Sanitätsbericht, iii, p. 143*.

  38.L. P. Ayres, The War with Germany: A Statistical Summary (Washington, 1919), p. 104. For US transports, see Stevenson, With Our Backs to the Wall, p. 345.

  39.Deist, ‘Military Collapse’, p. 190, and Kitchen, German Offensives, p. 14.

  40.For tactics, see J. Boff, Winning and Losing on the Western Front: The British Third Army and the Defeat of Germany in 1918 (Cambridge, 2012), chs. 5 and 6; Stachelbeck, Militärische Effektivität, pp. 236–45. For divisional strengths, see A.F.B.D., ‘Some Military Causes of the German Collapse’, The United Service Magazine 60 (October 1919–March 1920), p. 292, and Deist, ‘Verdeckter Militärstreik’, p. 159.

  41.Ludendorff’s speech of 23 October 1918, as reported by the Saxon Militärbevollmächtigter to the War Minister, 24 October 1918. HStA Dresden: Militärbevollmächtigter Nr. 4216: fos. 114–15.

  42.Altrichter, Die seelischen Kräfte, pp. 134–6.

  43.Watson, Enduring the Great War, pp. 196–7 and 205–6.

  44.Ibid., p. 212.

  45.Lutz (ed.), Causes of the German Collapse, pp. 142–5. See also the Prussian War Ministry’s order entitled ‘Disziplinlosigkeiten bei Ersatztransporten’, 22 July 1918. HStA Stuttgart: M38/17 Bü 5: fo. 53.

  46.W. Giffenig, quoted in Watson, Enduring the Great War, p. 212. For other examples of indiscipline, see ibid., p. 213.

  47.Ludendorff, My War Memories, ii, pp. 586, 613 and 642, von Kuhl’s report in Lutz (ed.), Causes of the German Collapse, pp. 84–5.

  48.Thaer, Generalstabsdienst, p. 188 (diary entry for 26 and 27 April 1918).

  49.Kitchen, German Offensives, p. 209, and Nachtigal, ‘Repatriierung der Mittelmächte-Kriegsgefangenen’, p. 246.

  50.Report from the draft battalion of Reserve Infantry Regiment Nr. 111 in Donaueschingen, 1 September 1918. GLA Karlsruhe 456 F55, Nr. 76. For other examples, see Watson, Enduring the Great War, pp. 213–14.

  51.Ludendorff, My War Memories, ii, p. 679.

  52.Summaries of Information. Fourth Army, ‘Weekly Appreciation: For Period from 10th to 16th August (inclusive)’, 17 August 1918, pp. 3–4. TNA London: WO 157/197.

  53.41 Division, order of 14 August 1914, reproduced in Scheidemann, Zusammenbruch, pp. 185–6. For the number of prisoners, see United States War Office, Histories of Two Hundred and Fifty-One Divisions of the German Army which Participated in the War (London, 1920, 1989), p. 449.

  54.Res. Feldartillerie Regt. 3, ‘Erfahrungen aus den Kämpfen vom 18. bis 21.7.1918’, 25 July 1918. BA-MA Freiburg: PH 8-II/4. Also, for the military’s response, ‘Bestimmungen über die Organisation zur Sammlung und Weiterleitung von Versprengten an der Westfront, 13 September 1918. GLA Karlsruhe: 456 Fr, Nr. 110.

  55.Chef des Generalstabes, order, 1 August 1918. GLA Karlsruhe: 456 F6, Nr. 110. For other examples, see Deist, ‘Military Collapse’, p. 202.

  56.Dr G., diary/memoir, 26 September 1918. BA-MA Freiburg: MSg 2/628. More generally on shirking and influenza, see H. Strachan, ‘The Morale of the German Army, 1917–18’, in H. Cecil and P. H. Liddle (e
ds.), Facing Armageddon: The First World War Experienced (London, 1996), pp. 394–5.

  57.See Ulrich and Ziemann (eds.), Frontalltag, p. 140 (doc. 56c), and anon., Why Germany Capitulated, p. 60.

  58.Volkmann, Soziale Heeresmißstände, xi(2), p. 66. For modern historians still echoing these claims see, most recently, B. Ziemann, Gewalt im Ersten Weltkrieg. Töten – Überleben – Verweigerung (Essen, 2013), chs. 6 and 7. Ziemann’s arguments for a ‘covert strike’ rest on a mix of hyperbole and an uncritical reading of army orders. His work noticeably fails to explain adequately why neither contemporary desertion figures nor the records of straggler posts support his claim of a large exodus of soldiers from the line before October 1918. It is also disconcertingly credulous in its treatment of the highly politicized post-war estimates of shirking, and refuses to engage with research deconstructing these figures.

  59.Stachelbeck, Militärische Effektivität, pp. 151, 297, fn 215 and 346–7, and Jahr, Gewöhnliche Soldaten, pp. 157 and 159, graphs 1 and 3. For further confirmation of the modest rate of desertion in the second half of 1918, see also the figures supplied for the Württemberg contingent in R. E. Zroka, ‘If Only this War would End: German Soldiers in the Last Year of the First World War’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of California, San Diego (2013), pp. 73–4.

  60.See Jahr, Gewöhnliche Soldaten, pp. 166–7, and Watson, Enduring the Great War, p. 210.

  61.For German military law, see Jahr, Gewöhnliche Soldaten, pp. 162, 195–7 and 232–5. For more detail on the German collapse and a revision of older arguments about desertion, see Watson, Enduring the Great War, ch. 6.

  62.J. P. Harris and N. Barr, Amiens to the Armistice. The BEF in the Hundred Days’ Campaign, 8 August–November 1918 (London, 1998), p. 291. For total German prisoners, see M. Huber (ed.), La Population de la France pendant la Guerre (Paris and New Haven, CT, 1931), p. 132.

  63.Von Einem, Armeeführer, pp. 434–5 (letter of 14 September 1918).

  64.Summaries of Information. Fourth Army: ‘Weekly Appreciation: For Period from August 31st to 6th Sept., 1918 (Incl.)’, 7 September 1918, pp. 3–4, and Report No. 266, 10 September 1918, p. 5. TNA London: WO 157/198.

  65.Jahr, Gewöhnliche Soldaten, p. 165, and Lasswell, Propaganda Technique, p. 184.

  66.G. G. Bruntz, Allied Propaganda and the Collapse of the German Empire in 1918 (Stanford, CA, 1938), pp. 98, 111–12 and 124–5.

  67.Denunciation by R. Peyke to the Saxon War Minister of an overheard conversation, 23 August 1918. HStA Dresden: 11352 Stellv. Gen-Kdo XIX AK KA(P) 24170, fo. 145.

  68.See Sanitätsbericht, iii, p. 132*.

  69.Letter of H. Schützinger to M. Hobohm, 30 March 1927, reproduced in Hobohm, Soziale Heeresmißstände, xi.i, p. 424.

  70.Rupprecht von Bayern, Kriegstagebuch, ii, p. 443.

  71.Censorship report of 6. Armee, 4 September 1918, in Michaelis, Schraepler and Scheel (eds.), Ursachen und Folgen, ii, p. 303 (doc. 356).

  72.Mechow’s account in file, p. 1517. BA-MA Freiburg: W-10/50677.

  73.Rupprecht, Kriegstagebuch, iii, p. 28 (letter to his father, 14 October 1918).

  74.The New York Times, The New York Times Current History: The European War. July–August–September 1918 (20 vols., New York: The New York Times), xvi, p. 400.

  75.This account follows Watson, Enduring the Great War, pp. 215–29. For the penalties for deserting to the enemy, see the order issued by Chef des Gen Stabes des Feldheeres, 25 June 1918, reproduced in Ulrich and Ziemann (eds.), Frontalltag, pp. 123–4 (doc. 47c).

  76.R. Gaupp, ‘Schreckneurosen und Neurasthenie’, in K. Bonhoeffer (ed.), Geistes- und Nervenkrankheiten (2 vols., Leipzig, 1922), i, p. 91.

  77.Nebelin, Ludendorff, pp. 423–4.

  78.Thaer, Generalstabsdienst, p. 222 (diary entry for 15 August 1918).

  79.Nebelin, Ludendorff, pp. 446–50 and 454–5. Also Kitchen, Silent Dictatorship, p. 252.

  80.See the notes of Colonel Mertz von Quirnheim, reproduced in Michaelis, Schraepler and Scheel (eds.), Ursachen und Folgen, ii, p. 293 (doc. 353).

  81.W. Foerster, Der Feldherr Ludendorff im Unglück. Eine Studie über seine seelische Haltung in der Endphase des ersten Weltkrieges (Wiesbaden, 1952), pp. 73–4.

  82.Ibid., pp. 76–9.

  83.Nebelin, Ludendorff, pp. 423–4.

  84.Reichskanzlei, Vorgeschichte des Waffenstillstandes. Amtliche Urkunden (Berlin, 1919), p. 6.

  85.Thaer, Generalstabsdienst, p. 234 (diary entry for 1 October 1918).

  86.Ibid.

  87.See von Hintze’s notes on the meeting, reproduced in Michaelis, Schraepler and Scheel (eds.), Ursachen und Folgen, ii, pp. 319–20 (doc. 365).

  88.R. Höfner, diary, 3 April 1918. DTA, Emmendingen: 1280, 1.

  89.For food, see Offer, First World War, pp. 48–50. For the influenza, see G. Kolata, Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused it (New York, 2001), p. 7.

  90.Kühlmann’s speech in the Reichstag, 24 June 1918, reproduced in Michaelis, Schraepler and Scheel (eds.), Ursachen und Folgen, ii, p. 274 (doc. 340a).

  91.Koszyk, Deutsche Pressepolitik, p. 192.

  92.Landrat of St Goarshausen to Regierungspräsident, Wiesbaden, 16 September 1918. HHStA Wiesbaden: 405: Nr. 6360: fo. 117, and letter from a member of the public to Stellvertretendes Generalkommando Stuttgart, 20 September 1918. HStA Stuttgart: M77/1, Bü 786. For just one example of reports testifying to the sense of crisis in the German public, in large part as a result of events at the front, see N.O. des stellv. Generalkommandos XIII A.K. in Stuttgart, ‘Die Gegenwärtigen Maßnahmen zur Hebung der Stimmung in Württemberg’, 16 September 1918. HStA Stuttgart: M77/1 Bü 787: fo. 172.

  93.F. Schlamp, letters, 4, 10 and 14 September and 16 October 1918. Author’s Collection.

  94.May, Passing of the Hapsburg Monarchy, ii, pp. 722–7 and 748–55.

  95.Rothenberg, Army of Francis Joseph, pp. 212–13.

  96.For statistics, see Herwig, First World War, p. 370, Thompson, White War, p. 342, and Gratz and Schüller, Wirtschaftliche Zusammenbruch, p. 151. Also Zeman, Break-Up, pp. 218–19.

  97.Thompson, White War, pp. 344–6, and Herwig, First World War, pp. 370–71. For the poor state of the troops, see Cornwall, Undermining, pp. 287–99, and for an account of the battle, see Romer, Pamiętniki, pp. 161–4.

  98.Glaise-Horstenau, Collapse, p. 175.

  99.May, Passing of the Hapsburg Monarchy, ii, p. 723.

  100.Healy, Vienna, pp. 187–8.

  101.Rauchensteiner, Tod des Doppeladlers, p. 567.

  102.Loewenfeld-Russ, Regelung der Volksernährung, p. 70.

  103.See Glaise-Horstenau, Collapse, p. 155, and Loewenfeld-Russ, Regelung der Volksernährung, p. 71.

  104.For summary reports giving a good overview of the plight of the Empire’s cities, see AVA Vienna: MdI, Präsidium. Varia Erster Weltkrieg: Karton 33.

  105.Plaschka, Haselsteiner and Suppan, Innere Front, i, pp. 39–42.

  106.May, Passing of the Hapsburg Monarchy, ii, pp. 760–63.

  107.Minutes of Common Ministerial Council, Vienna, 27 September 1918, reproduced in Cornwall (ed.), Last Years of Austria-Hungary, p. 198.

  108.For the background to the manifesto, see Rauchensteiner, Tod des Doppeladlers, pp. 603–8, and Glaise-Horstenau, Collapse, pp. 207–9. A copy is posted online at: http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/to-faithful-austrianpeople-emperor-karl# (accessed 11 April 2014).

  109.See Křen, Konfliktgemeinschaft, pp. 371–2.

  110.Macartney, Habsburg Empire, p. 831.

  111.See the account in Redlich, Schicksalsjahre Österreichs, ii, p. 305 (diary entry for 21 October 1918).

  112.Galántai, Hungary, pp. 315–22.

  113.Plaschka, Haselsteiner and Suppan, Innere Front, ii, pp. 247–59.

  114.Ibid., pp. 260–77. For Tisza’s death, see May, Passing of the Habsburg Monarchy, ii, p. 789.

  115.Rauchensteiner, Tod des Doppeladlers, pp. 614–15.

  116.Plaschka
, Haselsteiner and Suppan, Innere Front, ii, pp. 143–58, 184–5 and 217.

  117.See Glaise-Horstenau, Collapse, pp. 260–61 and 264–7.

  118.Redlich, Schicksalsjahre Österreichs, ii, p. 310 (diary entry for 30 October 1918).

  119.A. Czechówna, diary, 1 November 1918. AN Cracow: IT 428/42.

  120.Plaschka, Haselsteiner and Suppan, Innere Front, ii, pp. 289–301, and Bieniarzówna and Małecki, Dzieje Krakowa, iii, p. 394.

  121.Plaschka, Haselsteiner and Suppan, Innere Front, ii, pp. 213 and 316, and Golczewski, Polnische-Judische Beziehungen, pp. 205–13.

  122.Quoted in M. Mazower, ‘Minorities and the League of Nations in Interwar Europe’, Daedulus 126(2) (Spring 1997), p. 50. For the Polish-Ukrainian conflict and pogrom in the city, see Mick, Kriegserfahrungen, pp. 203–56.

  123.H. R. Rudin, Armistice 1918 (New Haven, CT, 1944), pp. 53–4.

  124.M. von Baden, Erinnerungen und Dokumente (Hamburg, 1927, 2011), pp. 331 and 335. For the composition of the government, see Rudin, Armistice, p. 81.

  125.Rudin, Armistice 1918, pp. 53 and 56–80.

  126.M. Geyer, ‘Insurrectionary Warfare: The German Debate about a Levée en Masse in October 1918’, The Journal of Contemporary History 73(3) (September 2001), pp. 477–82.

  127.Rudin, Armistice 1918, p. 80.

  128.Ibid., pp. 104, 121–32.

  129.Geyer, ‘Insurrectionary Warfare’, p. 494.

  130.See the meeting’s minutes in Ludendorff (ed.), The General Staff and its Problems, ii, esp. pp. 666, 674 and 686. Also Nebelin, Ludendorff, pp. 477–82.

  131.Ibid., p. 668. For the unfeasibility of drafting these 600,000 men, see E. von Wrisberg, Heer und Heimat 1914–1918 (Leipzig, 1921), p. 100. Groener believed that those who could be drafted were already in the army: Groener, Lebenserinnerungen, p. 448.

  132.See esp. Boff, Winning and Losing, p. 38.

  133.Gallwitz, Erleben im Westen, p. 429 (diary entry for 21 October 1918).

  134.Rupprecht von Bayern, Kriegstagebuch, ii, p. 459 (diary entry for 12 October 1918). Cf. Einem, Armeeführer, pp. 450–51 (letter of 15 October 1918), and Kriegsministerium to Reichskanzler, 31 October 1918. BA Berlin Lichterfelde: R43/2440: fo. 270.