A Perfidious Distortion of History
Page 6
Without the untiring efforts of the SPD and affiliated union leaders to keep production going, Germany’s war effort would have collapsed much sooner. This was to have two fatal consequences. In the short term, it ensured that the slaughter continued until, bled dry by the Allied advances in the west, the front finally collapsed — though not before hundreds of thousands more soldiers had fallen. In the long run, the SPD joined the bulk of German society in its conviction that the acceptance of peace terms that did not specifically free Germany of responsibility for the outbreak of war, and make an adequate allowance for the suffering of the German people, would amount to a mortal sin.
The changing fortunes of war
It would be wrong to suggest that the military blundering and the massive waste of human lives due to arrogant, careless, and incompetent planning was confined to the German side. The British secretary of state for war over the first two years, Lord Herbert Kitchener, was not up to the task of providing effective military leadership. He was uncertain about Britain’s role in the war, and he was perplexed by the trench warfare that had developed on the Western Front after the battle of the Marne. ‘I don’t know what is to be done’ he is often quoted as remarking, ‘this isn’t war’. 15 Nor were the British army commanders much more competent. An Australian officer summed it up when he observed that the training manuals of the British army were as much use for the conduct of war as were the ‘cuneiform inscriptions of a Babylonian brick’. 16 In a war that soon depended on engineers and artillery officers, the British army was dominated by horse soldiers: five of the nine army commanders were cavalrymen. In particular, General Sir Douglas Haig, who together with Sir William Robertson had taken command of Britain’s war effort by the beginning of 1916, continued against all advice (and all evidence) to maintain that the cavalry had a vital role to play in modern warfare.
The Entente’s blunders began in the spring of 1915 with the decision to attack the Turkish empire (which had entered the war on the Central Powers’ side on 29 October 1914) at the Dardanelles. With the war in Western Europe at a stalemate, a group of ministers — including David Lloyd George, the chancellor of the exchequer; Sir Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty; and Maurice Hankey, the secretary of the War Council — had started to argue that a successful Dardanelles attack would bring decisive advantages to the Entente. The opening of the Dardanelles Straits and subsequent capture of the Turkish capital Constantinople would enable shipping to assist the Russian war effort, Serbia might be saved, and the Balkan countries might be mobilised against the Habsburg empire’s southern flank. Without any scrutiny as to the military and strategic feasibility of the plan, a naval onslaught was launched in mid-March 1915.
When this was easily rebuffed by the Turks, it was decided to launch an amphibious landing of British, Indian, French, Australian, and New Zealand divisions — amounting initially to 75,000 soldiers — at the Gallipoli peninsula. The commander-in-chief of this operation, British General Sir Ian Hamilton, had little knowledge of the peninsula’s geography, which, marked by a continuous succession of steep hills along the entire coast, was a defender’s dream. Virtually all beaches were exposed to fire from surrounding cliffs and hills that provided ideal cover for the Turks to inflict heavy casualties upon the invaders.
The difficulty had become obvious by the first day of the campaign, on 25 April 1915, when Australian and New Zealand forces landed at a small beach near Gaba Tepe in the north of the peninsula. They managed to dig in and establish trenches at a number of beachheads over the next weeks, but it was soon apparent that attempts to break through the well-fortified Turkish lines were bound to fail. The attempt to invade the Ottoman empire from the Dardanelles was a waste of men and money. Ships needed to carry war supplies to Russia were not available, Serbia had already been defeated by Austria-Hungary and, with the exception of Romania, no Balkan country showed any inclination to join the Entente powers. Even so, the Gallipoli campaign was prosecuted until January 1916, leaving 200,000 casualties on both sides.
The campaign was the only major victory for the Turks in the 1914–18 war, and is regarded as a defining moment in the nation’s struggle to transform itself from Ottoman empire to Turkish Republic. The date of the first landing at Gallipoli became one of major importance to Australia and New Zealand. Anzac Day, as it was soon named, was to stand as a national symbol, not only for the commemoration of the fallen and the veterans in these two countries but also as one important step towards the birth of a national consciousness — a move away from rule by Britannia.
But in terms of military casualties, the battle for the Dardanelles ranks among the also-rans. Leading these sad statistics is the battle of Gorlice-Tarnow in Galicia in May 1915, where Russian troops had managed to invade the Polish part of the Habsburg empire. The army command of the latter was forced to ask for German assistance, and the ensuing offensive saw the Central Powers’ largest victory. The Russian front collapsed under the enormous losses: 743,000 casualties, and 895,000 soldiers taken prisoner.
Frustrated by the continuous failure to break through Allied lines in the west, the German army leadership decided to attack the French fortress of Verdun in late February 1916. The declared purpose of this enterprise was to bleed the French forces to death. Relentless fighting raged for five months, with every metre of ground fought for. The French withstood all attacks, and the OHL had to call off the battle in July. French casualties amounted to 317,000 soldiers; German casualties, to 280,000. For the Germans, Verdun became a symbol of senseless slaughter, undermining the nation’s fighting spirit.
In the second half of June 1916, the British and French launched an attack on the Somme. For one week, their artillery pounded each square metre of the German positions with a ton of shells. Then the infantry divisions attacked and pushed back the 50 kilometre-long German front line by two kilometres. The cost of this meagre gain amounted to 400,000 dead and injured for Britain, and 200,000 for France. The German defenders lost 400,000 soldiers. When the campaign was called off by the Allies in November, the battle of the Somme had consumed over one million lives.
Notwithstanding their defeat in Galicia the year before, the Brusilow Offensive, launched in June 1916, brought tsarist Russia’s largest success. Austria-Hungary’s losses amounted to 250,000 casualties, while 370,000 of their soldiers were either taken prisoner or deserted. The disaster of the Brusilow Offensive greatly strengthened the position of the forces working towards the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and marked the beginning of the end for the Habsburg monarchy, which for nearly half a millennium had provided stability in Europe’s most unstable region.
Although time should have been on the side of the Allies because of their superior resources in manpower and ammunition, poor military planning meant that by the beginning of spring 1917, the Entente powers were in strife. Failure to achieve success on the battlefield was matched by dire economic conditions.
A great deal of hope now rested on the United States entering the war. There was widespread support in leading U.S. political and military circles to go to the aid of the Allies, but one person steadily resisted all efforts to abandon American neutrality. Unfortunately for the Allies, that person was the only one who could make the decision: the U.S. president, Thomas Woodrow Wilson.
Woodrow Wilson
This man, on whom so many hopes and expectations rested, and on whom so much responsibility was to fall, was born on 28 December 1856 in Staunton, Virginia, the son of Presbyterian Minister Joseph Ruggles Wilson and his wife, Jessie Janet. During the Civil War, his father was a pastor in Augusta, Georgia. Woodrow graduated from Princeton and the University of Virginia Law School, gaining his doctorate at John Hopkins University. Thereafter he pursued an academic career, becoming professor of political science at Princeton, where in 1902 he was appointed as the University’s president. In 1910, he was persuaded by the Democrats to contest the governorship of New Jersey, which he did successfully.
In January 1915, Wilson sent his closest confidant, Edward Mandel House, commonly referred to as Colonel House, to London in a six-month attempt to persuade the French and British governments to accept U.S. mediation. Colonel House was not successful, but he developed sympathies for the cause of the Entente during that time, almost costing him his influential position in the president’s team. On a second mission to Europe in January 1916, he brokered with the British foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, what virtually amounted to an ultimatum to Germany: submit to American mediation, or face U.S. military intervention. This went far beyond anything the president wanted, and House was spared a breach with Wilson only because the British government itself disavowed what became known as the ‘House-Grey Memorandum’.
In May 1916, the president for the first time outlined officially a scheme for the creation of a League of Nations in a speech given to the United States ‘League to Enforce Peace’. Such an organisation was to be based on a model of collective security aimed at preventing a future renewal of war. His suggestion failed to make an impact anywhere, but this did little to dissuade the president from embarking on more serious efforts to stop the slaughter.
On 19 December 1916, the belligerents, in a so-called ‘Appeal for Peace’, received a note from president Wilson setting out the terms upon which war might be concluded. Wilson presumably felt that once they had committed themselves to moderate terms, negotiations could begin. The note stressed that he was not offering to mediate, and he certainly wanted to maintain an impartial position. In Wilson’s opinion, the objectives of both sides as stated by their leaders seemed virtually identical: to secure the rights and privileges of weak peoples and small states, and to put in place a lasting peace and security against aggression or selfish interference. In claiming that the objectives of both sides were virtually the same, the president obviously hoped that the peace terms put forward by the warring nations would not be excessive.
The president’s move was as ill-timed as it was ill-conceived. Wilson’s assumption about each side’s objectives aroused London, Paris, and Petrograd, and in all three places his action was received with anger and consternation. The note had been sent out only one week after German chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg had offered a peace note on behalf of the Central Powers, and consequently the Allies suspected the U.S.A. of acting in co-operation with Germany. The French ambassador in Washington expressed Allied vexation at a meeting with U.S. secretary of state Robert Lansing. Lloyd George called the American note an insult, and the Foreign Office tried its best to calm an angry press.
Nevertheless, the Allies had to step carefully. The British war effort depended greatly on American supplies. The country still had enough general resources for a further six months, but any cut-off of American nitro-cellulose after June 1917 might have been catastrophic. The Food Controller estimated that Britain depended upon America for 40 per cent of its flour supplies. The director of army contracts admitted that there was no alternative source for the supply of lubricating oil, without which Britain’s war machinery could not keep running. He also indicated that Britain’s war effort was almost as dependent on the U.S. for petrol. Beyond these essentials, there was a large range of important commodities that it would be difficult to obtain outside America in sufficient quantities. 17 Finally, the Allies’ war effort was heavily dependent on U.S. loans.
The German peace proposal was easily dealt with. It had been drafted a few days after the psychologically important capture of the Romanian capital, Bucharest, on 6 December 1916. Hindenburg and Ludendorff had insisted on the boastful tone; but, as far as its content was concerned, the proposal amounted to little more than empty rhetoric. In a conglomeration of commonplace and non-committal phrases, the Central Powers announced a ‘candid and loyal endeavour to enter into discussion’. They proclaimed their ‘love of peace’, and asked the Entente to disclose its terms — although they failed to state any terms themselves. The peace note lacked sincerity, and constituted a diversionary manoeuvre; it had probably been intended mainly for domestic consumption. There might also have been hopes that the move would favourably influence world opinion, particularly among the neutrals.
It was on the basis of the absence of any terms that the Allies dismissed the German proposal. Lloyd George gave the official rejection in a House of Commons speech on 19 December. He stated that Britain would not negotiate without hearing Germany’s terms, that Germany was dangerous and could not be trusted, and that any terms would have to be more unfavourable to Germany than the status quo ante bellum.
To deal with Wilson’s note, however, was not so easy. Although the Allies must have been tempted to return a negative reply because they felt angry and insulted, it would have been dangerous to offend Wilson and endanger neutral opinion. After much discussion, they finally agreed on a mutual response, which they handed to the American ambassador in Paris on 10 January 1917. They recognised the plight of neutrals, for which the Allies were not to blame, having in no way provoked the war, and they stressed that Allied governments were trying to minimise neutral losses to the extent their defence against the enemy allowed. Then followed an expression of satisfaction that the president’s note was not associated with that of the Central Powers. Again the Allies protested at Wilson’s implication that the aims of the belligerents were the same.
Listing the many misdemeanours committed by the Central Powers, the Allies stated their terms. There was to be restoration and reparation for Belgium, Serbia, and Montenegro. France, Russia, and Romania were to be evacuated, with reparations. Moreover there was to be liberation of the Italians and Slavs, and the creation of a free and united Poland. The terms ended with the declaration that the Allies did not seek the ‘extermination or political extinction of German peoples’, 18 but that they were determined to seek victory to ensure a safe and prosperous future for civilisation in the post-war era.
To the Entente, the president’s note had clearly shown how little the American public was aware of the nature of the war, its causes, and its likely consequences. Hence the British government decided to give the Allies’ reply plenty of publicity: there was to be widespread publication not only in the principal cities of the United States, but also in the provincial press, including the Sunday and local ‘boilerplate’ newspapers, resulting (it was hoped) in greater understanding by the American public. The British government was able to use Wilson’s ‘peace note’ for effective propaganda against peace without victory, and the president’s initiative had to be ranked a flop. The German government replied evasively, still refraining from stating any terms, and there were no signs that the OHL would accept a return to the status quo ante bellum. Under these circumstances, to threaten the Allies with cutting off supplies was unwise, as his advisers told Wilson.
Yet the president’s peace efforts were not to be derailed so easily. On 22 January, he gave his famous ‘Peace without Victory’ speech to the U.S. Senate, largely a repeat of
his note of 19 December. Before the Allied governments could recover from a wave of consternation and frustration caused by this renewed mediation attempt, they received vital and decisive assistance from the enemy’s military leadership. On 1 February, chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg, at the demand of the OHL, announced the recommencement of unlimited submarine warfare. It was the first of two acts of great folly. On 3 February, the United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany.
1917
If the United Kingdom was facing a host of difficulties by the beginning of 1917, Germany’s situation was worse. Admittedly, they had had the better of it on the battlefield in the preceding year. They had gained control of the Balkans, pushed the tsarist forces back on the eastern front, and had withstood Allied attempts to achieve a breakthrough on the Western Front. On the other hand, their own attempts to gain the upper hand in the west had failed as miserably as had those of the Allies, and the British blockade was having an ever more serious impact.
Particularly hard hit was the food supply. German agriculture was not prepared to withstand the effects of prolonged warfare. In pre-war years meat, wheat, poultry, eggs, fish, and various vegetables had to be bought on a large scale from abroad, predominantly from nations that had now been cut off by the blockade. This was also the case with concentrated fodder and artificial manures, especially Chilean saltpetre and raw phosphates. German agriculture was also severely handicapped by the lack of labour. Rural districts had lost as much as 40 per cent of their population through call-up, a loss that could not be compensated for by the labour of women or prisoners of war. The civilian population had also suffered from the priority given the military in food distribution. Partial failure of the potato crop led to the notorious ‘turnip winter’ of 1916–17, when the weekly potato ration declined to 500 grams, supplemented by 1 kilograms of turnip. Meat had fallen to 400 grams, and butter was replaced by margarine.