by Lloyd, Nick
The news from the front was almost uniformly bad. Lille and Douai were abandoned on 17 October, and within two days the Allies had liberated large swathes of western Belgium, from Bruges and Thielt to Courtrai. Morale remained poor across the Army as news of the peace offers gnawed further into men’s depleted reserves of courage. ‘The yearning for peace is very strong and no one knows when the hour of the armistice will finally arrive,’ wrote a German soldier, Alfred, on 20 October.9 This seems to have been a fair reflection of opinion at the front. On the day that Lille fell an army censor confirmed that ‘As late as the spring of this year it was possible to say of the majority of letter writers that they would not support peace at any price. Now they vehemently demand peace at any price. “We can’t go on, we don’t want to go on, we want to go home.” The number of people who are writing home: “I won’t stick my neck out any more, I’m not going to be so stupid to put my life at risk for nothing” is alarmingly big.’ Although some officers and men ‘continued to support the cause without fail . . . these voices cannot deceive us of the true feelings of the majority. Despondency, war weariness and strong yearning for peace still have the upper hand.’10
Day after day the retreat went on. ‘Tired, worn-out horses trot along in front of the wagons and stagger when they come to a halt,’ wrote Rudolf Stark as he arrived at his new air base at Gosselies, a suburb of Charleroi in Belgium. ‘More columns loom up in the mist and roll by us, away into uncertain distances.’ By now it was difficult to find suitable aerodromes to operate from, given that they were moving through dense urban areas, very different from the wide open spaces of northern France. The thick mist and deep mud, which swallowed all sound, gave the place a haunted, unearthly feel and Stark described the columns that passed them as being like ‘an army of ghosts’. They tried their best to support the ground troops, but they had no precise details on their location, which changed every day. There was little for them to do: no artillery support or reconnaissance missions; very few escort duties to take care of. His men, he recalled, felt ‘lonely’ and ‘superfluous’. ‘When we take off in the morning and fly over the ground where the front lines ought to be, according to our map, we see English troops below us and know that our men have been forced to give up yet another piece of ground . . . We feel that the end is near, but we dare not speak of it.’11
For many soldiers, news of the darkening scene was hard to bear. Within days of the bombardment at Comines, Adolf Hitler was on his way to a hospital in Pomerania, and in his blind and distressed state he raged against what was happening to Germany. When he arrived, he was relieved to discover that he would probably regain his sight quite soon, but found the news from the front almost intolerable. For some time, he wrote, there had been ‘something indefinite but repulsive in the air’. There were rumours that some kind of strike would happen in the next few days, as well as dark mutterings that all was not well with the Navy, but Hitler refused to believe them. Unable to read the newspapers, he tried to bolster the morale of his fellow patients, telling them not to listen to the rumours of such treason and continue to believe in the war, and in victory, which must surely come.12 Another soldier, Leutnant Karl Urmacher, felt the same sense of frustration and despair. ‘We do not hear much from outside,’ he wrote to his father on 17 October. ‘Often, when I consider the facts and their consequences, my heart tightens. How much trust did we place in the God of Peace and in Wilson’s common sense?’ His heart revolted at the great injustice that was taking place.
Are we really the criminals, as we have been labelled, do the German people who suffered and bled for their existence, unlike any people before, really deserve this? . . . I have faith in our new men, but I am also concerned about their future. Perhaps it will be possible to achieve peace, but under what conditions? . . . We have lost the position of power, but let both the Army and those at home remember that we have not yet lost our honour. A defeat does not require dishonour, but they can become this way through the way in which they are created and fostered. Now, we need to grit our teeth and every person must perform their duty to their utmost while our ability runs its course. May our destiny be not so hard, it is only unbearable when it is self-inflicted. In order for us all to give our grandchildren a clear conscience? Hopefully the events of the past few weeks have made everyone aware of their duty and responsibility.13
Bit by bit the German Army began to falter. The debilitating effect of the influenza pandemic, which had devoured huge numbers of men in the summer, began to grow again in the autumn. One officer, Leutnant Hans Mahler, recorded that each company in his battalion had about twenty men sick with flu during October. By the end of the month between ten and twelve people were dying each day.14
The Crown Prince would later claim that the intensity of the fighting meant that the German Army underwent a kind of ‘self-purification’ at this time, with the weaker falling away or surrendering, leaving only those of true heart and courage at the front. This was almost comforting: the feeling that through the furnace of war a hardier German race would emerge which could face the coming storms with impunity.15 But it was just wishful thinking. The Western Front was a lottery of life and death, with shellfire and bullets, gas and grenades, taking life every day. Skill and judgement, experience and wisdom, could help in evading death in the trenches, but most killing was random with no way of predicting when it could come: the fall of a shell that would slice a man in two or leave him horribly wounded in no-man’s-land; the thud of a sniper’s bullet that killed one man but not another. There was no logic to it, no obvious rule of survival, and this is what caused men to break down. Ernst Kielmayer witnessed the randomness of death on 18 October when his battery suffered a premature explosion that killed one and wounded four of his friends. They had fired 200 Blue Cross gas shells (‘which kept Tommy pretty quiet for awhile’) when No. 2 gun blew up. ‘A shell of ours exploded right after leaving the barrel and hit a leveller, Sergeant Elser, fatally.’ He was dead within thirty minutes. Kielmayer was understandably distressed by what had happened. ‘We see the power of our shells. It certainly is terrible. We blame our factories at home for faulty ammunition and sloppy workmanship. We get enough grief from Tommy without getting some from our own gun.’16
After extensive and agonized discussions, the cabinet finally issued a reply to Wilson on 21 October, agreeing to the evacuation of occupied territory and ordering the cessation of U-boat attacks on passenger steamers. While the note denied that German troops had conducted a scorched-earth policy on the Western Front (‘Some destruction will always be necessary to cover a retreat’) and contested any suggestion that the Navy had destroyed lifeboats on sinking ships, it was now clear that Germany must do whatever it took to secure an armistice.17 That day the Kaiser was in Berlin meeting the new cabinet, trying no doubt to put the best possible gloss on a rapidly deteriorating situation. Philip Scheidemann, Minister Without Portfolio, was in the drawing room of the Bellevue Palace when the Emperor came in. ‘He took his stand a few paces from us, supporting his withered left arm, under which he held his helmet on the hilt of his sword, then bowed and said: “Gentlemen, I have just put a few lines on paper.’” The Kaiser then read out a speech, welcoming the new cabinet, and talking about the constitutional rights that would be given to the German people, which he was sure would ‘consolidate the structure of the Empire at home on new and broader foundations’. He told them that the citizens of the Fatherland would now be called upon to cooperate in working these new structures and in maintaining unity through the challenges that lay ahead. Afterwards Prince Max introduced him to the cabinet, including Scheidemann, a Social Democrat, who had long been unimpressed with Prussian royalty. ‘I was almost prostrate with remorse,’ he later admitted. ‘The Kaiser seemed quite unconcerned. His placid face was perhaps only the result of admirable training. But what effect was such a free and easy manner, such a happy-go-lucky expression to have on us? Did he imagine he could pose before us as a hero, imperturbable
in his confidence of success?’ Scheidemann thought not. ‘His chattering jarred upon me.’18
Within days, the Kaiser’s quiet, placid confidence that the constitutional changes he had outlined would ensure the survival of his dynasty had been shattered. The US Government responded swiftly to the German note of 21 October. Three days later Robert Lansing, the Secretary of State, replied, and although the letter took up barely a page of text, it was another devastating blow to German hopes of their ‘peace of justice’. Lansing made it clear that after the German acceptance of the Fourteen Points and their solemn promise to respect ‘the humane rule of civilized warfare’, an armistice would now be considered by the United States and her associate powers. Nevertheless, he warned Germany that any terms would give them the ‘unrestricted power to safeguard and enforce the details of the peace to which the German Government has agreed’. However, because it was feared that the principles of responsible government had yet to be finalized in Germany, there were understandable concerns that ‘the German people have no means of commanding the acquiescence of the military authorities of the Empire in the popular will’ and that the power of the ‘King of Prussia’ to control such a policy was unimpaired. As such, the US Government could not deal with any representatives of the German people unless they were the ‘real’ rulers of Germany. If it had to deal with the ‘military masters and the monarchical autocrats’, then America would demand not peace negotiations but surrender.19
Lansing’s note raised the stakes yet again. Although not specifically requesting the abdication of the Kaiser, the ominous references to ‘military masters’ and ‘monarchical autocrats’ was clear enough for Prince Max and most of the cabinet to understand. It was evident that the power of the Kaiser and the generals at OHL would have to be toppled before peace with the Allies could be made. For Scheidemann, all doubts were now dispelled; as he put it, ‘Wilhelm II’s days as Emperor were numbered.’20 Ludendorff’s position was little better. Most of the cabinet, including Prince Max, had now lost any confidence in the judgement or ability of the Quartermaster-General, and blamed him for panicking and landing them in this mess. More worrying, Ludendorff was now slipping back into his earlier rage and confusion, refusing to accept the situation at the front and indulging in ridiculous optimism. On 22 October, he telephoned Crown Prince Rupprecht’s Chief of Staff, Major-General von Kuhl, and told him that the retreat from the Hermann Position to the Antwerp–Meuse Line was going to happen ‘slowly’, presumably as part of some kind of managed and organized pull-back. When von Kuhl told Rupprecht, the latter was predictably dismayed, believing that only a swift redeployment to the rear could help them.
I am convinced that this would be the wrong thing to do, we should not allow the enemy any opportunity for easy victories but withdraw our troops as quickly as possible to get them out of enemy reach and re-group them while at the same time detaching reserves in the shorter Antwerp–Maas position. General Ludendorff is now talking as if we can keep this war going for a long time and, if this proves impossible, and we lose the war, it would be the fault of the Reich’s leaders. If we do not have a ceasefire soon, we must withdraw behind the Maas and thus shorten the front considerably. Ludendorff will not hear of this but Colonel Heye feels, quite rightly in my opinion, that this would be absolutely the right thing to do. My group would then be removed from the northern front and employed in Lorraine. I don’t think that it will come to that, though.21
By now Ludendorff had stopped listening – the news from the front was so bad, and the fears that the Allies would not be satisfied with a compromise peace weighed him down and darkened his mood. On the evening of 24 October, as the third American note arrived in Berlin, Hindenburg and Ludendorff left the capital and headed back to OHL in Spa, a bitter snub to the frantic efforts of the new German Government to secure peace.
For the ill-fated duo, Wilson’s third note was hard to accept. At ten o’clock a proclamation was issued to the Army that made it clear what the Supreme Command thought of the President’s offer. It bore Hindenburg’s signature, but it was probably Ludendorff’s doing. It was a wild, angry document that denounced Wilson’s latest response and his threat of unconditional surrender, which was ‘unacceptable to us soldiers’, and claimed that the Allies had no interest in securing a ‘peace of justice’, only complete victory. ‘Wilson’s answer can thus be nothing for us soldiers but a challenge to continue our resistance with all our strength.’22 Ludendorff tried to claim that the note was perfectly consistent with cabinet policy and assumed that any question of the Kaiser’s position would immediately result in a suspension of negotiations, but he knew what he was doing. With this document, the Supreme Command single-handedly undercut the authority of the Chancellor and the civilian government and brought to a head the crisis that had been brewing for over a month.23 For Prince Max the tipping point had now been reached. He was furious at what one cabinet member called Ludendorff’s ‘political stunt’, seeing it as yet another example of an over-mighty military command interfering in the running of the country. In a tense meeting with the Kaiser he put it simply: either Ludendorff went or he did.24
For so long the various theatres of war in Europe, Italy and the Middle East had seemed frozen and immobile; stalemated and deadlocked. And then in late autumn, with surprising suddenness, the thaw finally set in. By 30 September, Bulgaria had signed an armistice, which opened up the southern flank of the Central Powers. Austro-Hungary was already on the verge of capitulation, and it took only a limited offensive by the Italian Army in the final week of October – the Battle of Vittorio Veneto – to push it over the edge. In the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire was now entering its final death throes. What remained of the Turkish Army in Palestine had been routed at the Battle of Megiddo in late September, and over the following month General Sir Edmund Allenby’s troops pushed north, mercilessly harassing the retreating Turkish columns. Aleppo fell on 26 October and within days an armistice was signed on the island of Mudros – thus bringing the war in the Middle East to a victorious conclusion.
Back on the Western Front, things remained promising, but difficult to foresee. As David Lloyd George wrote, ‘It was clear that the end was now in sight. It was no less clear that we must move with the utmost care at this critical juncture, making sure of our footing at every stride, lest by a false step we should imperil the full harvest of our long effort.’25 The day after Ludendorff had issued his proclamation urging a continuation of the struggle, a meeting of the Allied Commanders-in-Chief was held at Foch’s headquarters, which had now moved from Bombon to the town of Senlis, thirty miles north of Paris. Foch had been asked by Clemenceau to prepare a report on the military terms of a possible armistice, so the Generalissimo had sent for Haig, Pétain and Pershing. It would be the first time they had been in the same room together since 24 July and it allowed them an opportunity to digest the great changes that had occurred on the Western Front since those frantic days of July when the Allies had begun their grand counter-attack. Although the situation was deeply promising, both Haig and Pétain harboured doubts about how hard they could continue to push, as well as understandable pessimism about how long the Germans would resist. Haig was concerned that although ‘a very great part of the German forces had been beaten’, they were still capable of effective resistance, particularly if they were able to cross the Meuse and destroy the railways during their withdrawal. He was also worried about the exhausted state of the British and French Armies. In such circumstances, Haig feared that Germany would not accept an armistice. He believed that they should make relatively minor demands, such as the evacuation of occupied territory (including Alsace-Lorraine) and the repatriation of their inhabitants, which would leave them on the German frontier in case hostilities broke out again.26
Foch, ever the fighter, was somewhat perturbed by Haig’s pessimistic series of points, arguing that ‘we are dealing with an army that has been beaten every day for three months’ and an army that had lost over
250,000 prisoners and 4,000 guns since mid-July. ‘When one hunts a wild beast and finally comes upon him at bay,’ he added, ‘he then comes in the face of greater danger, but it is not the time to stop, it is the time to redouble his blows without paying any attention to the ones he himself receives.’ At that point, Pétain got up and spread out a map of the Western Front on one of the tables, showing the current Allied positions and the projected stages of a German retreat to the Rhine. If the Germans could be forced to withdraw to his schedule, quickly, then it would be impossible for them to move out all their heavy guns and ammunition, which would give the Allies a great advantage in any future campaign. Pershing spoke next. Reflecting his position as the only commander of an army that was getting stronger by the day, the American commander was bullish and talked about the guarantees they needed and the possibility of resuming fighting under the most favourable conditions. He advocated occupying bridgeheads over the Rhine, the restitution of all rolling stock that had been seized in France and Belgium (estimated at over 126,000 railway cars and 2,500 locomotives), as well as the unrestricted transportation of the US Army across the Atlantic, the immediate repatriation of foreign nationals, and the surrender of all U-boats.27