by Lloyd, Nick
Foch did not expressly give his opinion at the meeting, but delivered his report to Clemenceau and the French Prime Minister, Raymond Poincaré, in person the following day. It repeated, in large part, the suggestions that Haig, Pétain and Pershing had made, and stated that seven conditions would have to be fulfilled before an armistice could be concluded. When Poincaré remarked that these conditions might be unacceptable to the Germans, Foch shrugged: ‘Then we will continue the War; for at the point the Allied Armies have now reached, their victorious march must not be halted until they have rendered all German resistance impossible and seized guarantees fully ensuring peace – a peace we will have obtained at the price of inestimable sacrifices!’
Foch was not, however, keen to continue fighting for the sake of it. When Colonel House – who had just landed in France – asked the Generalissimo several days later whether he thought it was preferable to continue the war or conclude an armistice with Germany, Foch was appalled. ‘I am not waging war for the sake of waging war,’ he snapped. ‘If I obtain through the Armistice the conditions that we wish to impose upon Germany, I am satisfied. Once this object is attained, nobody has the right to shed one more drop of blood.’28
This sentiment would have been shared by the thousands of Allied troops at the front. They were just trying to survive each day and adjust to a war of movement, which was a novel experience for men long used to static trench warfare. Between 17 and 24 October the British Third and Fourth Armies, assisted by Debeney’s First French Army, mounted a series of major operations to cross the River Selle. In the teeth of bitter resistance and the usual obstacles – wire, fortified villages and heavy shelling – the Allies pressed forward; brutally smashing up any counter-attacks that came their way. It was war of manoeuvre now, requiring skill, judgement and endurance in equal measure. Lieutenant R. G. Dixon, an officer with the Royal Artillery, remembered being ‘on the go for days and days and nights and nights, pulling our guns out, pulling them into some new position three or four hours later, laying out new lines of fire at first light – for we often moved in at night, and often enough to some farmyard or other that gave some cover to our gunners’.29 Guns were moved, often by sheer brute force, under the direction of NCOs, while officers studied new maps and tried to find landmarks from which lines of fire could be drawn up. As the pursuit continued, the habits of previous years had to be broken because there was not the time or the opportunity to prepare the elaborate set-piece barrages that had accompanied earlier attacks. Now field artillery batteries were attached to battalions and provided close support whenever it was needed, doing just enough to frighten the German rearguards and send them on their way.
For the infantry, the challenges were more familiar: how to cope with the long marches to the front, the lowering temperatures and the worsening weather that sapped their strength. An officer with 154th French Division – advancing with Fourth Army towards the Aisne River – recorded in late October that they had been on the march for twenty-five nights with little rest. The cold weather made it almost impossible to sleep. ‘We have only our canvas: having dozed off for one hour or two, they realize that they are covered with hoarfrost. Finally twenty days when they have not had hot food, neither washed, nor shaved, nor had clean linen. If this goes on we are going to be devoured by the vermin,’ he complained. Understandably, his men were awaiting their relief with impatience.30 The American forces, advancing on their right, were approaching a similar level of exhaustion. The men of Second-Lieutenant Harold Woehl’s regiment were relieved on 20 October after nineteen days of ‘continuous fighting, and digging, and starving, in the shell torn Argonne forest’. His company, now numbering fewer than sixty men, stumbled their way to the rear, exhausted beyond measure. ‘Every man was covered with mud and soaked to the skin and [their] teeth were chattering in the freezing weather,’ he recalled. Two days later the regiment received 600 replacements, mostly from the Southern states, but they had little military training. ‘Drilling in our hellish area was impossible. So we hurriedly gave the new men personalized training in adjustment of gas masks, instructions in throwing grenades, and firing practice on improvised rifle ranges.’31
Despite the hardships of the advance, there were occasional moments of joy and excitement. On 20 October, Sir Arthur Currie drove up to the front to the headquarters of 1st Canadian Division at Lewarde; proud to have liberated over 40,000 French citizens in the last few weeks. ‘All the houses are decorated with French flags and the people seem overjoyed to greet the British soldiers,’ he wrote. ‘In many cases last night they dug up wine they had buried for years to share it with the troops. Many of the men had a bed to sleep on again but whether alone or not I cannot say.’ One story doing the rounds was of a Colonel Peck who was apparently the first British soldier to arrive in the village of Hornaing. He was ‘set upon’ by the inhabitants, ‘who hung garlands about him and pinned flowers on almost every part of his coat’. It was even said that every woman in the town had kissed him.32 Currie remained concerned at the pace of the retreat and at not really being able to get to grips with the enemy, but he was pleased at the large numbers of prisoners now coming into their hands. By mid-October the Allies had taken over 250,000 prisoners since the summer. This marked a huge shift in the dynamics of war, proof of the collapse of German morale and a sure sign that the balance had now tipped in their favour. Long columns of German soldiers shuffled their way to the rear, where they were then given food, water and cigarettes. Lieutenant Dixon remembered seeing some on the Arras–Cambrai road and being shocked at their appearance. Did these pathetic specimens, he wondered, belong to the much-vaunted German Army? ‘Lots of them were mere boys,’ he wrote, ‘whose immature faces peered at us from under steel helmets that seemed too large for them, frightened young faces; mingled with them were much older men, whose proper place was with their wives and children.’33
But not all Germans were like this. Indeed, as every soldier knew, for every group of cowed, shivering soldiers, there were others in the German Army who would not give in; those who were disputing their progress every day, inch by inch: the spine of the German defence, her machine-gunners. These men were both feared and respected. ‘The gunners were brave men,’ wrote T. H. Holmes, a Private with 56th (London) Division, ‘because firing the gun meant revealing the position of it, and up would come a tank and invariably shoot the post to pieces, and then trample it flat. I saw a ghastly mass of crushed heads and limbs tangled up with twisted iron. They said some of these machine-gunners were chained to their weapons.’34 Another British soldier, a member of the Machine-Gun Corps, recorded in his memoirs how these men repeatedly occupied the best positions with the most deadly fields of fire, and consequently always proved extremely dangerous. Like many soldiers, he soon became used to the sight of machine-gunners crushed beneath tanks.35 Although it was not true that these men were chained to their weapons – the strap that the gunners wore was often mistaken for some kind of restraint – their courage was legendary. On one occasion, a Canadian, R. H. Camp, came across a gunner who had fired off all his ammunition. There was nothing particularly unusual about this, but Camp was amazed by what happened next. ‘He stood up in his hole and started taking his gun to pieces and he was throwing the pieces at us, anything he could get a hold of. We knew then of course that he was out of ammunition and we up and rushed him.’ Just as the Canadians were about to get to grips with him, their officer ran up shouting. ‘Don’t stick him boys! Don’t stick him.’ He got out a piece of paper, scribbled something on it, and then put it in the German’s pocket. ‘Don’t touch this man, he’s brave.’ He then told the German to make his way back to the rear. The note was a signed declaration of the machine-gunner’s courage and a guarantee that he would not be harmed.36
What to do with these hardcore elements was a source of constant discussion. Frederick Noakes, a Guardsman who had seen Captain Frisby win his Victoria Cross on the Canal du Nord, remembered an argument the men of his platoon h
ad one evening as they were marching back up to the front. The question was whether the German rearguards who stayed behind and resisted without hope of survival or relief should be allowed to surrender or whether they should be killed. ‘One or two men said they ought to be wiped out, even if they put up their hands; they had killed many of our men to no purpose, and should pay the price, the dirty bastards! But the great majority disagreed. They were brave men, they asserted, who had sacrificed themselves so that their comrades might get away.’37 It is difficult to say whether Noakes’s belief that there was little hatred towards these Germans was widely shared. Keith MacGowan, serving with 47th Canadian Battalion, thought not. Showing remarkable candour, he admitted to his mother that ‘Every Hun who fights is killed by my boys, but I order them to give quarter to a man who throws down his arms at the start. Some work their guns to the last and cut us up and when they see the game is up, throw up hands and peddle this Kamerad stuff to us. Well it’s a case of “It don’t get him nothing.”’ 38
Rage and a desire for revenge could sometimes overwhelm even the most conscientious of men. A British soldier, A. J. Turner, who was serving with 38th Division when it was trudging through the Forest of Mormal, lost control when his best friend, Milligan, was killed by a machine-gunner. It was a shattering moment. ‘In the past, deaths had saddened, sickened, or had merely left me unaffected; Milligan’s death roused me to a pitch of fury,’ he admitted. ‘This mere kid, so full of life, so happy – blasted into eternity in the high noon of his existence. The bastards. The utter bastards!’ Turner’s platoon fired their rifles in the direction of the enemy, pinning them down, while they waited for support to arrive. Then Turner caught sight of the enemy; a rare enough event those days when the only glimpse of their elusive quarry was ‘of figures skulking behind distant hedges or on a far-off road’.
A figure was seen to scramble up and poise momentarily unbalanced whilst silhouetted against the sky; rifles cracked, I fired carefully – the figure fell. I felt savagely exultant . . . I climbed the bluff. Spread-eagled and face down was a very young German, younger than Milligan. His helmet had rolled off, his scalp was close-cropped, his uniform looked absurdly big, his hands clutched grass where he had clawed the earth in his last moment of agony, and his childish face was distorted with pain. Poor kid! And it was such a beautiful day.
Turner remembered that for most of his time as a soldier ‘the only Germans with whom I came into contact were dead, wounded, or prisoners’. ‘Jerry’, as they called him, ‘was more of a nebulous geographical position than a person: a group name covering the opposing forces or even the entire German race. With the exception of the Milligan episode my emotions were centred more on the preservation of my own skin than directed to any hate complex.’39 But, as that incident had shown, beneath the veneer of civilization and reason were forces that few could restrain; forces that threatened to spiral out of control as the war inched, as bloodily as ever, towards its pitiless end.
14. ‘Cowards die many times’
We keep shooting at different targets: at batteries, bridges, street crossings.
We are trying to do to him what he loves to do to us.
Ernst Kielmayer1
26 October–4 November 1918
German patience with their brilliant, if erratic, First Quartermaster-General finally ran out on 26 October, in the grounds of the Bellevue Palace in Berlin. The Kaiser met Hindenburg and Ludendorff that morning. Ludendorff began by launching into his familiar ‘brusque tone’, making ‘serious allegations against the government because they did not back the army command and left egregious insults against the military staff unanswered’. The Kaiser, having finally been prodded into action by Prince Max, told him that the order of 24 October had been unacceptable and gone against both his and the Chancellor’s authority. With his hands shaking and his voice trembling, Wilhelm tried to make it clear to Ludendorff that ‘this difficult political situation was ultimately created by the military situation’. As he later told an aide, ‘I made him aware how distressing the demand for an immediate ceasefire was.’ He tried to reassure Ludendorff, repeatedly emphasizing the general’s ‘tremendous military achievements . . . It was a misfortune, however, that he was too overburdened. The military task was so large that it required the commitment of his entire character.’2
As might have been expected Ludendorff was stunned by the Kaiser’s change of heart and immediately offered his resignation. Because he no longer commanded the confidence of the Emperor, he no longer wished to bear the responsibility of command, he said. The Kaiser, with a heavy heart, nodded and replied, ‘Good, then you can have it.’ At that moment, Hindenburg – who had stood silently by – also tendered his resignation, saying that he could not continue without the support of his ‘loyal’ and ‘irreplaceable’ companion, but Wilhelm refused, telling him that the German people could not do without him in this hour of extreme need. For the All-Highest War Lord, the meeting had been exhausting. He later told Major Alfred Niemann, one of his closest members of staff, that ‘I stood before the ruins of genuine efforts and shattered hopes; I had not lived up to the expectations that had been placed upon me.’
Ludendorff returned to his apartment in Berlin shortly after eleven o’clock that morning. His wife, Margarethe, was standing by the window when his car pulled up and her husband got out. She was surprised at his return so early and immediately felt ‘a strange sense of depression’. When Ludendorff came into the room, slumping down in a chair, his face as ‘pale as death’, her worst fears were confirmed.
‘The Kaiser has sacked me. I have been dismissed.’
‘Who is to be your successor?’ she asked.
‘I have suggested Kuhl,’ he replied. His words were ‘spoken almost without expression’, his face inscrutable, his eyes staring straight ahead.
‘Why not Seeckt?’
‘I never thought of him.’
A moment later Ludendorff got up and snapped back: ‘In a fortnight we shall have no Empire and no Emperor left. You will see.’3
The news of Ludendorff’s resignation was met with mixed feelings in the German Army. For many socialists Ludendorff was the epitome of brutal, unthinking militarism and there was open rejoicing in the cabinet in Berlin. When his departure was reported in one cinema, many soldiers cheered.4 From sections of the Army, particularly Bavarians and Württembergers, Poles and Austrians, there seems to have been indifference rather than anger, exhaustion rather than frustration.5 For many, the time for caring about Germany’s future had long since passed. What mattered, most of all, was peace, and doing whatever was necessary to get away from the front and its daily, horrific carnage. But for those who still believed in the war and felt that Germany must continue to fight on, the loss of such an esteemed commander was devastating. One such officer, Karl Urmacher, wrote to his father on 28 October after his company had got their hands on recent newspapers. ‘Up until now I haven’t seen our soldiers taking such a great interest in our offensive in the newspapers as they do now,’ he wrote. ‘But the pages are read in silence. The once lively debates that took place are rarely heard now. The goings-on at home are too unbelievable and the not knowing of how this is all going to turn out is too great.’ He was disgusted by the news about the Quartermaster-General.
When Ludendorff came, there was a real drive in the whole military service, he was a man who used every good experience at the front in a swift and practical way for the general good and who had a real empathy with the front . . . Where politics is concerned, we can only hope that his tireless devotion to duty in the army will be kept as a living example. There are very few men who devoted themselves to work as much as Ludendorff did. When he left, a star disappeared from Germany.6
Others agreed. Despite their recent clashes and frequent differences of opinion, Fritz von Lossberg retained a great respect for his former chief and deeply regretted his departure. Alongside Helmuth von Moltke and Count von Schlieffen, Lossberg counted Ludendorff as
the greatest strategist the German Army ever produced and called his achievement as First Quartermaster-General simply ‘magnificent’. After Amiens, however, Lossberg felt that Ludendorff’s decisions were founded upon ‘inappropriate conclusions’, having overestimated the people’s support for the war and miscalculated the strength of the Army. ‘Given his extreme self-assurance, Ludendorff held fast to his – in the event incorrect – inner conviction that the assaults of the enemy could be repulsed. This is the only ultimate explanation for what was in fact the utter collapse of the German Army. Ludendorff was the author of his own downfall and he overstretched the might of the German Army. It was a tragic fate for both.’7
Ludendorff’s replacement was not Max von Gallwitz (who had been tipped to take the post) or Hermann von Kuhl (whom Ludendorff had suggested), but the Chief of Staff of Army Group Kiev, General Wilhelm Groener. Recalled from his mission in the east, where he had been working out how best to exploit the Ukraine for Germany, Groener was ordered to Spa. On the face of it, Groener’s appointment seemed odd. He was fifty years old and not widely known, certainly not the ‘star’ that Ludendorff had been. He was not the kind of man who would achieve victory against overwhelming odds or galvanize a great popular revolt against the Entente. As soon as the Crown Prince heard the news, he immediately telephoned Hindenburg and ‘begged him not to choose this man in whom there was no trace of the spirit that was now our only hope of salvation’.8 Groener originally hailed from Württemberg in south Germany – not Prussia – and had spent most of the war on the home front, organizing and running Germany’s railway network to meet the demands of a war on two fronts. Nevertheless, his appointment was sensible one; indeed it is doubtful whether the socialists and independents in Berlin would have dealt with anyone else, certainly not a firebrand like Gallwitz or Kuhl. Now they needed a man who knew how to arrange a strategic retreat and a man who had dealt with the politicians and trade unionists in Berlin. Groener, with short, grey hair parted in the middle, and a thin white moustache, was the new face of the German Army.