Mr Hill study set 2 2024-2025 (Germany+America+Austria-Hungary)

Desperate Times in Germany

Meanwhile [refer study set 1, unrest taking place in Russia], exhaustion within the German army, starvation, and anti-war protesters on the home front paused General Erich Lundendoff (1865-1937) the defacto leader of Germany, into a desperate position at the beginning of 1917. Some German politicians wanted to negotiate with the Allied Powers (France, Great Britain, US) with the Pope or Windrow Wilson as a mediator. Lundendoff rejected any proposal that included the return of Belgum and coal rich areas of France in German hands forcing Germany to pay reparations (compensation for war damage) .

Erich Lundendoff and Paul von Hindenburg

In August 1916, After twin catshtorphies of German defeats at the battles of Verdun and the Somme, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934) had been given supreme command of the German army and Lundendoff became his second in command. Many historians believe the promotion of both Hindenburg and Lundendoff in 1916 was tantamount to a military coup di ta (a seizure of government power by generals), elevating them to co-dictators of Germany. Hindenburg was the most revered man in Germany, and charming and towering hero of the German Imperial army appeared to the nation as a public face of Germany’s new military leadership team. However, Hindenburg allowed Lundendoff to take complete control of the army (while he acted as a public figure) (putting Lundendoff under stress).

Erich Lundendoff

Lundendoff was a brilliant tactician and resourceful administer but as the de facto leader of Germany, he lacked experience in governance, politics, economics, and diplomacy. in 1917 Lundendoff planned to seize the insensitive to force the Allies to the negotiation table before Germany would be forced to surrender. Lundendoff’s disastrous decisions led to the downfall of Germany in WWI.

Ring Of Steel

The Central powers were being strangled by a “ring of steel” - the British blockade from the North Sea to the Mediterranean Sea - that stopped all over Sea trade from reaching Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire. Britten’s “hunger” blockade resulted in starvation on the front and lack of war materials and raw materials; throughout Germany and Austria-Hungary, workers went on strikes, mobs looted foo supplies, and anti-war protests broke out.

Unrestricted Submarine Warfare

In February 1917, Lundendoff decided to unleash German submarines in a ruthless campaign to starve the British into submission (he believed it would take six months before the war ended) German U-boats were tasked with destroying merchant ships supplying the island nation with food and supplies before Germany itself collapsed. However, this decision was had catastrophic consequences for Germany. Lundendoff gambled that Britten would surrender before the US joined the war, and lost.

Congress Declares War

After sinking four US ships by German U-boats in March 1917, US President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress on April 2, 1917 for a declaration of war and called upon Americans to “make the world safe for democracy”. On April 6, 1917 the Congress declared War on Germany as a result of Lundendoff’s unrestricted Submarine warfare.

Wilsonian Idealism

A visionary intellectual, an eloquent speaker (the only present PHD) and ambitious pollination, Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) was driven by idealism to make the world a better place (but he was raciest) . Wilson was a thoughtful, farseeing, and confident leader with a bold vision for the future. At the end of 1916, Wilson stepped onto the world stage and transformed forever international politics and American foreign policy by settling a noble vision of a world at peace. In a speech on January 22, 1917 Wilson proposed “a peace with out victory” and envisioned a future with lasting peace based on a “league of nations”. The idealistic Wilson believed America's entrance into the war would be a moral crusade to create a better, more peaceful post war by ensuring that WWI would be “the war to end all wars”. Wilsonian Idealism (a new world order based on international efforts to maintain peace, promote free trade, and demand democracy across the globe) has been the cornerstone of American foreign policy for over a century.

Wilson’s Fourteen Points

On June 8, 1918, Wilson issued his plan for eventual peace treaty, the Fourteen Points. Wilson had put forth his Fourteen points — a pace plan whose terms included Germany’s army evacuating Belgium and northern France and the right of self-determination for all nations to decide their own form of government - but no war reparations (financial compensation for war damage) (There was a split among the Allies as Britten and France wanted reparations). Moreover Wilson’s peace plan included the freedom of the seas and of trade, limitations on arms, and end to all secret alliances. The territories of Alsace-Lorraine taken by Germany during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871 must be returned to France. Russian territory annexed by Germany in the Treaty of Brest- Litovsk must be returned to Soviet Russia. Wilson’s plan also called for settlements of colonial claims to end empires. The establishment of a “general assembly of nations” to resolve problems peacefully and avoid war.

Operation Michael

In the meantime [While Wilson proposed his 14 steps] Ludendorff feared the entry of American combat troops in France would tip the scales of the war in favor of the Allies. Therefore, Ludendorff decided to attack the British and French forces in the spring of 1918 before the US could send troops who were training in France. With the surrender of Russia in late 1917, Ludendorff had a numerical advantage and could transfer hundreds of thousands of troops from the Eastern front to the western front, increasing Germany’s strength to three and a half million. Operation Michael (named for the arch angle) was Ludendorff’s plan to win the war before the AEF (American Expeditionary Force) could decide the fate of Germany.

Operation Michael - New Tactics

In the spring of 1918 Ludendorff positioned 8,000 soldiers and 9,000 guns across from the weakest point of the Western Front where the British and French trenches met. He planned to split the Ally's line in two, wheel his army to the west, cut off and surround the British army, forcing them to surrender and expelling them from the content. On March 21, 1918, Ludendorff launched operation Micheal lead by storm-troopers, elite shock troops spearheaded the attacks, rapidly infiltrated enemy lines, and swept behind Allies’ positions. German forces penetrated forty miles behind British lines dancing more in four days then the Allies had in three years of fighting. However, after their initial success, the exhausted German troops suffered a string of defeats throughout the spring of 1918 and begun to retreat for the first time since the opening weeks of the war (German soldiers found food in Allied bases and found out that mutual starvation was a lie).

Hundred Days Offence

By the summer of 1918, Gorge Clemenceau, the war-like Prime Minister of France, wanted to drive the German army out of his country. On August 8, 1918 French general and supreme Allied commander Ferdinand Foch launched a coordinated counter attack by the combined armies of the Allies across the entire western front that came to be known as the Hundred Days Offensive (WWI ended one hundred days after it’s start giving it it’s name retroactively). The Hundred Days Offence was a series of battles that would lead to the collapse of the German Army and a the end of the war. The lynch-pin of the initial assault was the German forces on the outskirts of the French City of Amiens

The Battle of Amiens

On August 8,1918 the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) launched a massive attack outside Amiens, a large French town, with lethal force of 350,000 soldiers, 2,000 artillery pieces, 150 tanks, 800 planes, and even cavalry. Tanks led the advance scattering Germans in all directions and punching a wall into the rear of the German lines and cavalry carried the attack even further; the recently-formed RAF (Royal Air Force) started retreating German troops. Fresh troops followed up on the initial attack, preventing German forces from regrouping to form a counter attack. The Battle of Amiens was in WWI leading to the collapse of the German Imperial Army.

The Black Day of the German Army

The Battle of Amiens broke the morale of the German Army and their will to fight. German troops began surrendering en masse; the German Army lost 650 officers and 26,000 troops of witch 15,000 had surrenders. The average German solider was no longer willing to die for their country; 750,000 to one million soldiers desired the army and headed home. German General Erich Ludendorff described August 8, 1918 as the “Black Day of the German army”. Moreover the Spanish flu reached German lines in August and one million German soldiers fell ill. The Following week, Ludendorff advised Kaiser Wilhelm II to seek a negotiated peace.

The Meuse-Argone Offensive

One month later, on September 28, 1918 the final battles of the war began a long the Meuse River in the Argone Forrest (a section of the Hundred Days Offensive). The The Meuse-Argone Offensive was the largest offensive in U. S. military history involving 1.2 million American and French soldiers 2,800 artillery peaces, 400 tanks, and 800 airplanes. It was also one of the deadliest campaigns in the history of the U.S. army - second only to Normandy - with over 350,000 casualties, and over 25,000 Americans killed.

Germany on the Brink of Defeat

German casualties mounted in the face of the Allies’s sustained Meuse-Argone Offensive. German losses could not be replaced while Allies were fortified by the arrival of 250,000 American troops every month. On September 29,1918 after the collapse of Germany’s ally Bulgaria, General Ludendorff told Kaiser Wilhelm II the war could not be won. Moreover, the armies of Germany’s two remaining allies, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, were both in a state of chaos on the verge of collapse.

Ludendorff Resigns

Ludendorff begun to shift blame of the catastrophic defeat away from the army on to left-wing German politicians. On October 26,1918 Ludendorff was forced to resign and slipped out of Germany into Sweden in disguise; one historian concluded that Ludendorff had destroyed the German Empire and was the cause of it’s downfall. However, Paul von Hindenburg remained an staff of the army. Ludendorff would return to Germany in 1919 and immerse himself in extreme right-wing nationalistic political movements in Munich.

The End In Sight

During the Muse-Argone Offensive nearly four times the number of German soldiers who surrenders on August 8, 1918 surrendered (55,000 Germans). The Battle of The Argone Forrest, won by American forces under American command of general John Pershing, resulted in the German armies final defeat on November 6, 1918. Nearly 30,000 Germans had been killed and approximately 700,000 Germans were taken as POWs.

Unrest In Central Europe

As Military defeat loomed for Central powers in fall of 1918, far-left radicals inspired by the Russian Revolution began sparking pro-communist demonstrations in numerous cities from Berlin to Budapest, calling for Bolshevik Revolutions. The Emperors of the German Empire and the Austrio-Hungarian Empire, respectively, grappled with left-wing and anti-war protests on their home fronts calling for their removal, seeking change of government and demanding and end to the war. The Defeated nations in central and eastern Europe were in a state of turmoil as democratic and communistic revolutions broke out. New nations emerged from the ruins of these two collapsing empires and experimented with new forms of government from republics to Soviet-style dictatorships.

The Collapse of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire

After one last defeat by Field Marshal Franz Conrad von Honzenendorf in October 1918 the Austrio-Hungarian army collapsed and the empire began to unravel. In Prague, the Czechs declared their independence from the empire on October 18,1918 ending the Austio-Hungarian Empire that had been created in 1867 (the empires had existed separately longer). Soldiers in Vienna declared Austria was an independent republic on October 21, 1918 ending Austria's monarchy and the rule of the Hapsburg dynasty that had ruled since 1282. Hungarians revolted ten days later in Budapest and declared independence on October 31, 1918. King Karl I the last ruler of the Aurtrio-Hungarian Empire and the last of the Hapsburg rulers who had ruled Austria refused to abdicate; consequentially new Austrian Parliament dethroned and banished him in 1919; Karl I was forced into exile in Switzerland (there reason so many people go to Switzerland is due to it’s neutrality) .

Revolution In Germany

Meanwhile as defeat grew heavier, demoralization with in German military increased dramatically and civilian morale plummeted as well due to severe food shortages caused by the British blockade. More and More disillusioned and exhausted German troops turned agenst their general and their Kaiser, blaming there leadership for the army’s pending defeat; they rejected “Prussian Militarism” and the “bloodthirsty Kaiser himself”. As Russia had the previous year, military distention on the front lines and civilian war-weariness exacerbated hardship (starvation, disease, and inflation of prices) created conditions of a revolution. In late October 1918, inspired by Bolshevik revolution, sailors in the German Navy mutinied agenst their officers; with in a week a revolution agenst the Kaiser, the ruling class and the army officer corps seeped throughout the nation. Mutineers demanded an immediate armistice and abdication of the Kaiser.

The German Revolution

With in a day [of mutineers demands] it became a full-blown revolution spreading from Berlin to Munich as German civilians suffering from war-weariness and starvation joined the protest. In Munich (the capital of Bavaria) Bolshevik revolutionaries in the German kingdom of Bavaria established a socialist state, the Socialist Republic of Bavaria. The dynasties of twenty-two princes and dukes that ruled over various German principalities (mini kingdoms) - for some thousand years - were deposed or forced to abdicate. In messages between the new political leaders emerging in Germany and the President of the United States, Wilson suggested that Germany would fare better in any peace negotiations if the Kaiser abdicated and a new democratic republic replaced the autocratic government of the German Empire. On November 9, 1918 in the face of the impending defeat of the Imperial army and the threat of a Bolshevik coup, German politician Phillip Schederman declared from the windrow of the Reichstag (German Parliament) the creation of a German Republic, the German Reich (third Reich) (also known as the Wimer Republic). The Second Reich or Imperial Germany (the first Reich being the Holy Roman Empire), created by statesman Otto von Bismarck in 1971 when all German states were unified under Prussian leadership, ceased to exist. Moderate German politicians steered the revolution away from Bolshevism that sought a Russian- styled government based on creating a parliamentary system. Nonetheless, a democratic parliamentary system in Wimer Germany was tested on a weak foundation as many preferred an authoritarian system of government (the only system of government the nation had known)

Freikorps

Hindenburg did not want involved in the international security of the new government. Over the course of the next few months, German leaders of the new rebublic created a new security force the Freikorps (Volunteer corps) to maintain power and importantly protect the government from Communists and Bolshevik revolutionaries. Historically the Freikorps had been a volunteer military force during the Napoleonic wars comprised of the remains of the Prussian army, patriot civilians who after the defeat of the French army continued to fight the concerning invaders in the German States. The Freikorps had a bitter contempt toward democracy and wanted a right-wing authoritarian government with a dictator (which was what the third Reich was, opposed to the second Reich witch was a right-wing authoritarian government with a monarch). Freikorps members were hardlined German nationalists who where traumatized by the war and the collapse of the second Reich and struggled to adjust to civilian life, they hated Bolshevik radicals who had in-sighted the German Revolution.

Freikorps: Members

Dedicated, experienced senior officers with combat experience from elite storm trooper units made up a section of the Freikorps. Another way the Freikorps recruited was through taking young men who had missed the cut off for the war. Due to the long military tradition in Germany these men were excited to join the ranks of this far right wing para military group.Trained in the tactics of street warfare, the Friekorps brutally suppressed communists revolutionary movements or left-wing uprisings. Following the German Revolution Freikorps troops violently overthrew the Socialist Republic of Bavaria and the kingdom returned to the German Republic; however, in the bitter street-fighting hundreds of civilians were killed and over a thousands of communists were executed. Significantly, Bavaria soon became a haven for extremist right-wing groups, including the Nazi Party.

Ferikorps: Post War Years

During the post-war years, more and more disillusioned former German officers, embittered by Germany’s defeat and harborbing a sense of betrayal at the loss of nearly two million comrades-in-arms and dedicated to the belief that germany would rise again, joined the Freikorps. More than 500,000 Germans joined the ranks of the Freikorps. The violence exhibited by the Freikorps during these years would reverberate during the Nazi years as Freikorps members formed the nucleus of Hitler’s Brown Shirts and the Nazi movement.

Abdication of the Kaiser

With the new government installed, on November 9, 1918, the Kaiser was forced to abdicate his titles as Kaiser of the German Reich and King of Prussia and went into exile in the Netherlands. The same dynasty had ruled Prussia since 1525; Wilhelm II was the last of three kaisers to rule Imperial Germany. For the remaining 23 years of his life Wilhelm lived in exile in Holland, maintaining much of his wealth; in his memoirs, he denied starting World War I and the 1930s, he rejected Nazism. With the abdication of the kaiser and the establishment of the German Republic, politicians believed they had guaranteed a just peace based on Wilson’s Fourteen Points.

The Armistice

Leaders of the new German republic kept their promise to the revolutionaries and sought an armistice by sending conservative politician Matthais Erzberger to France to negotiate an end to fighting with Supreme Allied Commander Ferdinand Foch. Hindenburg distanced himself and the German army from the armistice negotiations, blaming the government and Bolsheviks for considering surrender. Foch and the Allied Delegation offered Erzberger and the German officials. Harsh terms without negotiations, threatening to continue the war if the Germans did not sign the armistice. With German forces still on French and Belgian soil Foch refused to make concessions to Erzberger and the German delegation.

Armistice: November 11th 1918

On November 11, 1918 Germany singed the armistice formally ending WWI at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month; it was signed by Marshal Fosh on a railroad car in Compiègne, France. The armistice granted no territorial gains to Germany and required immediate withdrawal of German troops (1.25 million soldiers and 500,000 horses) from France and Belgium and retreat back to Germany with in two weeks. Although the fighting had been brought to an end, the British blockade of Germany continued to ensure the German Republic would sign an eventual peace treaty. Twenty-two years later in an act of revenge, Adolf Hitler insisted after France’s humiliating defeat to the German Wenrmacht in 1940 that the armistice be signed in the same railroad car (witch had to be removed from a museum for the purpose).

Surrender and Defeat

On the last day of the war 2,800 soldiers were killed; American soldier Henry Gunther, who was killed at 10:59 was the last casualty of WWI. At 11:00 jubilation broke out in the trenches across the Western front when the war officially ended. As the German army retreated back to its borders, they were followed by the famous 369th infantry the Harlem H**l fighters, or “men of bronze” so called by the French for their bravery in the trenches (African American regiment). In December 1918, the 369th marched into Germany and occupied the Rhineland, (German territory between the Rhine river and Germany’s border with Belgium, Luxembourg, and North Eastern France) becoming the first Allied unit to set foot on German soil (369th infantry soldier Henry Johnson was retroactively given the medal of honor by Obama).

Effects of the war

At the end of WWI central Europe was plunged into chaos. WWI caused the collapse of four empires (the Russian, Austria-Hungarian, German, and Ottoman Empires), shattered Europe’ s aristocratic order, and increased political and social instability. National borders had to be redrawn in central Europe and the Middle East due to the collapse of these empires as more then a dozen countries emerged. In addition about 13 million civilians were dead of disease or starvation - in toto, over 20 million people , soldiers and civilians died in the war. In addition to the killing millions of people, the war surround the homes of millions more. Mass death and killing on a large scale such as the Armenian genocide (between 600,000 to 1.5 mill) under the rule of the Ottoman Turks in 1915, added to the list of horrors.