CHAPTER 12

THE FALL OF THE HOHENZOLLERNS

For Germany, the First World War was a gamble from the outset. As the war continued, the odds against a German victory steadily grew longer, requiring ever-greater risks to be taken.

Faced in the west by the French Army, bent on exacting revenge for the humiliation of the Franco-Prussian War, and in the east by the Russian Army, rapidly modernising and increasing in capability, the German general staff had to hope that Schlieffen’s plan to deliver a swift killing blow in the west would deliver results before the slower-mobilising Russians overwhelmed the eastern defences of Germany. The extent of this gamble is shown by Schlieffen’s own doubts that the German Army was sufficiently strong to carry out the great outflanking march that he planned; in the event, troops had to be sent east when the Russians threatened to overrun East Prussia, but even if they had been left in the west, it is doubtful that the French and British could have been defeated within six weeks as Schlieffen had envisaged.

Once the great envelopment of the French Army failed and Helmuth von Moltke (‘Moltke the Younger’) was dismissed, his replacement as chief of the general staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, made one last attempt to force a decision in the west by attacking in strength against the British at Ypres. Victory here would throw the British back to the coast and leave a gap in the north that the French could not repair, but, despite stretching the British Expeditionary Force almost to breaking point, Falkenhayn’s armies failed to break through. The two-front war that Germany had feared was now a reality.

The only way that Germany could end the war successfully was by achieving victory in both the east and the west, and of these two fronts the one against the French and British was always the most important. If Germany could defeat Russia, it was highly likely that the Western Powers would simply continue the war; but if France in particular could be knocked out of the war, the British would be left unable to intervene in mainland Europe and Russia was unlikely to prevail, particularly given the poor performance of Russian armies in 1914. Calculating that he needed to neutralise Russia so that he could concentrate on defeating France, Falkenhayn chose to wage an offensive war in the east in 1915, not least because the Austro-Hungarian Empire seemed perilously close to collapse after just the first winter of the war; but this offensive was not to be pursued until Russia was comprehensively defeated. The intention was purely to achieve a free hand against France. The first part of Falkenhayn’s grand strategy – the defeat of the Russian armies in Galicia and Poland – proved to be highly successful, perhaps more so than he had expected; the second part, the defeat of France, was a deliberate attempt to grind down the French by a prolonged battle of attrition at Verdun. Just as Moltke’s gamble failed in 1914, so Falkenhayn’s gamble came to grief in 1916, and similarly cost him his post.

After earning the thanks of their homeland for defeating Samsonov’s Second Army at the Battle of Tannenberg in the opening weeks of the war and thus saving East Prussia from Russian occupation, Hindenburg and Ludendorff were increasingly sidelined in Ober Ost, not least due to the personal rivalry between them and Falkenhayn. Many – officers in Ober Ost, sympathisers elsewhere, and German industrialists who saw huge profits to be made from developing a German Empire carved from Russian territory – actively plotted the overthrow of Falkenhayn and his replacement by Hindenburg, but until the failure to defeat the French at Verdun and the entry of Romania into the war in late August 1916, Falkenhayn remained secure. His dismissal saw Hindenburg become chief of the general staff and Ludendorff appointed quartermaster-general, effectively Hindenburg’s second-in-command. Amongst their first tasks was the requirement to devise a new strategy for Germany to win the war – not in the east, where even as the Brusilov Offensive burned out in the autumn of 1916, there were growing signs of Russian crisis and collapse – but in the west, where the British and French remained obdurately determined to defeat Germany. Just like a gambler who has already bet heavily and lost, the Germans felt that they had to bet even more heavily to try to recover their fortunes. This time, they opted for unrestricted submarine warfare in an attempt to starve Britain to collapse. The evidence for this was weak even at first glance – proponents of the U-boat campaign discounted the shortage of submarines, overstated the likely efficacy of the campaign, totally ignored the ability of the British to adopt countermeasures such as convoys, and made no allowance for Britain increasing domestic agricultural production.³⁷⁶ Any one of these factors would have made the gamble a risky one; all four effectively ensured that, like the previous gambles, this too would end in failure.

As 1917 progressed and the futility of the submarine campaign became increasingly clear, the fragile political unity that had been achieved in Germany in 1914 began to come under strain. During the heady days of August 1914, a wave of patriotic unity swept the Great Powers, and in Germany the greatest manifestation was the decision of the Social Democratic Party to put aside political disputes for the duration of the war in an act that became known as the Burgfrieden, in the expectation that in return for this they would gain political reforms, in particular the end of the current Prussian voting system that greatly advantaged wealthy landowners. At first, only a single Social Democrat member of the Reichstag, Karl Liebknecht, refused to accept this truce, but as the war progressed he was joined by a steady stream of other dissenters. The continuing suffering of the German people was in itself sufficient ultimately to unravel the Burgfrieden, but Hindenburg and Ludendorff made its collapse almost inevitable by the imposition of the Hindenburg Programme, in which the military effectively took control of German manpower in an attempt to increase production of war materiel. The publication of the Vaterländischer Hilfsdienstgesetzt (Patriotic Auxiliary Service Law) created open dissent, and much to the frustration of Ludendorff it was passed only after major concessions were made to the trade unions; he was left protesting that the ability of the military to impose compulsory labour had been too diluted and the exclusion of women from its terms further reduced its effectiveness.³⁷⁷ Nevertheless, it was regarded by many in Germany as too onerous.

The fall of the tsar and the growing calls for a ‘peace without annexations or reparations’ could not fail to have an impact on war-weary Germany during 1917. In March, Philipp Scheidemann, the co-chair of the Social Democrats, published an article in a newspaper warning of the consequences of delaying political reforms. He pointed out that almost the entire world favoured Germany’s opponents on the grounds that, to a greater or lesser extent, they were democracies, whereas Germany continued to cling to the Prussian model of government. Russia, formerly the most autocratic nation on earth, had made a fresh start. Only Asiatic despots and Germany continued to cling to their antiquated forms of government, and by doing so Scheidemann believed that they effectively undermined any prospect of transition to constitutional monarchy and were destined to become republics.³⁷⁸ This and other such warnings – and the entry of the United States of America into the war – had some effect on Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg, who tried to introduce electoral changes, but conservative elements succeeded in watering them down and postponed them until the successful conclusion of the war.

Hindenburg remained committed to prosecuting the war to the bitter end, and wrote to the kaiser in early June to warn him of the effect on Germany’s enemies of any signs of internal weakness:

If [our enemies] are nonetheless committed to continuing the war, they calculate that the collapse of Germany and its allies will occur before their own collapse. They hope to achieve this perhaps militarily with a victory on land, but above all else they await economic and internal political developments, i.e. shortages of food and fuel, disunity, discontent and the triumph of radical German social democrats. They base this on the decline of our will to resist, on the growing international unrest, on our food supply situation, and on our unfortunately widely publicised proclamations of our desire for peace.

But reinforcement of our inner strength is the most likely means of convincing them of the futility of continuing the war until the onset of the collapse of their own internal affairs. By contrast, every expression of exhaustion and the desire for peace amongst us and our allies, every word about the alleged impossibility of surviving another winter campaign, will certainly prolong the war.³⁷⁹

On 6 July, Matthias Erzberger of the Centre Party made an important speech condemning unrestricted U-boat warfare and calling for a return to the values of 1914, in which Germany had proclaimed that it was entering a war purely to defend its own integrity and independence. This was followed by close cooperation by the Centre Party, the National Liberal Party and the Social Democrats to try to achieve both electoral reform and a declaration of peace without annexations or reparations. Aware of the growing unrest in the Reichstag, Bethmann-Hollweg once more urged the kaiser to embrace reform; Hindenburg and Ludendorff had been seeking his removal for several months, and were now able to prevail upon Wilhelm to dismiss the chancellor.

On 19 July 1917, the Reichstag passed a peace resolution that had been drawn up by Erzberger, Eduard David, Friedrich Ebert and Scheidemann. The resolution stated:

As was the case on 4 August 1914, on the eve of the fourth year of war the words of the speech from the throne still apply to the German people: ‘We are not striving for conquest.’ Germany took up arms to defend its freedom and independence, and the integrity of its territories. The Reichstag seeks a peace of understanding and reconciliation amongst all nations. Forced annexations and political, economic or financial impositions are incompatible with such a peace. The Reichstag rejects all plans that will lead to trading barriers and hostilities amongst nations after the war. The freedom of the seas must be secured. Only economic peace will prepare the ground for the friendly cooperation of nations. The Reichstag will encourage the creation of international organisations to uphold rights. But so long as foreign governments do not support such a peace, so long as Germany and its allies are threatened with conquest and rape, the German people will stand together as one, persevering steadfastly and fighting until its rights and those of its allies to life and growth is secured. United, the German people are invincible. The Reichstag believes this in unity with the men who defend the Fatherland in heroic combat. The eternal gratitude of the entire population to them is certain.³⁸⁰

The wording of the resolution was entirely in keeping with official German pronouncements from earlier years, but many within Germany, in politics, industry and the military, had long passed the point of accepting a peace that did not result in considerable acquisitions. Soldiers and politicians sought safety against future naval blockades in an eastern land empire, while industrialists were lured by the promise of fortunes to be made in developing this empire. For many, the resolution heralded the events that Hindenburg had prophesied in his letter to the kaiser the previous month, and even Erzberger, one of the authors of the resolution, was still in favour of securing territories in the east. Georg Michaelis, who had replaced Bethmann-Hollweg as chancellor, accepted the resolution saying that he would interpret it as he chose. In practical terms, the resolution did nothing to change the course of the German government, though the announcement of the resolution caused considerable consternation amongst German officers. Ludendorff wrote after the war:

As had clearly been foreseen, it had no political impact on our enemies. The foe saw it as a sign of weakness. Bulgaria and Turkey began to doubt our ultimate victory. Internally, it did not have the effect for which its authors had hoped.³⁸¹

Having lost yet another gamble with unrestricted U-boat warfare, Hindenburg and Ludendorff were left with one last throw of the dice. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk effectively brought the war in the east to an end, though the territorial ambitions of Germany meant that far fewer troops were available for other fronts than might have been the case if Germany had accepted a more modest peace. Nevertheless, there was sufficient time before the arrival of large numbers of troops from the United States to launch one last attack in the west. In an attempt to maximise the chances of success, Ludendorff reorganised the army into assault divisions, equipped with the best weaponry available, and weaker formations that would be able to hold defensive sections of the front. The assault divisions went through extensive training, were provided with better rations – though still short of the rations available to troops at the beginning of the war – and prepared for what everyone knew would be the last gamble.³⁸²

There were numerous proposals for offensives in the west, ranging from minor local attacks to more grandiose affairs. Suggestions ranged from a new campaign in the east of France, through a resumption of attacks on Verdun, to an attempt to drive the British back to the coast in the northwest. Ludendorff decided that the latter offered the best hope of success and detailed planning began at the end of 1917. Proposals for the operation – codenamed Michael – were presented to Kaiser Wilhelm on 23 January 1918, and detailed orders followed a few weeks later. Over 1.3 million soldiers assembled for the assault, equipped with 14,000 field guns; it was impressive, but the Western Powers actually had even greater firepower available. All would inevitably depend on the execution of the attack.

Somewhat extraordinarily, Ludendorff deliberately did not draw up detailed operational plans beyond the initial assault. It was his intention to exploit whatever successes were gained. Such a policy required excellent flexibility, fast communications, and decisive command if it was to have any chance of success. This flexibility would prove fatal; instead of pursuing a clear objective, Ludendorff and other commanders found themselves diluting their forces in numerous attacks, falling just short of key targets. Ludendorff repeatedly insisted that this was an approach that had served Germany well on the Eastern Front, particularly in 1915 when the limited intentions of the Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive had ultimately led to the Russians being driven far to the east, but this ignored the fact that Mackensen’s great offensive was conducted in stages, each of which had a distinct objective. Many of those in the German command structure were deeply critical. Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, commander of an eponymous army group involved in the fighting, recorded: ‘I get the impression as if OHL is living from hand to mouth without acknowledging definite operational designs.’³⁸³

Although the offensive – launched in three phases – achieved considerable success, at no stage did it look like achieving a strategic victory; the reserves of the Western Powers were simply too great. When they looked for reasons for the success of the Germans, many in Britain concentrated on the numbers of troops retained by Lloyd George in the homeland, claiming that the combat strength of the British troops in Flanders was lower than the previous year. There was bitter argument about this in the British press and in the accounts written by many senior officers and officials after the war, but it is clear that there was considerable distrust between Lloyd George and Field Marshal Douglas Haig, commander of British forces in France and Belgium. Haig had promised the British prime minister that he would call off the Ypres offensive in 1917 if it did not show early success, but broke his word and persisted in hugely costly attacks. As a consequence both of Lloyd George’s unwillingness to send more reinforcements and the casualties suffered in the second half of the year, the British forces entered 1918 significantly below strength, which undoubtedly added to the success of Michael. Haig actually made matters worse by allowing 88,000 men to return to Britain on leave, even when it became clear that a German attack was imminent.³⁸⁴ Regardless of the causes for the weakness of Haig’s armies, Britain was able to send 212,000 men to Flanders as the scale of the crisis became clear in mid-April.³⁸⁵

Repeated German attacks continued into the summer, but by then 10,000 American troops were arriving at the front every day. Many German divisions were 2,000 or more below establishment strength, and the failure to achieve victory had a catastrophic effect on the increasingly brittle morale of the army. Exhausted by years of war and slaughter, the men in the front line had steeled themselves for one last effort. As early as 18 April, Rupprecht’s chief of staff was warning that the troops appeared to be finished.³⁸⁶ Germany was approaching the end of its strength; the fighting since March had cost nearly a million casualties, but replacements fell short of this number by 300,000. By contrast, the steady flow of British and American troops tipped the manpower balance increasingly against Germany.

In his memoirs, Hindenburg attempted to put a favourable gloss on events:

From the military point of view, what we had accomplished in the three great battles completely put in the shade everything that had been done in offensive operations in the west since August 1914. The greatness of the German victories was clearly shown by the extent of the ground gained, the amount of booty, and the bloody losses inflicted on the enemy. We had shaken the structure of the enemy resistance to its very foundation. Our troops had shown themselves in every respect equal to the great demands we had made upon them …

Unfortunately everything we had done had not hitherto been enough to wound our adversaries to death in a military and political sense. There was no sign of surrender on the enemy’s part. On the contrary, each military defeat seemed only to strengthen the enemy’s lust for our destruction. This impression was in no wise diminished by the fact that here and there the voice of moderation was heard in the hostile camp. The dictatorial authority of the political organisms against which we were fighting was on the whole in no way injured. They held the wills and the resources of their nations together as if with iron bands, and by more or less autocratic methods suppressed the capacity for harm of all who dared to think differently from the tyrants in power.³⁸⁷

Coming from a man who had effectively established a military dictatorship in Germany that ignored and suppressed all contrary opinion, these comments were remarkable. They also ignored a simple question: given how Hindenburg and the German leadership remained determined to fight a war to the bitter end in the pursuit of total victory at all costs, was it such a surprise that Germany’s enemies, who had suffered just as great losses, would do the same?

A disturbing development was the rapid spread of indiscipline. Short of rations, the German infantry repeatedly stopped to loot the plentiful stores of their enemies, and once the habit of helping themselves was established, it spread alarmingly. There were numerous reports of German troops raiding their own army’s supply dumps and trains; by May, some supply trains were protected by machine-guns to deter such raids. Several units reported mutinies when exhausted troops were ordered back into the front line, and reinforcements sent from Germany were even worse, with 20 per cent or more simply disappearing from troop trains before they reached the front.³⁸⁸ Ludendorff blamed the growing signs of disintegration on factors beyond his control:

The spirit of the troops in the west was now greatly depressed, weakened by influenza and ground down by a monotonous diet. Food supplies in some locations became more varied as a result of the stores that we had captured in our attacks, but now there were potato shortages, even though the German harvest in the previous year had been particularly good.

Amongst the Bavarian troops, a particular mood grew ever stronger. Aspirations tacitly encouraged by the Bavarian government made themselves felt, and were encouraged through the successes of enemy propaganda. Hatred of the Kaiser and the Crown Prince, but also against the Bavarian Royal Family began to bear fruit. The Bavarian troops saw the war as entirely a Prussian affair. They were no longer used as much by the high command as earlier in the war. Only a few divisions conducted themselves as well as before.

The homeland was completely under the influence of enemy propaganda and the words of enemy statesmen, which were not able to reach us in the front line … All the parties in the Reichstag majority, with the exception of the right wing of the Centrists, consistently believed every word of enemy propaganda and rushed to announce their proposals for reconciliation, understanding and disarmament in a new world order.³⁸⁹

The poor behaviour of the new recruits, Ludendorff later claimed, was due to the growing war-weariness at home and the influence of Bolshevism. The reality was more complex. Many training units reported that troops sent to them from the front line to help train new recruits were defeatist and apathetic. Ludendorff might complain that troops returning home on leave were exposed to Bolshevik propaganda left on trains, but such propaganda could have an effect only if the troops were turning their faces from the war. On 8 August, the Western Powers launched a series of powerful attacks at numerous points of the Western Front; the British infantry – supported by numerous tanks and aircraft – moved forward in dense fog near Amiens, penetrating deep into the German positions. Ludendorff described it as the ‘black day of the German Army’:

I had division commanders and other officers sent to me from the front to Avesnes to give me their personal impressions. I heard of deeds of outstanding courage, but also of events that I must openly confess I would not have regarded as possible in the German Army: how our men surrendered to individual riders, entire units surrendered to individual tanks! A fresh, brave division moving forward would encounter shouts of ‘blackleg’ and ‘Kriegsverlängerer’ [i.e. one who prolongs the war], words that would be heard again later. The officers in many locations no longer had any influence and allowed themselves to be swept along with the rest.³⁹⁰

The degree to which this influenced the outcome of the fighting is difficult to assess. The officers of 11th Bavarian Infantry Division, which repeatedly fought with great distinction both in the west and the east, recorded that, whilst desertion rates rose threefold during 1918, the number absent without leave was still only 71 men.³⁹¹ The greatest change was not in the number of desertions or men killed and wounded, but in the number who simply surrendered. During the entire war, the Western Powers took about 712,000 Germans prisoner; of these slightly more than half were captured in just four months in 1918.³⁹² As was the case with all armies, the German Army had lost proportionately more officers than other ranks, and many of those who remained now saw little point in continuing the slaughter. Some found themselves unable to fight on when their men simply gave up, while others took it upon themselves to negotiate the surrender of the troops under their command. Increasingly, the ratio of officers to other ranks amongst prisoners reflected the ratio in the units involved; men were no longer fighting on until their officers were dead, or abandoning their officers to surrender.

At first, Ludendorff continued to maintain – at least in meetings with the kaiser and government officials – that the army would be able to fight the Western Powers to exhaustion by the end of the year. By mid-July, some officers reported that he was showing signs of nervous strain and depression; Generalleutnant Wilhelm Groener, visiting the Western Front from his duties in the Ukraine, wrote: ‘Ludendorff’s entourage complained about his indecision and inability to see the larger picture. He really duped himself and, just like Falkenhayn in 1916 at Verdun, was at his wits’ end.’³⁹³

Like many others, Groener’s assessment was that Ludendorff simply had not spent enough time in the front line to understand the true nature of the war; his entire combat experience was limited to the siege of Liège in the opening weeks of the conflict. During the Tannenberg campaign, there was a moment when the highly strung Ludendorff appeared to lose his nerve when the critical moment of the battle was at hand, only to be calmed by the massively imperturbable Hindenburg.³⁹⁴ Now that the last gamble in Germany’s quest to achieve decisive victory had clearly failed, he once more was overwhelmed by events. In mid-September, the Salonika Front, long used by both sides to deploy both units and leaders who had failed to impress elsewhere, assumed an unprecedented importance as the Bulgarian Army collapsed. Within two weeks, Bulgaria was out of the war, leaving a hole on the southern flank of the Central Powers that could not be closed. At the end of the month, Ludendorff demanded that the kaiser and the chancellor should seek an immediate ceasefire – in the absence of this, the army would collapse entirely.

This must have come as a thunderclap to those in Berlin. The year had started so encouragingly, with the end of the war in the east and the dreams of a Mitteleuropa empire seeming to be close at hand. Ludendorff and Hindenburg had repeatedly sent encouraging reports from the west about the final offensive – and now, suddenly, it seemed as if there was no option but to sue for peace. Richard von Kühlmann, who had negotiated the treaties that took Russia and Romania out of the Entente, was no longer foreign minister having been forced to resign after stating in the Reichstag that the war could not be ended by military means alone. His replacement, Paul von Hintze, was a former naval officer; he warned Hindenburg and Ludendorff that the rapidity of the collapse of Germany’s fortunes risked revolution at home, and attempts must be made at least to limit this. He had good reason for believing this. Increasingly, the population of Germany no longer cared for victory – all they wanted was an end to the war. There were now political movements that looked worryingly like those that had overthrown the government of Tsar Nicholas in Russia; one such movement was the Spartacus League, founded by Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and Clara Zetkin in 1915. Even if the censorship of the press had prevented news of setbacks in the west from circulating through German society, soldiers on leave had been very vocal about what was happening. As will be described later, the reappearance of the Sixtus Affair – Austria-Hungary’s attempts to secure peace the previous year – had soured relations between Germany and its only European ally, and, without some meaningful prospect of victory, Hintze agreed that Germany had to find a way out of the war.

Ludendorff suggested that those who had deliberately been kept from power, yet whom he regarded as responsible for the current situation – the Social Democrats and others who had not backed his demands for total victory at all costs – should now be awarded ministries and tasked with finding a way out of the mess. Whilst this suggestion was not implemented in full, Prince Max von Baden – a leading liberal who had opposed Hindenburg and Ludendorff on the matter of unrestricted U-boat warfare – was now appointed chancellor specifically with the task of seeking an armistice. Shocked with being thrust into high political office without any prior experience and unwilling to try to enact liberal constitutional reforms in the midst of the war, he took up the post with reluctance, appointing Scheidemann as his secretary of state. He questioned the need to seek an immediate armistice, protesting that such a move would leave him with a very weak negotiating position, but he was persuaded by Ludendorff that the collapse of Bulgaria and the superiority of the armies of the Western Powers, which Ludendorff advised was largely due to their deployment of large numbers of tanks, made it essential to seek an armistice without delay. Every day of postponement brought military collapse closer, he insisted. On 4 October, Max sent a message in conjunction with the Vienna government to President Woodrow Wilson of the United States:

The German government requests that the President of the United States of America take the initiative in bringing about peace, that he informs all the belligerent states of this request, and that he invites them to send plenipotentiaries for purposes of beginning negotiations. The German government accepts as the basis for peace negotiations the programme stated by the President of the United States in his speech to Congress of January 8 1918, and in his subsequent pronouncements, particularly in his speech of September 27.

In order to avoid further bloodshed, the German government requests the immediate conclusion of an armistice on land, at sea, and in the air.³⁹⁵

The Western Powers took their time responding to the request. Wilson sent three notes to the Central Powers in reply, the first on 8 October questioning whether Max von Baden’s government, appointed by the kaiser, really represented the German people. Whilst Prince Max formulated a reply, there occurred an incident that hardened American attitudes: on 11 October, a U-boat attacked and destroyed a British steamer, killing 450 people, including several Americans. Wilson immediately dispatched a second note to Berlin:

The President feels it is his duty to say that no arrangement can be accepted by the Government of the United States which does not provide absolutely satisfactory safeguards and guarantees of the maintenance of the present military supremacy of the armies of the United States and of the allies in the fields. He feels confident that he can safely assume that this will also be the judgment and decision of the Allied Governments.

The President feels that it is also his duty to add that … [he] will not consent to consider an armistice so long as the armed forces of Germany continue the illegal and inhumane practices which they still persist in. At the very time that the German Government approaches the Government of the United States with proposals of peace its submarines are engaged in sinking passenger ships at sea, and not the ships alone but the very boats in which their passengers and crews seek to make their way to safety; and in their present enforced withdrawal from Flanders and France the German armies are pursuing a course of wanton destruction which has always been regarded as in direct violation of the rules and practices of civilized warfare … The nations associated against Germany cannot be expected to agree to a cessation of arms while acts of inhumanity, spoliation, and desolation are being continued which they justly look upon with horror and with burning hearts.

It is necessary … that the President should very solemnly call the attention of the Government of Germany to the language and plain intent of one of the terms of peace which the German Government has now accepted. It is contained in the address of the President … on 4 July last. It is as follows: ‘The destruction of every arbitrary power anywhere that can separately, secretly, and of its single choice disturb the peace of the world; or, if it cannot be presently destroyed, at least its reduction to virtual impotency.’ The power which has hitherto controlled the German nation is of the sort here described. It is within the choice of the German nation to alter it.³⁹⁶

Ludendorff seemed to be recovering his poise. He now claimed that, provided the German Army could reach the winter intact, it would be possible to fight on and secure better terms in 1919. This was, at best, wishful thinking. Rumours that Germany was seeking an armistice had reached the front line, where many soldiers now demanded peace at any price, or simply surrendered to save their own lives. At the beginning of the month, Ludendorff had been desperate for an armistice while Max von Baden had questioned the need to seek one; now, the roles were completely reversed. Prince Max now approached the kaiser and asked him to call off the U-boat campaign to prevent further inflaming American opinion, and sent a further note to Washington in which he accepted the principle that Germany would evacuate the territories that it had occupied. He protested about Wilson’s criticism of illegal and inhumane German behaviour, pointing out that a degree of destruction was inevitable during a retreat, and rejected any suggestion that German U-boats had deliberately attacked lifeboats and assured Wilson that orders had been sent to commanders to avoid attacking passenger vessels, with the caveat that the order might not have reached every U-boat currently deployed. He then turned to the question of the legality of the German government:

Hitherto the representation of the people in the German Empire has not been endowed with an influence on the formation of the government. The constitution did not provide for a concurrence of the representation of the people, based on the equal, universal, secret, direct franchise. The leaders of the great parties of the Reichstag are members of this government. In future no government can take or continue in office without possessing the confidence of the majority of the Reichstag. The responsibility of the Chancellor of the Empire to the representation of the people is being legally developed and safeguarded …

The question of the President … is therefore answered in a clear and unequivocal manner by the statement that the offer of peace and an armistice has come from a government which, free from arbitrary and irresponsible influence, is supported by the approval of the overwhelming majority of the German people.³⁹⁷

Wilson’s reply reached Berlin on 23 October. He stated that he would take up the question of an armistice with the allies of the United States, but continued to insist on terms that would make any renewal of hostilities by Germany impossible. The question of the legitimacy of Germany’s government continued to cause difficulties:

It is evident that the German people have no means of commanding the acquiescence of the military authorities of the Empire in the popular will; that the power of the King of Prussia to control the policy of the Empire is unimpaired; that the determining initiative still remains with those who have been the masters of Germany … The President deems it his duty to say, without any attempt to soften what may seem harsh words, that the nations of the world do not and cannot trust the word of those who have hitherto been masters of German policy, and to point out once more that in concluding peace … the Government of the United States cannot deal with any but veritable representatives of the German people who have been assured of a genuine constitutional standing as the real rulers of Germany. If it must deal with the military masters and the monarchical autocrats of Germany now … it must demand, not peace negotiations, but surrender.³⁹⁸

Immediately, Hindenburg issued an order of the day to the army:

Wilson says in his reply that he wishes to suggest to his allies that they enter into ceasefire discussions. But the ceasefire must leave Germany so defenceless that it can no longer take up arms …

Wilson’s answer calls for military capitulation. For us soldiers, this is therefore unacceptable. It is proof that our enemies’ desire for destruction, which started the war in 1914, remains undiminished. Further, it is proof that our enemies merely speak the words ‘a just peace’ in order to mislead us and to break our will to resist. Wilson’s answer can only prompt us soldiers to continue resisting with all our strength. When the enemy learns that the German front cannot be broken at any price, they will be ready for a peace that secures the future of Germany for its people.³⁹⁹

Technically, Hindenburg was the chief of the general staff – he was effectively the military advisor of the commander-in-chief, the kaiser, and therefore exceeded his authority in issuing any such proclamation. Accompanied by Ludendorff, he now travelled to Berlin to demand that the kaiser should dismiss Prince Max and once more return Germany to the path of total war. Perhaps to avoid a difficult conversation, Max claimed to be too unwell to meet the two officers.

The two men who had come to dominate Germany had an inkling of how much things had changed when they attended the Reichstag; they learned that the deputies had roundly condemned their conduct of the war. That evening, Ludendorff held talks with the interior minister, where he received a cold reception:

[The comments in the Reichstag] worked their effect; I was to be dismissed.

The conversation in the Interior Ministry lasted less than two hours. General von Winterfeldt [the military representative in the ministry] and Oberst von Haeften [in charge of the overseas section of OHL] were waiting for me in the hall. Greatly agitated, all I could say to them was:

‘There is no more hope. Germany is lost!’ These two gentlemen were equally shocked.

… Early on 26 October, in the same frame of mind as the previous evening I wrote my letter of resignation. I did so in the awareness gained in the previous day’s conversation with Vice-Chancellor von Bayer that the government could no longer bring itself to take action. His Majesty, the Fatherland and the Army would thus be placed in an impossible situation. I was now regarded as someone prolonging the war, and for the government and Wilson my departure would perhaps be a relief for Germany. I therefore requested that His Majesty dismiss me with honour.

As usual, the Field Marshal [Hindenburg] came to me at 9am on 26 October. I had put my request to one side as I had decided to let him know after my visit to His Majesty. The Field Marshal … saw the letter. It drew his attention. He asked me not to send it. I should remain in post. I could not yet leave the kaiser and the army. After much internal struggle, I agreed. I came to the conclusion that I must retain my position and suggested to the Field Marshal that he should visit Prince Max again and speak to him. We were unable to do so. He was still ill. While I waited on this decision, Oberst von Haeften reported to me that the government would ask His Majesty to dismiss me as the aforementioned army order of the day prevented any other outcome. I was no longer surprised by anything and had no doubt on my part. During my conversation with Oberst von Haeften I was suddenly summoned to His Majesty at an unusual time of day.

During my drive from the general staff building to Schloss Bellevue I told the Field Marshal what I had just heard. Later I learned that Prince Max had raised the possibility of the cabinet resigning if I were retained.

The kaiser was transformed from the day before, speaking only to me he said that he was opposed to the army order of the day of 24 October. There followed some of the bitterest moments of my life. In deferential tones, I said to His Majesty that I had the painful feeling that I no longer had his confidence and therefore requested humbly to be dismissed. His Majesty accepted my request.⁴⁰⁰

In the light of Wilson’s naked demands for the removal of the kaiser and Ludendorff’s failure to achieve military success in the west, Kaiser Wilhelm could see that the German people were perfectly likely to sacrifice their monarch in order to secure peace; such matters had already been discussed openly in some newspapers. He had been advised that if he were to dismiss the military leadership, this might suffice to save his own position; in any case, Ludendorff’s stock had plummeted. Whilst Hindenburg was still widely respected, his deputy was seen by most senior figures in Germany as a spent force, and a man who had singularly failed since taking up high office.

After his dismissal, Ludendorff remained in Berlin. When the armistice was declared, he stayed briefly with his brother, Hans Ludendorff, who was chief astronomer at the Potsdam Observatory. He attempted to hide his identity by wearing spectacles and a false beard, and decided to leave Germany for Scandinavia; although he was recognised in Denmark, he was allowed to travel to Sweden. He remained there a year, writing extensively about his experiences in the war, and inevitably, these accounts cast him in a favourable light and did a great deal to strengthen the myth that Germany was defeated because of the collapse of the home front rather than the defeat of the army. The myth, widely known in Germany as the Dolchstosslegende (‘stab in the back legend’) would become part of Nazi mythology, and simply ignored the reality that by late 1918 Germany was militarily, economically and socially exhausted. The origin of the name Dolchstosslegende can be traced back to an encounter with the British Major General Sir Neill Malcolm, who met Ludendorff in 1919. When Ludendorff categorised his list of complaints about the failure of the German homeland to support the army, Malcolm asked, ‘Do you mean, General, that you were stabbed in the back?’ Ludendorff embraced this imagery with enthusiasm, adopting it as his own view.⁴⁰¹ It was taken up by many senior officers in Germany after the war – it was far more palatable than admitting that they had been outfought on the battlefield.

Ludendorff also became increasingly hostile to the left-wing parties of German politics and strongly anti-Semitic, blaming the Jews for putting profit ahead of duty; this was a shameful distortion of reality, enthusiastically promoted by other right-wing writers such as Alfred Roth. Proportionately, the German Jewish community suffered more casualties than Germany as a whole, at least partly because, being better educated, it produced a larger proportion of officers than non-Jewish parts of society, but without a shred of evidence to support his view, Roth portrayed the Jews who served in the army as being more interested in profit and personal gain than fighting for Germany.⁴⁰² After his return from Sweden in 1919, Ludendorff became a member of the Nazi Party and took part in the ‘Beer Hall Putsch’ of 1923. Although he was subsequently tried, he was acquitted. Despite his repeated disparaging comments about politicians, he served as a right-wing Reichstag deputy from 1924 to 1928, during which he sought election as president of Germany in 1925, but he was heavily defeated by his former commander and now bitter opponent, Hindenburg. He became increasingly eccentric, blaming the woes of the world upon both Christianity and Judaism, and ultimately even the Nazis distanced themselves from him. He died in 1937.

If Kaiser Wilhelm thought that his troubles would be eased by the dismissal of Ludendorff, he was disappointed. The navy was also opposed to the proposals for an armistice; Admiral Reinhard Scheer, chief of the admiralty, had devised a grandiose plan to build 450 U-boats in the coming year.⁴⁰³ It was an absurd ambition, making no allowances for whether Germany had the shipyards and raw materials to build the new fleet, the crews to man the vessels, or the fuel to propel them. Incensed by the kaiser’s decision to suspend unrestricted submarine warfare, Scheer decided – without any formal consultation of the kaiser, the chancellor, or indeed anyone else –that it was essential for the navy to make a last, great gesture before the end of the war. It would sally into the North Sea and seek a final action against the British, regardless of the outcome:

It is impossible for the fleet to remain inactive in any final battle that may sooner or later precede an armistice. The fleet must be committed. Even if it is not to be expected that this would decisively influence the course of events, it is still, from the moral point of view, a question of honour and existence of the navy to have done its utmost in the last battle.⁴⁰⁴

An operational plan was drawn up by Scheer’s chief of staff for the fleet. The intention was to attack British shipping in the southern part of the North Sea in order to provoke a deployment of the Royal Navy, which would first be waylaid by U-boats and then attacked by the German High Seas Fleet. But just as the Russian Baltic Fleet had discovered, prolonged periods confined in warships with little operational deployment proved to be a fertile environment for mutiny and dissent. There had already been a mutiny in 1917; on 2 August, 350 sailors from the battleship Prinzregent Luitpold marched through Wilhelmshaven demanding an end to the war. Army and naval personnel rapidly intervened and the protesters returned to their ship, where 75 were arrested. Several were tried and imprisoned, and two were executed by firing squad. Whilst this quashed the mutiny, the result was the radicalisation of many sailors who had not joined the mutiny, and the creation of several sailors’ committees in many of the larger warships of the fleet.⁴⁰⁵

When orders were given for the capital ships to prepare for sea, word spread quickly. Many sailors refused to return to their vessels from trips ashore in Kiel, Wilhelmshaven and elsewhere and had to be rounded up by military police. Late on 29 October, several warships anchored off Wilhelmshaven were ordered to weigh anchor in preparation for the suicidal attack, but sailors aboard the battleships of the Third Squadron refused to obey orders and announced that they would passively resist any attempt to go to sea. The network of sailors’ committees ensured that news spread rapidly and other ships’ crews joined the protest. When threatened by a group of destroyers, the sailors gave up, but it was clearly impossible for the fleet to go into battle and the operation was cancelled. As the ships of the Third Squadron passed through the Kiel Canal, 47 men designated as the ringleaders of the unrest were arrested and dispatched to the nearby military prison. The ships sailed back into Kiel, arriving on 31 October; unable to keep their unruly subordinates in check, ships’ officers allowed them to go ashore, where they congregated in the Kiel Union House and commenced a protest, demanding the release of the men who had been arrested. The authorities closed the Union House, but the protesters merely moved to the nearby drill ground, where they were joined by dockyard workers and even elements of the Kiel garrison. By 3 November, there were about 6,000 people gathered on the parade ground. Led by Karl Artelt, a low-ranking engineer who had been a leading figure in establishing sailors’ committees, and Lothar Popp, a civilian dockyard worker, they set off towards the military prison to force the release of their comrades who had been arrested. Many armed themselves from the nearby military barracks.

Leutnant zur See Steinhäuser had been sent with an armed patrol to keep an eye on the protesters and ordered his men to fire over the heads of the sailors. When this had no effect, he directed them to fire directly at the protesters and seven were killed and nearly 30 wounded. Some of the protesters who were carrying weapons returned fire, and Steinhäuser was struck in the neck, though he survived. The protesters dispersed, and on 4 November six companies of infantry arrived in Kiel to try to ensure that there would be no further unrest. To the alarm of the authorities, the men of the rifle companies showed little inclination to oppose the protesters, whose numbers were swelling. More committees and councils were created, and rather ominously the sailors and dockyard workers began to address each other as ‘comrade Bolsheviks’.⁴⁰⁶ As the sailors took control of more of Kiel, the authorities released the men who had been imprisoned.

In conscious emulation of the revolutionaries of Petrograd, Artelt and Popp led their followers in forming a sailors’ and workers’ council on 4 November. That evening, they published their own ‘fourteen points’, a list that included freedom of speech and of the press, the release of all political prisoners, and a guarantee that the fleet would not sail. At this stage, there were no political demands, such as the abdication of the kaiser.

The developments in Kiel were watched with growing alarm from Berlin. Gustav Noske was a member of the Social Democrats, but represented the right wing of the party and had played a prominent role in a Reichstag committee investigating excessive profiteering by military contractors. Newly appointed to the team that led the Social Democrats, he was dispatched to Kiel by Prince Max to try to negotiate an end to the mutiny. He was greeted with enthusiasm when he arrived on 5 November and appointed chair of the new council; nevertheless, he was able to restore order and discipline and both the soldiers and dockworkers returned to their duties.⁴⁰⁷ But whilst Prince Max and the rest of the government received this news with relief, the mutiny was turning rapidly into a revolution. A deputation of sailors from Kiel travelled to Lübeck on the same day that Noske arrived, and by the end of the day the city was firmly under the control of militant sailors, soldiers and trade unionists. The following day, Hamburg, Bremen and Wilhelmshaven followed suit, spreading rapidly to major cities inland in the next 48 hours. On 8 November, after noisy demonstrations, Kurt Eisner – a Social Democrat who had just been released from imprisonment on charges of inciting strikes amongst munitions workers – declared a socialist republic in Bavaria. To escape what he hoped and expected would be transient turmoil, King Ludwig III of Bavaria had left Munich for the safety of a castle near Salzburg; he would never return as king.

The authorities in Berlin remained determined to limit the spread of the revolution, but their power was fast evaporating. General Wilhelm Groener, Ludendorff’s successor as quartermaster-general, urged Prince Max to accept whatever terms were being offered by the Western Powers – the alternative was ongoing fighting at the front while Germany collapsed into chaos. General Alexander von Linsingen, a veteran of the Eastern Front, had been Military Governor of Berlin since the summer and was tasked with protecting the city, but, aware that his troops were hardly any more reliable than the sailors of the German Navy, he had their weapons secured in armouries.

The chairman of the Social Democrats, Friedrich Ebert, was deeply worried that a Bolshevik revolution would become almost irresistible unless something was done to prevent it. Given that military options were limited – Groener had asked nearly 40 senior officers if their men would fight to support the kaiser, and only one had replied unequivocally in the affirmative – it was vital that concessions were made. The influenza outbreak that had appeared to be receding earlier in the year was also returning with a vengeance, and the combination of sickness, desertion, and refusal to obey orders meant that OHL could count on barely six infantry divisions on the entire Western Front. In the hope of appeasing the Americans, the German constitution had been extensively altered, increasing the power of the Reichstag substantially and reducing the kaiser to the status of a constitutional monarch, but events were now proceeding too fast for this to be sufficient. On 7 November, Ebert told Prince Max:

If the kaiser does not abdicate, the social revolution is inevitable. But I do not want it, indeed I hate it like sin.⁴⁰⁸

After receiving a pessimistic and troubling report from the chief of Berlin’s police, Kaiser Wilhelm had left the capital on 29 October and travelled west to Spa in Belgium, intentionally placing himself closer to the army so that he could, if necessary – and if possible – return with sufficient forces to restore his place in Germany. Groener informed him that there was no prospect of this occurring – the army would march home in good order under the command of its officers, but would no longer fight either against the enemies of Germany or the enemies of the kaiser.⁴⁰⁹ On 10 November, Wilhelm accepted the inevitable and crossed the border into the Netherlands, where he would remain until his death. When the Nazis came to power in the 1930s, he hoped briefly that the monarchy would be restored with his son as kaiser, but he soon came to distrust Hitler. He was genuinely shocked by the anti-Jewish pogroms and the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938, though he became increasingly convinced that British opposition to Germany was rooted in a combination of Freemasonry and Jewish influences. He died in 1941.

The day before Wilhelm left Spa for the Netherlands, Scheidemann declared Germany to be a republic and dispatched a delegation to France to negotiate an armistice. President Wilson had sent a final note to Berlin on 5 November, and this formed the basis of the agreement that came into force on 11 November. At the very end, the Germans showed that they had learned from the events in Russia, and Groener and Ebert, the new head of the Provisional Government, agreed that the existing military leadership would remain in control of the army – there would be no widespread purges and resultant disorder. Despite the extraordinary military achievements of the German Army in the east, and despite the immense suffering of German soldiers and civilians, the war between the Central Powers and the Entente was over with Germany forced to accept defeat. A little over two million German soldiers were dead, over five million wounded. But in the east, nothing was settled. The maps of nations, redrawn after Brest-Litovsk, would now be redrawn again as a new series of conflicts erupted.

Whilst conflict continued across much of Eastern Europe, the end of the ‘Great War’ is an appropriate moment to consider the outcome from the perspective of the nations that entered it with a mixture of trepidation, resolution and ambition. Tsarist Russia had already ceased to exist and the defeat of the Central Powers was a welcome development for the Bolsheviks – two days after the armistice in the west, they renounced the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and began preparations to reclaim their lost territories. Germany had entered the war determined to weaken Russia before modernisation of Russian forces was complete and to eliminate any future threat from France; as the war progressed, these aims grew to include the protection of Germany from any future blockade. Briefly, the collapse of Russia seemed to offer a tantalising possibility of achieving these aims, but as everyone had always expected, the war would ultimately be decided in the west, and failure to inflict a military defeat on France proved fatal. Such an outcome was probably already unachievable by the end of 1917, if not sooner – as has already been described, the attempt to starve Britain into defeat by unrestricted submarine warfare was never going to succeed, and the entry of the United States into the war tipped the material balance firmly against the Central Powers. Instead of eliminating any threat from France and weakening Russia, Germany’s monarchy collapsed and the nation faced an uncertain future, with the military power that had been the bedrock of the original German state the likely target of Entente demands.

Germany’s ally, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was perhaps the Great Power that least wanted a major conflict, even though it was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand that started the cascade of events that led to war. With no clearly devised plan for military cooperation with Germany, the empire’s armies – woefully unprepared for modern warfare – bore the brunt of the initial Russian onslaught, and the terrible losses suffered for no clear war aim revealed fracture lines within Austria-Hungary faster than within any other power. All of the contradictions and weaknesses of the Great Compromise that had created the empire were laid bare, and it is perhaps remarkable that despite this, Habsburg rule survived as long as it did.

Nor was there much cheer for the victorious British and French. The casualties suffered by their armies were immense, as was the cost of industrialised war on an unprecedented scale. Although France achieved its aims of defeating Germany and recovering Alsace and Lorraine, the loss of 1.4 million dead and huge war debts left the nation weakened. Perhaps more than any other nation, France was scarred by its losses and this played a large part in its rapid collapse in the Second World War. For the British, the end of the war found the nation changed almost beyond recognition. The social order that had prevailed before the war had altered markedly and the wealth of the British Empire had been spent on the huge conflict. Social pressures that had largely been contained during the Victorian era and the early 20th century would continue to change the country, as they already had in other parts of Europe.

Hindenburg had remained in OHL until the end. Although he played a leading role in persuading the kaiser that he would have to abdicate, he portrayed himself as a royalist and diehard supporter of the monarchy. He announced his immediate retirement from the army and returned to his home, from where he was summoned the following year to appear before a Reichstag commission investigating the matter of the adoption of unrestricted submarine warfare. There was a considerable degree of collusion between Hindenburg and Ludendorff prior to the hearing in Berlin; the former quartermaster-general wrote to Hindenburg advising him that he was writing his memoirs, and the manner in which he portrayed Hindenburg would depend on the testimony that the latter gave to the Reichstag. Ignoring the questions put to him by the commision, Hindenburg used the opportunity to read out a speech prepared by Ludendorff’s lawyer, firmly establishing the legend that the army had been stabbed in the back by the collapse of the home front. He reluctantly ran for election as president in 1925 and was successful, at least partly because anti-communist factions united behind his candidacy. He attempted to conduct himself as no more than a figurehead, complaining in private that he wished he had not been persuaded to run for office; those around him manipulated him into using parts of the constitution to oppose and even dismiss the Reichstag. He first met Hitler in 1931, and the two men rapidly came to despise each other. In 1932, beginning to drift into senility, he was persuaded to run for president again, largely to prevent Hitler from winning the position. When the Nazis won a majority in the Reichstag elections of 1932, Hindenburg at first refused to appoint Hitler as chancellor, but early in 1933 he had to concede defeat. The relationship between Hindenburg and the Nazis continued to be uneasy; when Hitler attempted to pass a law banning Jews from holding posts in the civil service, the president forced him to add a clause excluding Jewish war veterans from the restriction. He was strongly opposed to the political violence of the era, and supported the Nazi suppression of unruly elements of the Sturmabteilungen (‘assault detachments’ or SA, the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party) in mid-1934, believing erroneously that this would bring order to Germany. He died in August aged 86.