Chapter 59: The First Great Brothers' War - World War I Part Two: 1917 - 1918 Part One related the course of the war from its origin to end 1916. Balfour Declaration The World Zionist movement, a nationalist Jewish organization founded by European Jews to create a national homeland for Jews in Palestine, saw an opportunity open up with the British occupation of Palestine, and persuaded the British foreign minister, Lord Arthur Balfour, to issue a public promise in 1917 to the effect that Britain would support the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. This public promise became known as the Balfour Declaration. In return for this undertaking, the World Zionist Movement then promised Britain that it would marshal the world's Jews behind the Allied cause (although how they gave such an undertaking when there were many thousands of German Jews fighting in the German army, remains a mystery) and, more importantly, endeavor to use their influence to bring the United States of America into the war. In this way, considerable pressure was brought to bear on the American government to enter the war against Germany, although by this stage they hardly needed much prompting. The United States of America Enters the War While the World Zionist Congress was actively working behind the scenes with the powerful Jewish lobby in the American government, the course of the war at sea presented the American president, Woodrow Wilson, with an opportunity to enter the war against Germany, despite his presidential election campaign having been specifically fought on a non-interventionist ticket. In January 1917, Germany announced that it was resorting to unrestricted submarine warfare against all shipping to and from Britain - this in a renewed attempt to force the British to surrender by physically depriving them of necessary fuels and foodstuffs to keep going. The re-introduction of this policy brought about the excuse Wilson needed to bring America into the war. In February 1917, the US broke off diplomatic relations with Germany and formally declared war in April. The timing of the US entry into the war - virtually simultaneously with the Balfour Declaration - is too good to be coincidental. By June 1917, more than 175,000 American troops were already in France; by the end of the war more than two million Americans had been deployed in France. GERMAN Submarine Blockade OF BRITAIN Fails The Germans had hoped to starve Britain of raw materials and supplies by sinking as many ships going to that island as possible: in this aim they failed due to the development of depth charges and other submarine hunting devices; the deployment of convoys for shipping and the overwhelming industrial production lines of the United States which could turn out new ships far faster than what the Germans could hope to sink them.
In April 1918, the British, in an effort to end the submarine war, blocked the German submarine port at Zeebrugge in Belgium by deliberately sinking three aged British cruisers in the harbor entrance. Finally the war of attrition grew too high: the German submarine losses, in percentage terms, started to outstrip the Allied shipping losses, and the campaign was gradually abandoned. FAMOUS SPY - Mata Hari In 1917, a Dutch woman by name of Gertrud Margarete Zelle was arrested by the French police in Paris. At the time she was working as an erotic dancer using the stage name of Mata Hari. Apart from her professional life as a strip tease dancer, she was also a German spy. By entrapping a string of high ranking Allied officers (who she befriended at the club where she worked) into sexual relationships, she had been able to obtain many important military secrets for her masters. The name Mata Hari from then on became synonymous with a femme fatale: the original Mata Hari was executed in October 1917 by a French firing squad. French Mutiny ERUPTS AFTER ALLIED SETBACK In April and May 1917, the Allies launched their first major offensive of that year at Arras. The Germans saw the attack coming, and withdrew from the Aisne to a new position a short way back known as the Hindenburg line. The Allied attack then found itself forced to attack this heavily fortified and well prepared defensive position: although Canadian troops took a small series of hills known as Vimy Ridge and the main British forces advanced some six kilometers (four miles), this was the sum total of the Allied gains. A French attack in Champagne failed so atrociously that the French troops in the region mutinied - serious disorder broke out which had to be suppressed by military police and the replacement of the troops in that sector with much needed reserves from another sector. In June, a second Allied offensive went in: with the British launching an attempt to break the German lines at Flanders. After a preliminary battle at Messines, a three and a half month static battle took place at Ieper from July to November: despite both sides losing in excess of 250,000 men, neither line moved at all.
FIRST Mass Tank Attack In other sectors, the Allies made slight gains: a new battle at Verdun saw the French take back a small area of land; and in the end November 1917, Battle of Cambrai, the British deployed 400 tanks in the first mass tank attack of the war. The sheer weight of the offensive punched through the German lines at last, but a lack of reserves saw the attack peter out before it could be properly exploited. A German counter attack saw the eight kilometer hole in their lines quickly filled and the original front line was restored once again. The Russians Collapse WITH 1917 ABDICATION OF THE TSAR Suddenly, on the Eastern Front, things took a dramatic turn: after the Germans had let the Communist revolutionary Lenin and his cohorts enter Russia with the deliberate intention of letting him stir up trouble, a popular revolution in March 1917 saw the abdication of the Tsar and the establishment of a new provisional government in Moscow. However, much to Lenin's (and the Germans') anger, the new Russian government continued to participate in the war. In July, the Russians actually managed to make modest gains on the Galacian front, although an immediate German counter attack retook the lost areas and then pushed on to take the city of Riga and all of Latvia by October 1917.
Then in November 1917, the Communists seized power in a coup which finally saw Lenin come to power: on 20 November 1917, the Communists offered the Germans an armistice. In mid December, the treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed and all fighting ceased on the Eastern Front - Germany had won. The Germans had made spectacular territorial gains: virtually all of the Ukraine, Byelorussia and a large part of western Russia fell under German control in terms of the treaty. The occupying Germans were only expelled after their collapse in the West, over a year later. YET More Battles at the Isonzo On the southern front, the endless Battles of the Isonzo River continued. The Italian drives of 1917, which resulted in the 10th and 11th battles of the Isonzo, achieved nothing, breaking against the rock-solid German defense. Then in October, a renewed German-Austrian offensive at last succeeded in breaking the Italian line near the town of Caporetto and the first real gains of that campaign were made. The Italians suffered disastrously in this offensive: they lost 300,000 men as prisoners, and easily as many deserted. Concerned at the deteriorating situation, French and British troops were sent to bolster the Italian forces at their new position on the Piave River. Greece Enters the War AGAINST CENTRAL POWERS Finally, the stalemate in Greece came to an end with a formal invasion of the neutral part of that country by Allied troops in June 1917. The Greek king abdicated and the provisional government, recognized by the Allies alone, was installed over all of Greece, bringing all of that country formally into the war against the Central Powers. Lawrence of Arabia - ARAB REVOLT AGAINST TURKS After the initial British successes in the Middle East, 1917 saw them drive further north and attack the Turkish stronghold city of Gaza. The first two attacks on the city failed: but by November, other British gains in the region forced the Turks to evacuate the city. By December 1917, Jerusalem was taken by the British in an ironic re-enactment of the highpoint of the Crusades hundreds of years previously. 1917 also saw the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Turks on the Saudi-Arabian peninsula reach a climax, aided by the leadership of a British army officer named Colonel T. E. Lawrence, known as Lawrence of Arabia. The British also started rolling up other Turkish possessions in the Middle East: Baghdad fell, as did Ramadi on the Euphrates river and other important towns on the Tigris River. The net was closing on the Ottomans at last. Rumania Pulls Out Following the Russian collapse, Rumania threw in the towel: in May 1918, that country signed the Treaty of Bucharest which finally ended all sporadic resistance in that country and ceded important territories to Austro-Hungary and gave Germany a long term lease on Rumanian oil wells. Austro-Hungarian Collapse AFTER CRUSHING DEFEAT at Battle of Vittorio Veneto In September 1918, a combined Allied army of 700,000 men began an offensive in the Balkans against the south eastern reaches of the Austro-Hungarian empire in Serbia. The offensive was dramatically successful: by October, the Bulgarians were exhausted and surrendered, dropping out the war and their alliance with the Central Powers. Then the Allied armies advanced into Rumania: a new provisional government in that country then tore up the treaty of Bucharest and re-entered the war on the side of the Allies. In a matter of months, the Austro-German successes in the south east turned sour. Belgrade was captured by the Allies on 1 November, while a surprise Italian invasion captured Albania. On the Southern Front, a last Austrian offensive against the combined Italian, French and British emplacements along the Piave River in June 1918 was turned back; a failed offensive which cost 100,000 Austrian lives. As a result the combined Allied armies seized the initiative in Italy and at the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, fought from October to November 1918, the main Austrian army was destroyed, losing hundreds of thousands of prisoners and causing a general collapse, with thousands of demoralized soldiers streaming in a shambles back into Austria itself. On 3 November, the city of Trieste finally fell to the Allies - the objective since 1915 - followed by Fiume two days later. The scale of the defeats served as the signal for the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Already the Czechs and the Slovaks had declared themselves independent; in October, the South Slavs declared themselves independent and in November the Hungarians set up their own government. The Austrians and Hungarians then signed an armistice with the Allies on 3 November 1918, and the last Habsburg Emperor ever, Charles I, abdicated. The Austrian Republic was proclaimed. Turkish Collapse In September 1918, the British finally routed the last Turkish forces in Palestine and quickly marched on into Lebanon and Syria, with Damascus falling in October. The French occupied Beirut and then the Turkish government surrendered: an armistice was concluded at the end of October which obliged Turkey to demobilize, break off relations with the Central Powers and allow Allied ships to pass through the Dardanelles. Germans Launch Last Desperate Attack Within the space of a year, the Germans had gone from what seemed to be a complete victory to total isolation and the collapse of all of their allies. The German High Command then drew together its reserves for one last push on the Western Front, being able to bring in significant reserves from the now defunct Eastern Front. In March 1918, they launched what was to be one of their biggest attacks ever; it smashed the British lines at Arras and drove them back 65 kilometers (40 miles) before being halted early in April by a French counter attack. The Germans then renewed their offensive later in April, once again punching a further hole in the struggling British lines. In June a third attack, which took the French by surprise on the Aisne river, saw the Germans push to within 60 kilometers of Paris. The huge German gun, Big Bertha, made by the Krupp weapons factory, was then used to shell Paris, causing considerable anxiety in the French capital.
However, the Germans had left their offensive too late: by the time of the drive towards Paris, the first American troops had been deployed, and at the Battle of the Marne, before Paris, a combined French and fresh American force halted the German advance. By the middle of July, the German offensive had run out of steam. Its soldiers were exhausted; political unrest was brewing at home; they were low on rations and supplies; all these factors combined to make them easy prey to an Allied counter offensive. In July, the Allies drove the Germans back over the Marne, retaking the initiative which they were never to lose again for the rest of the war. ALLIED OFFENSIVE GAINS ADVANTAGE WITH FRESH AMERICAN TROOPS In August, a British attack at Amiens saw the German lines begin to crack; a renewed Allied offensive leading to the Second Battle of the Somme and the Fifth Battle of Arras, saw the Germans forced back to what was their very last defensive position, the Hindenburg line, once again.
In September, waves of fresh American troops captured 14,000 exhausted and virtually starving German troops at Saint-Mihiel, and then pushed on through the Argonne forest, breaking the German lines between Metz and Sedan. With this major defeat, the German government asked for an armistice in October 1918 - this attempt to end the war failed when the American president Woodrow Wilson insisted on negotiating only with a democratic German government. The British then pushed home an attack in Belgium and Northern France and early in November American and French forces reached Sedan. By early November, the Hindenburg line had been broken and the Germans were in disarray. Weimar Republic ESTABLISHED IN GERMANY In Germany, the combined effects of starvation due to the Allied blockade; the military defeats and war weariness created ideal ground for revolution. The Communists launched a massive agitation program, with the conditions of the time creating many receptive ears. Several localized Communist revolutions broke out: the German fleet mutinied; and an uprising dethroned the king of Bavaria. Minor democratic reforms were introduced and a limited election was held: the Social Democratic Party won the majority of votes. Its leader, Freiderich Ebert, became chancellor; in November the Kaiser, Wilhelm II, abdicated and went into exile in the Netherlands. The first elected German government sat in the town of Weimar: the republic which they proclaimed on 9 November 1918 became known by that name thereafter. WEIMAR REPUBLIC SURRENDERS, ACCEPTS VERSAILLES TREATY The Weimar government then sent a delegation to the Allies to seek an immediate end to the war, and an armistice was signed on 11 November 1918. By this time, German military defeat loomed in all sectors. However, because the western front line never penetrated Germany proper right to the end of the war, many German soldiers were later to bitterly accuse the Weimar politicians of having "stabbed them in the back" before any final military defeat dictated the need for a surrender. The Weimar government also took responsibility for the surrender in a war they had not been party to starting, and the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles which ended the war (which the Weimar politicians were forced to sign) made them even more unpopular and opened the way for a German nationalist revival which was later to be exploited by Adolf Hitler. German Fleet Scuttled In terms of the armistice, the remaining German fleet was surrendered to the Allies: all were interned at the British naval base of Scapa Flow in Scotland. The treaty of Versailles demanded that these ships all become the permanent property of the Allies. In protest, the German crews on the interned ships then scuttled their fleet in Scapa Flow. The Forgotten Wars - China, Africa and South East Asia The conflict in Europe and the Middle East is the best known part of the First World War: however, the "forgotten war" was fought out in the colonies, and included action in China, Africa and South East Asia. In August 1914, an Anglo-French force opened the war in the colonies by capturing Togoland from the Germans; the next month they captured the Cameroons. In September 1914, the White South Africans, officially allied to Britain, invaded German South West Africa with relative ease, but attempts to crush the German forces in German East Africa (modern Tanzania) were much more difficult. The first attack on the German forces in East Africa (who were under the remarkable leadership of General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck) by British and Indian troops was repulsed in November 1914. It was only one year later, that a combined British, South African and Portuguese army, placed under the leadership of former Boer War general Jan Smuts, managed to finally capture the main German East African towns. Lettow-Vorbeck was not captured: he and his troops retreated south in the colony, where they in 1917 invaded Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique) and in November 1918, they began an invasion of Rhodesia. The war in Africa was still raging when the armistice in Europe was signed: Lettow-Vorbeck himself only surrendered three days after the German surrender in Europe. GERMANY LOSES COLONIES IN PACIFIC In August 1914, New Zealand occupied the German colony in Samoa; while Australian forces occupied German possessions in the Bismarck Archipelago and New Guinea. The Japanese took the German held port of Shandong, China in November 1914, simultaneously taking the German-held Marshall Islands, the Mariana Islands, the Palau group of islands, and the Carolines. RACIAL Consequences of the War The First World War was a bloody, unnecessary and violent struggle which took the lives of over 8.4 million Whites over the space of the four years it was fought: a staggering average of 2 million per year. Deaths as a result of World War One, by Country
France was particularly badly hit: much of the war was fought on its territory and the population went into severe decline: the French government then opened up its borders to North African and Black African immigration to fill up its numbers. Britain, although weakened, came off the lightest of the Western European powers: her losses, both in material and human terms, were amongst the lowest in Europe, and the British Empire even expanded in size as a result of the annexation of German territories. The United States of America played a key role in deciding the war: the arrival of fresh, well armed and massive amounts of troops and material played a major role in stopping the final German attack and rolling up the German armies at the end of the war.
The war also saw the final death of the Ottoman Empire which had so long dominated the Middle East. A whole new can of worms was to be opened for the British who found themselves trying to appease both World Zionism and Arab demands for self rule in Palestine: eventually the British would end up fighting a vicious terrorist war against Jewish nationalists in the region. Russia ended the war in the grip of a Communist revolution and a civil war which would only end in 1924. The country had been devastated by years of misrule prior to the war, and suffered huge human and material losses as a result. It would be years before any semblance of stability was restored. Germany was devastated, although the war had never actually reached its territory (apart from the initial Russian excursion into East Prussia). Racked by rebellion and revolution, the Weimar Republic in Germany was doomed to failure: economic collapse followed and was aggravated by the huge reparations which the country was forced to pay to the victors of the war. Germany was held to blame for the war: this was unjust, as the Germans were no more to blame for the war than any of the other European powers: all were short sighted and bloody minded enough to allow all the continent to descend into a madness which provided the mainspring for, yet, another Europe wide-conflict twenty years later. All material (c) copyright Ostara Publications, 1999. Re-use for commercial purposes strictly forbidden. |
