First World War Diplomacy
The ideas of Woodrow Wilson and Lenin
Although many countries in Europe, prior to the emergence of
hostilities in July 1914, had featured a profound ideological and
political rivalry between conservatively inclined "parties of
order" and liberalist and socialist "parties of movement" once it became evident that war
had irrupted it happened that societies seemed to "gel" in
support of the defence of the state. There were widespread
effective declarations of a "civil truce" within each of the contending
countries of Europe accompanied by the reformist parties agreeing
not to press their domestic case and effectively recognising that
the "parties of order" (who in any case tended to have closer
links with the military traditions of the state) should be
entrusted with arranging for the states participation in the
emergent conflict.
Arising out of these developments it followed that the way was
open for the diplomatic arrangements entered into by the
governments of the respective combatants in framing their war
policy and aims to include many provisions that were consistent
with the traditions of "Balance of Power" diplomacy. That is to
say that the members of each alliance could contract - between
themselves - to recognise each others claims upon the territory
and wealth of adversary states should their own alliance prove
"victorious".
There was a very long tradition in Europe whereby states that
were deemed to have "won" wars were recognised as being entitled
to annexe territories from and / or demand indemnities from
states that were deemed to have "lost" wars. Said recognised
entitlements however often being moderated by considerations of
preserving the European "Balance of Power" and of not leaving
defeated states with a pronounced feeling of grieviance in
relation to lost territories or over-burdensome
indemnities.
At the onset of hostilities in July 1914 the "Central Powers"
- Imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary - were immediately at war
with Belgium (due to Imperial German invasion), Serbia (due to an
Austro-Hungarian declaration of war), France and Russia (Russia
being simultaneously a protector of Serbia and a full treaty ally
of France). The Imperial German invasion of Belgium was followed
by Britain, as a treaty guarantor of Belgian neutrality, deciding
to enter into the conflict as an ally of France and Russia.
Members of the contending blocs tended to repectively frame "war aims" which
defined what they hoped to achieve at the end of the hostilities.
By September 1914 the German Chancellor (Prime Minister) Bethmann-Hollweg seems to have intended
that in order to guarantee German security both France and Russia were to be broken
as great powers, Belgium was to become a vassal state and post-war Germany was to be the
guiding power in an extensive European economic association of states.
In November 1914 the British
Prime Minister Herbert Asquith declared in a speech that:-
"We shall never
sheathe the sword, which we have not lightly drawn, until Belgium receives in full measure
all and more than she has sacrificed, until France is adequately secured against the menace of
agression, until the rights of smaller nationalities of Europe are placed upon an unassailable
foundation, and until the military might of Prussia is wholly and finally destroyed."
These aims, as respectively framed by the German and British establishments, are clearly contradictory
in nature. The French, Russians, Belgians, Serbians and other powers also devised aims which, for
them, were seen as being of the greatest relevance to their own futures as states.
In terms of International politics the
way was open for the contending parties to seek to secure
further adherents to their respective causes by offering to
support their own annexation of territories or other significant gains at the end of a
victorious war.
A Treaty of London concluded early in 1915, for example,
contained assurances to the Kingdom of Italy (which now joined
the Franco-Russian-British alliance) that it would gain some
"Italia Irredenta" - hitherto unredeemed Italy - and other
territories at the expense of Austria-Hungary.
As Ottoman Turkey had sided with the Central Powers another
example of such wartime diplomatic arrangements saw Britain and
France agreeing to Russia gaining control of the ancient and
strategic city of Constantinople (then the Ottoman capital) and
also of the long series of narrow straits and sea-ways that
linked the Black Sea with the Mediterranean. Constantinople was
an historic source of Orthodox civilization and the Bosphorous -
Sea of Marmora - Dardanelles Straits were an absolutely vital
warm water route through which Russian trade flowed. A route
moreover that had been very much open to being closed off by the
Ottoman Empire at any time of crisis with Imperial Russia.
Within the Central Powers meanwhile similar plans were being
laid for mass annexations of territory by Imperial Germany,
Austria-Hungary and also such powers as could be encouraged to
join with their war effort. The "Parties of Movement" within the
contending powers were still effectively entrusting the direction
of the state to the "Parties of Order" and it was left to tiny
minority liberal and socialist interests within several European
states and also to International Socialism to impotently protest
about any perceived injustice. Said perceptions being limited by
the fact that these treaty arrangements, although often the
subject of rumour, were effectively secret arrangements.
Some of these arrangements proved to be of enduring influence
e.g. the Sykes-Picot Agreement of May 1916 where Britain and
France, with the assent of Russia, agreed that each should
embark, after the war, on a period of administration of extensive
areas of the middle east that were then under the rule of the Turkish-Ottoman Empire.
It is not necessary to go beyond merely
outlining the nature of these arrangments entered into because
things did not go to plan.
The military technologies of the day (the machine gun and
barbed wire entanglements) facilitated a defence that was usually
sufficient to dissipate the effectiveness of any attempted attack
across no-man's-land made by uniformed Human Beings bearing light
arms.
In 1916-7 in a period of on-going military stalemate on the
western front (where the predominantly French and British forces
opposed those of Imperial Germany) there were truly grievious
levels of mutual attrition which allowed voices to begin to be
more widely raised calling for the securing of a "just peace"
rather than the continuance of an appalling war in pursuit of
sweeping territorial objectives.
On the eastern front Russian
armies suffered particularly high casualty rates. The Tsar
"Father of the Russian People" had taken personal command of the
Russian armies from September 1915 without this leading to any
improvement in the situation and also leaving the way open for a
full association of Tsardom itself with any future military
failure.
There were several other causes of dissention within Russia
not least the way in which the Tsarina (who was by birth a German
Duchess and who exercised many govermental powers) seemed to be
under the influence of a dissolute holy man named Rasputin. In
early March 1917 there were a series of revolutions arising out of
bread shortages and workers strikes in several Russian cities
that contributed to a swift undermining of Tsardom and Tsarist
rule. The Russian Duma (parliament) opted to ignore orders of
March 11 for its dissolution made by the Tsar and the next day
elected an Executive Commitee of Duma members that was intended
to assume dictatorial powers as a Provisional Government.
The Duma had been based in Petrograd's Tauride Palace and the
new would-be government opted to continue its proceedings from
this same location. It happened however that leftist political
interests also established a Soviet (council) of Soldiers and
Workers Deputies in another wing of the palace. The Soviet
thereafter increasingly vied with the Provisional Government for
influence and power - On March 14 it issued its Order No. 1
which requested military units in the Petrograd area to elect
deputies to the Soviet and to only obey the orders of the
Provisional Government if these did not conflict with the orders
of the Soviet.
On March 16 the Provisional Government indicated that it
intended that Russia would continue to participate in the war in
alliance with the western powers. This was largely accepted by
Russian society generally at a time when "Central Power" armies
were occupying many traditionally Russian territories.
The United States of America had hitherto not become actually
involved in the wars. Its President Woodrow Wilson had, on
several occasions, attempted to mediate between the belligerent
powers. One such effort being that of asking them, on 18
December 1916, to state the terms under which they would deem it
possible to make peace. In a major speech to the U.S. Senate of
22 January 1917 President Wilson stated that in future.
There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of
power; not organized rivalries, but an organized common
peace.
To quote a substantial section of this speech more
fully:-
... it must be a peace without victory. It is not pleasant to
say this. I beg that I may be permitted to put my own
interpretation upon it and that it may be understood that no
other interpretation was in my thought. I am seeking only to face
realities and to face them without soft concealments. Victory
would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor's terms imposed
upon the vanquished. It would be accepted in humiliation, under
duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, and would leave a sting, a
resentment, a bitter memory upon which terms of peace would rest,
not permanently, but only as upon quicksand. Only a peace between
equals can last, only a peace the very principle of which is
equality and a common participation in a common benefit. The
right state of mind, the right feeling between nations, is as
necessary for a lasting peace as is the just settlement of vexed
questions of territory or of racial and national
allegiance.
The equality of nations upon which peace must be founded if it
is to last must be an equality of rights; the guarantees
exchanged must neither recognize nor imply a difference between
big nations and small, between those that are powerful and those
that are weak. Right must be based upon the common strength, not
upon the individual strength, of the nations upon whose concert
peace will depend. Equality of territory or of resources there of
course cannot be; nor any other sort of equality not gained in
the ordinary peaceful and legitimate development of the peoples
themselves. But no one asks or expects anything more than an
equality of rights. Mankind is looking now for freedom of life,
not for equipoises of power.
And there is a deeper thing involved than even equality of
right among organized nations. No peace can last, or ought to
last, which does not recognize and accept the principle that
governments derive all their just powers from the consent of the
governed, and that no right anywhere exists to hand peoples about
from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property. I take
it for granted, for instance, if I may venture upon a single
example, that statesmen everywhere are agreed that there should
be a united, independent, and autonomous Poland, and that
henceforth inviolable security of life, of worship, and of
industrial and social development should be guaranteed to all
peoples who have lived hitherto under the power of governments
devoted to a faith and purpose hostile to their own.
I speak of this, not because of any desire to exalt an
abstract political principle which has always been held very dear
by those who have sought to build up liberty in America, but for
the same reason that I have spoken of the other conditions of
peace which seem to me clearly indispensable -- because I wish
frankly to uncover realities. Any peace which does not recognize
and accept this principle will inevitably be upset. It will not
rest upon the affections or the convictions of mankind. The
ferment of spirit of whole populations will fight subtly and
constantly against it, and all the world will sympathize. The
world can be at peace only if its life is stable, and there can
be no stability where the will is in rebellion, where there is
not tranquility of spirit and a sense of justice, of freedom, and
of right.
The United States had on several occasion protested to the
Imperial German Government about its policy of authorising
submarines to sink merchant ships. Following such protests such
sinkings were discontinued for a time but a renewal of an
unrestricted submarine warfare early in 1917, (with the view of starving Britain into submission),
caused President Wilson to seek the consent of the United States Congess, in an
extraordinary session of 2 April, 1917, for the United states
entry into the wars against the "Central Powers".
To quote some brief excerpts from President Wilson's speech on
this occasion:-
I have called the Congress into extraordinary session because
there are serious, very serious, choices of policy to be made,
and made immediately, which it was neither right nor
constitutionally permissible that I should assume the
responsibility of making.
On the third of February last I officially laid before you the
extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German Government that
on and after the first day of February it was its purpose to put
aside all restraints of law or of humanity and use its submarines
to sink every vessel that sought to approach either the ports of
Great Britain and Ireland or the western coasts of Europe or any
of the ports controlled by the enemies of Germany within the
Mediterranean. That had seemed to be the object of the German
submarine warfare earlier in the war, but since April of last
year the Imperial Government had somewhat restrained the
commanders of its undersea craft in conformity with its promise
then given to us that passenger boats should not be sunk
....
....When I addressed the Congress on the twenty-sixth of
February last I thought that it would suffice to assert our
neutral rights with arms, our right to use the seas against
unlawful interference, our right to keep our people safe against
unlawful violence. But armed neutrality, it now appears, is
impracticable. Because submarines are in effect outlaws when used
as the German submarines have been used against merchant shipping
...
.... With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical
character of the step I am taking and of the grave
responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience
to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress
declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be
in fact nothing less than war against the government and people
of the United States; that it formally accept the status of
belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it, and that it take
immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough
state of defense but also to exert all its power and employ all
its resources to bring the Government of the German Empire to
terms and end the war ...
.... We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no
feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was
not upon their impulse that their government acted in entering
this war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval.
It was a war determined upon as wars used to be determined upon
in the old, unhappy days when peoples were nowhere consulted by
their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of
dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were
accustomed to use their fellow men as pawns and tools ...
.... Does not every American feel that assurance has been
added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the
wonderful and heartening things that have been happening within
the last few weeks in Russia? Russia was known by those who knew
it best to have been always in fact democratic at heart, in all
the vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate
relationships of her people that spoke their natural instinct,
their habitual attitude towards life. The autocracy that crowned
the summit of her political structure, long as it had stood and
terrible as was the reality of its power, was not in fact Russian
in origin, character, or purpose; and now it has been shaken off
and the great, generous Russian people have been added in all
their naive majesty and might to the forces that are fighting for
freedom in the world, for justice, and for peace. Here is a fit
partner for a League of Honor.
One of the things that has served to convince us that the
Prussian autocracy was not and could never be our friend is that
from the very outset of the present war it has filled our
unsuspecting communities and even our offices of government with
spies and set criminal intrigues everywhere afoot against our
national unity of counsel, our peace within and without, our
industries and our commerce. Indeed it is now evident that its
spies were here even before the war began; and it is unhappily
not a matter of conjecture but a fact proved in our courts of
justice that the intrigues which have more than once come
perilously near to disturbing the peace and dislocating the
industries of the country have been carried on at the
instigation, with the support, and even under the personal
direction of official agents of the Imperial Government
accredited to the Government of the United States. Even in
checking these things and trying to extirpate them we have sought
to put the most generous interpretation possible upon them
because we knew that their source lay, not in any hostile feeling
or purpose of the German people towards us (who were, no doubt,
as ignorant of them as we ourselves were), but only in the
selfish designs of a Government that did what it pleased and told
its people nothing. But they have played their part in serving to
convince us at last that that Government entertains no real
friendship for us and means to act against our peace and security
at its convenience. That it means to stir up enemies against us
at our very doors the intercepted note to the German Minister at
Mexico City (i.e. the Zimmermann Telegram) is eloquent evidence.
We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because we
know that in such a Government, following such methods, we can
never have a friend; and that in the presence of its organized
power, always lying in wait to accomplish we know not what
purpose, there can be no assured security for the democratic
Governments of the world. We are now about to accept gauge of
battle with this natural foe to liberty and shall, if necessary,
spend the whole force of the nation to check and nullify its
pretensions and its power. We are glad, now that we see the facts
with no veil of false pretense about them to fight thus for the
ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its
peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations
great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose
their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe
for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested
foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to
serve.
We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for
ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall
freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of
mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made
as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them.
Just because we fight without rancor and without selfish object,
seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share
with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our
operations as belligerents without passion and ourselves observe
with proud punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we
profess to be fighting for.
Although the United States now entered into the wars it was
made plain that she did so as an "Associated" rather than an
"Allied" power. This distinction being based on President
Wilson's distaste for the secret diplomacy, and ambitious
territorial re-arrangements, to which the British, French,
Russians, Italians and others had committed themselves by
Treaty.
On April 11, the Petrograd Soviet proclaimed a "defensive
war"; it opposed any territorial annexations (i.e. both by Russia
or any other belligerent power).
The Germans at in these times were contemplating how they
might further divide and dissipate Russian participation in the
war by arranging for the repatriation of recognised political
radicals who had gone into exile from Tsarist Russia. Over
several weeks they facilitated the repatriation of several
hundred such political radicals including one Vladimir Ilyich
Ulyanov a "Bolshevik" (revolutionary Marxist) who had adopted the
revolutionary name of Lenin. Lenin was already involved with the
so-called Zimmerwald Movement which called on workers everywhere
to oppose the war and end it by revolting against their bourgeois
governments. When he arrived at Petrograd's Finland station on
16 April he made several fiery speeches outlining his policies
and shortly thereafter published his "April Theses" which
proclaimed that:-
(a) Russia was already in transition from a
bourgeois-capitalist revolution to a socialist revolution.
(b) the Bolsheviks must not support the government, but
constantly criticize it;
(c) they must call for "all power to the Soviets," and;
(d) they must work to achieve majorities in the Soviets.
Lenin's slogans of: "Bread, Land, and Peace," and "All Power
to the Soviets," were popular with the war-weary Russian
masses.
On 15 May the Petrograd Soviet issued a "Peace Formula"
which called for a "Peace without annexations or indemnities,
on the basis of the self-determination of peoples". It may
have been the case that the Petrograd Soviet was a power focus of
undecided magnitude within the Russia of the day but politicians
at home and abroad could not but take into account the strength
of support for pre-war domestic "Parties of Movement" together
with the added effects of a general social dislocation and war
weariness in making estimates as to how much weight to give to
the Petrograd Peace Formula (given that it quite possibly would
be taken up by International Socialism) in their counsels.
The stage was now effective set for a most critical "battle
for hearts and minds" in a Europe and the wider world where
"millions of bayonets were in search of a progressive idea".
Across Europe millions of people were looking for peace, for a
peace with justice. The existing governments increasingly
recognised that old style "Balance of Power" diplomacy and "War
Aims" did not enjoy the support of wide sections of their own
populations and, importantly, did not enjoy the support of the
United States as a formidable new entrant into the
conflict.
Alongside such direct misfortunes as injuries, mortalities,
and economic dislocation as wars visit upon any involved people
the "Central Powers" position was also very critically impaired by the effects of
a trading blockade maintained by their adversaries which further
contributed to dire shortages of food, clothing and fuel.
The traditionally powerful Social Democrat interest in Germany
was faced, since the fall of Tsarism, with the reality that it
now operated in the least constitutionally democratic state in
Europe. There was an Electoral System operating in the German
Empire which dated from before 1870 and which placed effective
power in the hands of the Kaiser and his Chancellor rather than
with the people represented in the Reichstag (parliament).
Russia had democratised, President Wilson had condemned the
Prussian Autocracy (i.e. the Kaiser) rather than the German
people. It seemed imperative to many, both progressives and
conservatives, in Germany that constitutional reform was
necessary to ensure the continued identification of all sections
of society with the state and also necessary to the eventual
agreement of a peace. Socialist progressives meanwhile were
increasingly inclined to call for the adoption of a limited
programme of war aims as this would be a surer road to
peace.
In Austria-Hungary the traditional ethnic dissentions within a
markedly multi-national Empire-Kingdom allowed many Slav soldiers
to desert or to consent to being captured with some of these
electing to join "Legions" within the Russian Army. The
Imperial-Royal authorities were greatly fearful of a
revolutionary decay of their Dual Monarchy should the wars be
long continued.
A relatively liberal Peace Resolution that had been drafted by
a steering committee was placed before the consideration of the
Imperial German Reichstag on 19 July 1917 and was passed by 212
votes to 126 with 17 abstentions. This result signalled something
of a curtailment of the Political Truce within Imperial Germany
as those in favour included the Social Democrats, the
(predominantly Catholic) Center Party and some Progressives and
those opposed included those who were the firmest supporters of
the German High Command that had been in effective control of
Imperial German policy for many months.
The Peace Resolution insisted that Imperial Germany was
fighting a war of self defence and stated that:-
... The Reichstag strives for a peace of understanding and
the permanent reconciliation of the peoples. With such a peace
forced acquisitions of territory and political, economic, or
financial oppressions are inconsistent. The Reichstag also
rejects all schemes which aim at economic barriers and hostility
between the peoples after the war. The freedom of the seas must
be made secure. Only economic peace will prepare the ground for a
friendly intercourse between the nations..."
In October 1917 a Bolshevik Revolution occured in Russia which
was followed by something of a withdrawal of Russian
participation in the wars - there was a spate of mass desertion
from the Russian armies. Governments in other European states had
reason to consider how this withdrawal, if fully confirmed, would
tend affect the conflict on the western front. They also had
reason to deliberate upon that more revolutionary Bolshevik
policy line whereby the International Working Class was to avail
of its opportunities to exploit the unsettled situation by
turning their arms on the Capitalist oppressors in the interests
of International Socialism.
On January 8 1918 President Wilson, in an address to the
U.S. Congress, outlined a fourteen point Peace Programme that called for such things as:-
Open covenants of peace openly arrived at
Freedom of the seas
Removal of barriers to trade
Reductions in armaments
Adjustment of colonial claims
The evacuation of Russian territory
The evacuation of Belgian territory
The freedom of France / return of Alsace-Lorraine
The adjustment of Italian frontiers along lines of
nationality
Autonomous development to be allowed for the peoples of
Austria-Hungary
Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated and Serbia
allowed free access to the sea.
The Turkish portions of the Ottoman Empire to be assured a
secure sovereignty with subject nationalities being allowed
autonomous development.
An independent Polish State with access to the sea.
A general association of nations must be formed
Although the suggestions for reform that are also contained in this speech do
exhibit some ambiguities, inconsistencies, and
impracticalities given the realities of the situation in eastern and central
Europe in particular the high principles enunciated by President Wilson in this
speech markedly set a headline for the diplomacy of the day. Wilson's fouteen points became widely
influential in terms of crystallising people's aspirations
for a just end to the ongoing conflict. Wilson was widely praised and came to effectively seize the
moral initiative in relation to most of the western world's hopes for the future.
The enthusiastic reception given to his fouteen-point program encouraged President Wilson to follow up with
a a number of speeches that further outlined Principles and Particulars towards a post war settlement. A key
principle endorsed by Wilson in these speeches was that of "self-determination" where peoples should be regarded as
being entitled to form their own nations if they so determined. In practical terms, given the level
of war weariness and disenchantment, this tended to further dissolve the ties of several constituent peoples of
Austro-Hungary with the tradition of Habsburg dynastic statehood.
In Spring 1918 it became clear that Austria-Hungary was most
reluctant to make a separate peace. Wilson now endorsed the
Czechoslovak, Polish and Yugoslav separatist movements, as
concerns for the stability and preservation of the Dual Monarchy were
sacrificed to other considerations.
The departure of Bolshevik Russia from the wars and the
Bolshevik's signing of a truly penal peace treaty of
Brest-Litovsk, (In signing the peace of Brest-Litovsk at a time
when the Petrograd based revolution was in imminent danger of
being overwhelmed by a Central Power advance Lenin and Trotsky
seemed to expect that a spate of Bolshevik Revolutions would take
place widely in Europe allowing the provisions of Brest-Litovsk
to be undone), allowed the central Powers to concentrate their
entire efforts on the western front at a time when the forces of
the United States were only just on the point of being significantly
present in Europe but needed weeks of final training and organisation
before active deployment.
The German armies deployed on the western front made significant advances after March 1918
such that the British and French both
had serious worries about being militarily defeated. These worries continued, at the highest levels, well into
July 1918 even prompting the British to unprecentedly offer to place their armies under the overall command
of a French general in
the hope that this would secure a more effective approach towards addressing the serious military situation.
It happened however that the morale, and
discipline, of the German armies was undergoing a significant decay. Soldiers who were themselves
existing on meagre rations were becoming more aware of the semi-starvation being endured in most German homes.
They had been told that the submarine campaign was causing starvation in the Allied countries too but the extent of
the stores that they found during their recent significant advances gave the lie to these assertions.
They were losing faith in their leaders who had as yet to find an adequate response to the recently developed
"tanks" (so-called because they had been labelled as "water tanks" in order to divert discovery
during transit to the front) that
had recently made a formidable entry to the battles. Hundreds of thousands of German soldiers were in fact
recently released prisoners from Russian captivity after Brest-Litovsk and tended to feel that they
had already done their share of fighting. The Imperial German armies were not functioning evenly in that that
Empire was in fact of recent origin being a somewhat federal structure with a Prussian core but with other
historic German components;
whilst units of Prussian origin tended to be fairly committed those units drawn from other historic German
Heimats or provincial lands tended in cases to resent the Prussian miltary traditions that they could
blame for involving them
in the terrible wars. The soldiers were also aware that the offensive of March 1918 had been something of
a last gasp vastly expensive of lives and resources and that American forces, in truly formidable numbers,
were in the process of being introduced into the combat. Given these and other causes of discontent socialist
revolutionism, communist inspired pacifism, and general disillusionment had begun to take a serious hold.
By July 1918
the American presence and preparedness was such as to allow for the participation of a distinct
contributuion of an American army to the contest. It happened that, largely through the effective use of tanks,
the Allied and Associated forces were able
to force unprecendented gains of territory after August 1918 where the demoralisation and disillusion that were
increasingly widespread amongst the German soldiery caused markedly less resolution to be shown in defence and
where there were even cases of mass surrender or unusually prompt retreat.
The German High Command eventually
decided, after August 1918, that the war could not be "won". In September the Bulgarians, allies of the
Central Powers, sought separate peace terms after receiving reverses at the hands of mixed Serbian, British
and French force. It also became apparent the Austria-Hungary was seeking peace terms. Given the collapse in
the overall position of the Central Powers as combatants Ludendorff
and Hindenburg, who had hitherto effectively been "military dictators" responsible for organising Germany's
participation
in the wars, became persuaded that an armistice, or suspension of active hostitliies, must be sought. In order to
facilitate such an armistice they therefore supported the formation of a "liberal" administration with a
Prince Max of Baden, a cousin of the Kaiser, being settled upon as a suitable "liberal" Chancellor
and being offered this post in early October.
After being briefed on the critical military situation, and on the
possibility of domestic socialist revolution in Germany, Prince
Max (7 October via Swiss channels) sounded out President
Wilson about the possibility of a peace agreement based upon his
fourteen points. It would seem that this sounding out was done in
the hope that the Americans would sponsor a less punishing peace
settlement than the British and the French. During the negotiations leading up to
an armistice being accepted by both sides Wilson pressed the Germans to surrender some of their military
capability such that they would find it difficult to renew the combat. Given the moral ascendency he then enjoyed,
(and the suggestion that the United States might make a separate peace with Germany), President Wilson was also
able press the French and British to accept that his fourteen-point programme was to substantially provide the
basic outline of the future peace settlement. The Allied and Associated powers insisted on dealing with genuinely
constitutional representatives who were the real masters of Germany - effectively insisting upon
the abdication of the Kaiser and the resignation of Ludendorff and Hindenburg. In the event an
armistice was agreed to take effect on the eleventh hour of the
eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918.
Inside the Habsburg Empire, national independence movements
had proceeded on their own, without obligation to Wilson or the
Allies. Czech, Polish and Croatian National Councils organized
new state structures. In Czechoslovakia and Poland, new regimes
had to be built from scratch, but in the Balkans the existing
Romanian and Serbian governments soon stepped in. After Romania
re-entered the war and occupied Transylvania, local leaders there
arranged union with Romania. Something similar happened in
Bessarabia.
A National Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs met in Zagreb
and called for the unification of all the South Slavs in the
Habsburg lands. The Croatian Sabor combined with the National
Council. Fearful of Italian territorial aspirations, the National
Council then pledged allegiance to Serbia. In this manner a
unified Yugoslav state came into existence before formal peace
talks began.
The Paris Peace Conference began in January 1919, the initial proceedings of the conference were largely
shaped by American, French, British, Italian
and also Japanese interests. A large number of variously qualified delegates meanwhile tended to make representations
urging the consideration of claims to "self-determination of peoples." Established states, and states
in the process of establishment, also tended to make what could only be competing claims as to the extent of their
national territories. The Paris Peace Conference dragged
on for more than a year operating as an arena for competing
forces: Wilson's Fourteen Points, Leninism, the old-style
diplomatic demands of the European allies, and the state-building demands of the new national
regimes created on the ground. Some concern was also expressed for the position of minority populations in
the new and modified states of post-war Europe.
Several peace treaties were eventually arrived at by this Paris Peace Conference. The
treaty with Germany itself - the Treaty of Versailles - included an explicit clause where Germany had to
take upon itself blame for the irruption of the war in 1914. Although several states had each contributed,
in varying degrees, to the series of misjudgements that had brought about the outbreak of hostilities this
clause, deeply resented by German opinion, was necessary in order to allow other states to claim vast
sums by way of reparation payments from post-war Germany under international laws.
Wilson's "Democratic" administration was, in terms of U.S.
domestic political realities, an anomaly which had only occurred
as a result of a split within the traditionally preponderant
"Republican" interest. Rivalries between Democrats and
Republicans, (although the Republican interest in the United States had been generally supportive of the
war effort Wilson caused great offence to said Republican interest by effectively
ignoring it as potential contributor of worthwhile advice in
selecting representatives
to attend the Peace Conference!!!),
and opposition from liberal and diverse
European-American interests denied the attainment of the
two-thirds majority in the U.S. Congress necessary to the formal
acceptance of U.S. participation in the League of the League of
Nations that was supposed to act to inhibit future conflicts.
Germany was excluded from the League as being the officially
perceived instigator of the recent ruinous wars and Russia was
excluded because of the large amount of power held by Lenin's
Bolshevik party which was fully committed to the
revolutionary establishment of Communism at home and
abroad.
Although the recent state of general war had been suspended by way of armistice, a state not
necessarily implying the victory of either side, the very real distress caused to the civilian populations
within Germany and Austria by the blockade tended towards allowing the Allies to feel that they had prevailed.
In defining the peace terms the Italian interest was disappointed in not receiving all the additions of
territory (e.g. Fiume and the Dalmatian coast) to which it felt entitled under the (now somewhat discredited)
"secret" Treaty of London. This disappointment however was not in the same category as the acute despair
felt by the German interest who found themselves faced with sweeping losses of territory, deep restrictions on future
military establishments, and with the requirement to pay truly prodigious sums by way of war reparations.
The French, who had seen much of their country being occupied by German armies in 1870-1 and again
between 1914-8 were particularly anxious to see that close restrictions being placed on future German military
capacity.
Given the dramatic re-organisation associated with the fragmentation of the former European multinational
states and the newly recognised legitimacy of the "self-determination of peoples" it was deemed that European
security should no longer be seen as a matter of preserving a "Balance of Power" but should now be organised as
a system of "Collective Security" where a "League of Nations" would endeavour to resolve disputes peaceably with
the possible imposition of trading sanctions as a deterrent to disruptive activities. It should also be recognised
that the recent Great War was seen by many as having been an outcome of the former "Balance of Power" system in that
power blocs that were poised in an armed rivalry had blundered into a situation where that rivalry had become active
with immense loss of life, injury, and destruction resulting.
In these times Russian political life featured an outbreak of civil war between the anti-communist
"whites" and the Bolshevik "reds". There was also some western, and Japanese, intervention in support of the
whites for several months. These turmoils, and the post-war weakness of Germany and Austria facilitated the
re-emergence of Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia as independent states largely at the expense of the
former Russian Empire.
A dire post-war slump, and also indignation with the terms of
the Peace, facilitated the growth of Communist,
National-Socialist, and Nationalist, political movements in
several countries. As Communism was deeply repudiated by Fascists
and National-Socialists events developed such that one Benito
Mussolini leader of Italian Fascism (National Socialism) became
Prime Minister of Italy in late October 1922 in the wake of a
so-called "March on Rome" by his supporters.
National Socialism made only limited headway in German
politics until after 1929 when the Wall Street Crash and its
aftermath crippled international trade. The German economy was
particularly vulnerable being concentrated upon export industries
and also being supported by American capital that now tended to
be withdrawn as a result of the Great Crash. Mass unemployment
and misery ensued and people who had had little enough confidence
in the democratic parties of the German Republic variously looked
to the Communists and to the Nazi's (i.e. to Adolf Hitler's National
Socialist German Workers Party) as potential champions of
their cause. Despite a fall in support for National Socialism in
elections of November 1932 Hitler was able, in these unsettled
times, to secure the post of Chancellor of the German Republic, a
Nazi subversion of the state ensued.