| Governments, troops, and civilians were weary as World
War I continued through 1917. Shortly after the United States entered the
war, Germany made its final military gamble on the Western Front and lost.
The war finally ended on November 11, 1918. The peace treaties were particularly
harsh on Germany. New nations were formed, and a League of Nations was
created to resolve future international disputes.
The Last Year of the War
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The new German republic and the Allies signed an armistice,
ending the war on November 11, 1918.
The year 1917 had not been a good one for the Allies. Allied
offensives on the Western Front had been badly defeated. The Russian Revolution,
which began in November 1917, led to Russia’s withdrawal from the war a
few months later. The cause of the Central Powers looked favorable, although
war weariness was beginning to take its toll.
On the positive side, the entry of the United States into
the war in 1917 gave the Allies a much-needed psychological boost. The
United States also provided fresh troops and material. In 1918, American
troops would prove crucial.
A New German Offensive
For Germany, the withdrawal of the Russians offered new
hope for a successful end to the war. Germany was now free to concentrate
entirely on the Western Front. Erich Ludendorff, who guided German
military operations, decided to make one final military gamble—a grand
offensive in the west to break the military stalemate. In fact, the last
of Germany’s strength went into making this one great blow. The divisions
were running low on provisions, reserves of soldiers were nearly depleted,
and the German home front was tired of the war.
The German attack was launched in March 1918. By April,
German troops were within about 50 miles (80 km) of Paris. However, the
German advance was stopped at the Second Battle of the Marne on July 18.
French, Moroccan, and American troops (140,000 fresh American troops had
just arrived), supported by hundreds of tanks, threw the Germans back over
the Marne. On August 8, the forces met at the Second Battle of the Somme.
Ludendorff wrote of this battle:
“August 8 was the black day of the German army in the
history of this war.” Ludendorff admitted that his gamble had failed:
“The 8th of August put
the decline of [our] fighting power beyond all doubt, and in such a situation
as regards reserves, I had no hope of finding a strategic expedient whereby
to turn the situation to our advantage.”
— Erich Ludendorff,
in The Great War, Correlli Barnett, 1980
A million American troops poured into France, and
the Allies began an advance toward Germany. On September 29, 1918, General
Ludendorff told German leaders that the war was lost. He demanded the government
ask for peace at once.
Collapse and Armistice
German officials soon found that the Allies were unwilling
to make peace with the autocratic imperial government of Germany. Reforms
for a liberal government came too late for the tired, angry German people.
On November 3, 1918, sailors in the northern German town of Kiel
mutinied.
Within days, councils of workers and soldiers formed throughout
northern Germany and took over civilian and military offices. Emperor William
II gave in to public pressure and left the country on November 9. After
William II’s departure, the Social Democrats under Friedrich Ebert
announced the creation of a democratic republic. Two days later, on November
11, 1918, the new German government signed an armistice (a
truce, an agreement to end the fighting).
Revolutionary Forces
The war was over, but the revolutionary forces set in
motion in Germany were not yet exhausted. A group of radical socialists,
unhappy with the Social Democrats’ moderate policies, formed the German
Communist Party in December 1918. A month later, the Communists tried to
seize power in Berlin.
The new Social Democratic government, backed by regular
army troops, crushed the rebels and murdered Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht
(LEEP•KNEHKT), leaders of the German Communists. A similar attempt at Communist
revolution in the city of Munich, in southern Germany, was also crushed.
The new German republic had been saved. The attempt at
revolution, however, left the German middle class with a deep fear of communism.
Austria-Hungary, too, experienced disintegration and revolution.
As war weariness took hold of the empire, ethnic groups increasingly sought
to achieve their independence. By the time World War I ended, the Austro-Hungarian
Empire had ceased to exist.
The empire had been replaced by the independent republics
of Austria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, along with the large monarchical
state called Yugoslavia. Rivalries among the nations that succeeded Austria-Hungary
would weaken eastern Europe for the next 80 years.
What happened within Germany
after the armistice?
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The Peace Settlements
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The Treaty of Versailles punished Germany, established new
nations, and created a League of Nations to solve international problems.
In January 1919, representatives of 27 victorious Allied
nations met in Paris to make a final settlement of World War I.
Over a period of years, the reasons for fighting World
War I had changed dramatically. When European nations had gone to war in
1914, they sought territorial gains. By the beginning of 1918, however,
they were also expressing more idealistic reasons for the war.
Wilson’s Proposals
No one expressed these idealistic reasons better than
the president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson. Even before the end
of the war, Wilson outlined “Fourteen Points” to the United States Congress—his
basis for a peace settlement that he believed justified the enormous military
struggle being waged.
Wilson’s proposals for a truly just and lasting peace
included reaching the peace agreements openly rather than through secret
diplomacy. His proposals also included reducing armaments (military forces
or weapons) to a “point consistent with domestic safety” and ensuring selfdetermination
(the right of each people to have their own nation).
Wilson portrayed World War I as a people’s war against
“absolutism and militarism.” These two enemies of liberty, he argued, could
be eliminated only by creating democratic governments and a “general association
of nations.” This association would guarantee “political independence and
territorial integrity to great and small states alike.”
Wilson became the spokesperson for a new world order based
on democracy and international cooperation. When he arrived in Europe for
the peace conference, Wilson was enthusiastically cheered by many Europeans.
President Wilson soon found, however, that more practical motives guided
other states.
The Paris Peace Conference
Delegates met in Paris in early 1919 to determine the
peace settlement. At the Paris Peace Conference, complications became obvious.
For one thing, secret treaties and agreements that had been made before
the war had raised the hopes of European nations for territorial gains.
These hopes could not be ignored, even if they did conflict with the principle
of selfdetermination put forth by Wilson.
National interests also complicated the deliberations
of the Paris Peace Conference. David Lloyd George, prime
minister of Great Britain, had won a decisive victory in elections in December
1918. His platform was simple: make the Germans pay for this dreadful war.
France’s approach to peace was chiefly guided by its desire
for national security. To Georges Clemenceau (kleh•muhn•SOH),
the premier of France, the French people had suffered the most from German
aggression. The French desired revenge and security against future German
attacks. Clemenceau wanted Germany stripped of all weapons, vast German
payments—reparations—to cover the costs of the war, and a
separate Rhineland as a buffer state between France and Germany.
The most important decisions at the Paris Peace Conference
were made by Wilson, Clemenceau, and Lloyd George. Italy, as one of the
Allies, was considered one of the Big Four powers. However, it played a
smaller role than the other key powers—the United States, France, and Great
Britain, who were called the Big Three.
Germany was not invited to attend, and Russia could not
be present because of its civil war.
In view of the many conflicting demands at the peace conference,
it was no surprise that the Big Three quarreled. Wilson wanted to create
a world organization, the League of Nations, to prevent future wars. Clemenceau
and Lloyd George wanted to punish Germany. In the end, only compromise
made it possible to achieve a peace settlement.
Wilson’s wish that the creation of an international peacekeeping
organization be the first order of business was granted. On January 25,
1919, the conference accepted the idea of a League of Nations. In return,
Wilson agreed to make compromises on territorial arrangements. He did so
because he believed that the League could later fix any unfair settlements.
Clemenceau also compromised to obtain some guarantees
for French security. He gave up France’s wish for a separate Rhineland
and instead accepted a defensive alliance with Great Britain and the United
States. However, the U.S. Senate refused to ratify this agreement, which
weakened the Versailles peace settlement.
The Treaty of Versailles
The final peace settlement of Paris consisted of five
separate treaties with the defeated nations of Germany, Austria, Hungary,
Bulgaria, and Turkey. The Treaty of Versailles with Germany was by far
the most important.
The Germans considered it a harsh peace. They were especially
unhappy with Article 231, the so-called War Guilt Clause, which declared
that Germany (and Austria) were responsible for starting the war. The treaty
ordered Germany to pay reparations for all damages that the Allied governments
and their people had sustained as a result of the war.
The military and territorial provisions of the Treaty
of Versailles also angered the Germans. Germany had to reduce its army
to 100,000 men, cut back its navy, and eliminate its air force. Alsace
and Lorraine, taken by the Germans from France in 1871, were
now returned. Sections of eastern Germany were awarded to a new Polish
state.
German land along the Rhine River became a demilitarized
zone, stripped of all weapons and fortifications. This, it was hoped, would
serve as a barrier to any future German moves against France. Although
outraged by the “dictated peace,” Germany accepted the treaty.
A German nationalist responded to the terms of the treaty:
“People and government
have, during the most recent days, unambiguously made clear that we cannot
sign the document which our enemies call a peace. One thing is certain,
that any government which, by its signature, would confer upon this work
of the devil... the halo of right, would, sooner or later, be driven out.
. . . [N]othing is left but to remain coldblooded, offer passive resistance
wherever possible, and show contempt and pride.”
—Alfred von Wegerer,
May 28, 1919
The Legacies of the War
The war, the Treaty of Versailles, and the separate peace
treaties made with the other Central Powers redrew the map of eastern Europe.
The German and Russian empires lost much territory. The Austro-Hungarian
Empire disappeared.
New nation-states emerged from the lands of these three
empires: Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia,
Austria, and Hungary. New territorial arrangements were also made in the
Balkans. Romania acquired additional lands. Serbia formed the nucleus of
a new state, called Yugoslavia, which combined Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.
The principle of self-determination supposedly guided
the Paris Peace Conference. However, the mixtures of peoples in eastern
Europe made it impossible to draw boundaries along strict ethnic lines.
Compromises had to be made, sometimes to satisfy the national interests
of the victors. France, for example, had lost Russia as its major ally
on Germany’s eastern border. Thus, France wanted to strengthen and expand
Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Romania as much as possible. Those
states could then serve as barriers against Germany and Communist Russia.
As a result of compromises, almost every eastern European
state was left with ethnic minorities: Germans in Poland; Hungarians, Poles,
and Germans in Czechoslovakia; Hungarians in Romania, and Serbs, Croats,
Slovenes, Macedonians, and Albanians in Yugoslavia. The problem of ethnic
minorities within nations would lead to many later conflicts.
Yet another centuries-old empire—the Ottoman Empire—was
broken up by the peace settlement. To gain Arab support against the Ottoman
Turks during the war, the Western Allies had promised to recognize the
independence of Arab states in the Ottoman Empire. Once the war was over,
however, the Western nations changed their minds. France took control of
Lebanon and Syria, and Britain received Iraq and Palestine.
These acquisitions were officially called mandates.
Woodrow Wilson had opposed the outright annexation of colonial territories
by the Allies. As a result, the peace settlement created the mandate system.
According to this system, a nation officially governed another nation as
a mandate on behalf of the League of Nations but did not own the territory.
World War I shattered the liberal, rational society that
had existed in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Europe. The
deaths of nearly 10 million people, as well as the incredible destruction
caused by the war, undermined the whole idea of progress. Entire populations
had participated in a devastating slaughter.
World War I was a total war—one that involved a complete
mobilization of resources and people. As a result, the power of governments
over the lives of their citizens increased. Freedom of the press and speech
were limited in the name of national security. World War I made the practice
of strong central authority a way of life.
The turmoil created by the war also seemed to open the
door to even greater insecurity. Revolutions broke up old empires and created
new states, which led to new problems. The hope that Europe and the rest
of the world would return to normalcy was, however, soon dashed.
What clause in the Treaty of
Versailles particularly angered the Germans?
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