The western front, p.54
The Western Front, page 54
Progress slowed to a crawl over the next few days, with the Germans throwing in more divisions and fighting bravely for every inch of ground. Anxiously awaiting news in his headquarters, Pershing bristled with impatience. On the morning of the second day, he ordered divisional and brigade commanders to move as far forward as possible and prosecute the attack with ‘energy and rapidity’: ‘Corps and division commanders will not hesitate to relieve on the spot any officer of whatever rank who fails to show in this emergency those qualities of leadership required to accomplish the task that confronts us.’35 Pershing’s wish to push on was understandable, but, in the thick woods of the Argonne forest, combat devolved into a savage, close-quarter melee, and American battalions, unused to the intensity of fighting, began to lose cohesion. A whole host of problems emerged: poor liaison between units; shortages of vital supplies; and lack of proper fire support. Once the creeping barrage had run out, the doughboys had almost no artillery preparation and had to make their way forward unsupported, and do so day after day until they were relieved. One young American remembered coming across a piece of open ground, which was littered with ‘dead men in olive drab and feld grau, scattered equipment, and cripples . . . They’d pushed in with the same esprit as Pickett’s brigade at Gettysburg and with about the same results.’36 Within four days the AEF had sustained 45,000 casualties and, amid growing disorganization, Pershing had no choice but to suspend the offensive.37
The frustrations that Pershing encountered in the Meuse–Argonne were not unexpected for an inexperienced army in tough conditions, but they gave greater weight to those who suggested that the sudden move from Saint-Mihiel had been a dangerous error. Pershing had deployed his best-trained and most experienced divisions at Saint-Mihiel (including 1st, 2nd and 42nd Divisions), which meant those units that opened the great attack on 26 September were much less seasoned – and the shock of combat was brutal. They did not lack for bravery and aggressive spirit; only the organization and skill that prolonged fighting helped to create. Pershing put a brave face on it, writing to Newton Baker on 2 October that the ‘operations here have gone very well, but, due to the rains and the conditions of the roads, have not gone forward as rapidly nor as far as I had hoped. But this terrain over which we now operate is the most difficult on the Western Front. Our losses so far have been moderate. I have taken out three of the newest divisions and replaced them by older ones. We shall be prepared to advance again in a day or two more.’38
Better results were obtained further north, where the ground was more favourable and the men were less green. The British First and Third Armies launched a succession of attacks on 27 September, with the Canadian Corps crossing the Canal du Nord and opening the way to the capture of Cambrai and Douai. The fighting then flowed north, where a combined British–Belgian army group (under the command of King Albert) broke out of the narrow salient around Ypres, which had been quiet since the final attacks on the Lys had petered out in late April. In his desperation to protect other vital sectors of the front, Ludendorff had moved troops out of Flanders, leaving just five divisions to hold the seventeen miles of front between Diksmuide and Voormezeele (four miles south of Ypres), praying that the wet weather and swampy ground would prevent any Allied breakthrough.39 German forces, outnumbered two to one, had already made plans to withdraw to the Passchendaele Ridge, but found themselves isolated and overrun when the attack was launched in the early hours of 28 September. There was the usual clatter of machine-gun fire from stubborn detachments that had be to winkled out one by one, but there was little artillery support – most of the German batteries having been silenced by a concentrated series of barrages at Zero Hour. In a single day, the attackers managed to seize almost the whole of the Houthulst forest (at the northern edge of the salient) and the crucial villages of Broodseinde and Gheluvelt.
The final part of Foch’s series of attacks opened on 29 September with the assault on the main Hindenburg system along the Saint-Quentin Canal. Unlike the Canal du Nord, which had never been finished, the Saint-Quentin was a daunting water obstacle – thirty-five feet wide – and strung with barbed-wire entanglements. At Bellicourt, the canal passed through a tunnel, about 6,000 yards long, but this sector was protected by multiple lines of trenches, hardened dugouts and machine-gun nests positioned along the best fields of fire. Rawlinson entrusted the main assault on the tunnel sector to the two divisions of Major-General Herbert Read’s II US Corps, which Pershing had let stay in the British sector. Despite their inexperience, Rawlinson was confident that they would get through. ‘Under Foch’s tuition and the lessons of over four years of war, we are really learning,’ he wrote the night before the assault, ‘and the synchronization of the various attacks has been admirable . . . I feel pretty happy about the prospects as a whole, for, if the Americans are inexperienced, they are as keen as mustard and splendid men.’ Haig also came over to Fourth Army headquarters to wish them luck. ‘He is in great form,’ noted Rawlinson, ‘delighted with the way things have gone in the North, and with the First and Third Armies. He thinks we shall finish the war this year, and I hope he may be right, but it is no certainty.’40
A bombardment by 1,000 field guns and another 600 medium and heavy pieces began at 10.30 p.m. the night preceding the attack and continued until the moment of assault. With the German lines shrouded in a thick bank of fog, little could be seen of the bombardment, but its power was inescapable: ‘a perfect tornado of furious sound, a hellish compound of the voices of guns of all calibres’, which ‘rent the air and caused the very earth to shake’.41 When Zero Hour came, the doughboys struggled forward through an outpost zone strewn with mines and thick barbed-wire entanglements, which ‘ran in all directions, cleverly disposed so as to herd the attackers into the very jaws of the machine-guns’ (as one doughboy noted).42 With the left side of the attack bogging down, it was up to IX Corps, to the south, to make the decisive breakthrough. Springing forward at 5.50 a.m., British troops either swam across the canal or ran across wobbly footbridges to storm the strongpoints on the far side. Enemy machine-gun fire was wild and inaccurate. The fog shielded the attackers until they were almost upon the defenders, who were then dealt with in brutal, slashing combat. By the time the fog had cleared, it was evident that the German hold on the canal had been broken. ‘Suddenly the mist rose, and the sun of our “Austerlitz” appeared, strong and refulgent’, observed a British officer who had survived the assault. ‘Over the brow of the rise opposite to us came a great grey column. Never had we seen such a thing; we counted the files; there were nearly a thousand prisoners in the column. Half an hour later a similar column appeared, and then another and another – we had broken the Hindenburg Line, and 4,200 prisoners, 70 cannon and more than 1,000 machine guns were the trophies of the fight gathered by our single division.’43
Ludendorff had seen enough. On the evening of 28 September, at six o’clock – with the sun trailing in a pink sky – he had gone to see Hindenburg and told him that even if they, somehow, managed to hold on in the west, their position ‘could only grow worse’. He had, therefore, come to a fateful decision: they needed to ask for an armistice. ‘The Field Marshal listened to me with emotion’, he remembered. ‘He answered that he had intended to say the same to me in the evening, that he had considered the whole situation carefully, and thought the step necessary.’ They must request conditions that would allow for an ‘orderly evacuation’ of France and Belgium ‘and the resumption of hostilities on our own borders’. The two men then parted, shaking hands, before returning to their own rooms, alone; their thoughts heavy with the stark realization that all they had worked for and sacrificed was now within an ace of vanishing for ever.44
The duo took their proposals to Paul von Hintze the following morning. Hintze, who had travelled up to Spa with the Kaiser and the Chancellor, found himself describing the latest situation with their allies: Bulgaria had ‘fallen away’; Austria–Hungary would do so imminently; and Turkey was now only a burden on German resources. Ludendorff then took over, telling him that the ‘situation of the army’ required an ‘immediate armistice to prevent a catastrophe’.45 Hintze struggled to take in what the generals were saying, but admitted that, if it were true, then there were only three options left: a dictatorship; what he termed ‘a revolution from above’; or an appeal to President Wilson for an immediate ceasefire based upon the ‘high ideals’ enshrined in his ‘Fourteen Points’ (which had been published in January 1918 and set out a programme for ‘open covenants of peace’, freedom of navigation on the seas, the self-determination of peoples and the formation of a ‘general association of nations’ – what would become the League of Nations).46 The idea of a dictatorship was swiftly discarded, which only left the possibility of moving towards a more democratic system of parliamentary government – an option that both Hindenburg and Ludendorff agreed was necessary, even if they worried that it might delay any request for negotiations.
The Kaiser now entered the picture. Looking frailer than ever (he had endured a recent bout of sciatica, which left him hobbling about on a cane), the Supreme War Lord received the news that the army ‘was at the end of its resistance . . . with the utmost calm’.47 Hintze explained what had been said that morning and Colonel Wilhelm Heye (Ludendorff’s new Chief of Operations) gave a briefing on the dire state of the Army. Arguments went back and forth. Count von Hertling dismissed Hintze’s call for a parliamentary democracy and refused to believe that the situation was as bad as the duo seemed to believe. Hintze refused to back down and managed to convince the Kaiser to begin immediate negotiations, while also firing the starting gun on essential political reform, signing the paperwork on expanding the franchise in Prussia and promising further steps in this direction. Wilhelm emerged from the meeting shaken and despairing. Hertling had rejected any further measures and resigned, leaving Wilhelm to look, once again, for a new Chancellor. ‘God has not permitted us to achieve the aim for which we hoped but rather has elected for us the way of suffering and misery’, he wrote to the Kaiserin. He departed for Potsdam the following day, having instructed Berg-Markienen to begin the search for a new Chancellor who could lead them into a future that, in his own words, appeared ‘difficult and incomprehensibly dark’.48
The man who was eventually drafted in to replace Hertling was Prince Maximilian, the 51-year-old heir to the Grand Duchy of Baden. Having spent most of the war on prisoner relief work with the German Red Cross, he could plausibly pose as the kind of ‘moderate’ figure to oversee the transformation of the Government, even if he was privately unconvinced that democracy would suit the Reich. He met Colonel Hans von Haeften, the head of the Foreign Section of the High Command, on 1 October and was given the unvarnished truth about the state of the Army, which left him speechless. When he had recovered sufficiently, he asked whether they might not delay an announcement, perhaps until November, only to be told that this was not possible. Hindenburg wrote to him on 3 October insisting that ‘a peace offer to our enemies be issued at once’ and ‘the situation daily becomes more critical’. When Max complained to Berg that the armistice was a ‘fatal mistake’ and he would have no part in it, Berg shrugged.
‘You were certainly not my candidate, but I have no other.’
Max gave in, asserting to the end that he had been coerced into issuing the note, but cognisant of the fact that it would be sent with or without his approval. He was sworn in as Chancellor on 4 October and began forming a new government, with crucial positions reserved for the Majority Socialists, who were committed to further constitutional reform and would do anything to end the war.49
It was late on the afternoon of 6 October that the Swiss Chargé d’Affaires in Washington transmitted Germany’s request for an armistice to President Wilson. Germany accepted Wilson’s programme as laid down on 8 January (the ‘Fourteen Points’) and, in order to ‘avoid further bloodshed’, asked for a ‘general armistice on land, on water, and in the air’.50 When the officers at OHL were told the news there was stunned silence, which then turned to ‘soft moans and sobs’. The staff officer Albrecht von Thaer always remembered Ludendorff addressing them, ‘his face filled with the deepest sorrow, pale, but with his head held high. A genuinely handsome heroic German figure! I had to think of Siegfried with the deadly wound in the back from Hagen’s spear.’ Ludendorff admitted what had been known for weeks now: that Germany’s allies were deserting her and the war could no longer be won.
‘Since 8 August, things have gone downhill rapidly’, he admitted:
Some units continued to be so unreliable that they had to be pulled out of the front at an accelerated rate. If they were replaced by troops still willing to fight, they were met with calls of ‘scab’ and demands that they no longer fight . . . It is therefore to be expected that, with the help of the battling Americans, in the not too distant future the enemy will achieve a great victory, a breakthrough on a grand scale. Then the Westheer will lose its last foothold and will retreat back over the Rhine to carry the revolution back to Germany.
With that Ludendorff bowed his head, turned and left the room.51
24.‘The full measure of victory’
For all of Woodrow Wilson’s eloquence and rhetorical skill, he was initially lost for words when presented with Prince Max’s telegram. He immediately sent for his closest adviser, Edward Mandell House – ‘Colonel’ House as he was known – who was then in New York. ‘I would suggest making no direct reply to the German note’, House wired back. ‘A statement from the White House saying, quote, The President will at once confer with the Allies regarding the communication received from the German Government, unquote, should be sufficient.’1 House arrived in Washington the following afternoon and together with Robert Lansing, the Secretary of State, they discussed the possible ramifications of the note. Were the Germans really ready to surrender? How could the Allies agree to an armistice without guarantees that the German Army would respect their terms? A draft had been prepared, but Wilson was unsatisfied with it and worked hard on putting down something that would maintain Allied military superiority but also not spurn the chance of a settlement.
It took two days to finalize the response, which was sent on 8 October. Wilson did not reject German overtures out of hand, but requested further clarification before negotiations could begin: ‘Before making reply to the request of the Imperial German Government, and in order that that reply shall be as candid and straightforward as the momentous interests involved require, the President of the United States deems it necessary to assure himself of the exact meaning of the note of the Imperial Chancellor.’ Did the Chancellor accept the ‘Fourteen Points’ and were subsequent discussions merely ‘to agree upon the practical details of their application’? Moreover, the President did not ‘feel at liberty’ to propose an armistice when the armies of the Central Powers were occupying the soil of the Associated Powers. Germany had to ‘withdraw their forces everywhere from invaded territory’ and the President also wished to know ‘whether the Imperial Chancellor is speaking merely for the constituted authorities of the Empire who have so far conducted the war’.2
Allied governments reacted to news of the German offer with a strange mixture of trepidation and delight. Studying Wilson’s response carefully, Lloyd George spotted that there had been no specific mention of Alsace–Lorraine, while the old bugbears about the ‘Fourteen Points’ were never far beneath the surface, with ‘absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas’ being something that the British Government could never accept.3 In Paris, the German note sparked off a bitter row between Poincaré and Clemenceau, who were soon at odds over whether an armistice should be granted. When the French President wrote that nothing could be considered until German troops were no longer on French soil and that they should then march on to Berlin, Clemenceau snapped back, offering his resignation (unless Poincaré withdrew his comments) and accusing the President of trying to institute ‘personal rule’. ‘At the first request for an armistice, I nearly went mad, mad with joy’, Clemenceau later told a friend. ‘It was finished. I had seen too much of the front, too many of those water-filled holes where men had lived for four years . . .’4
Poincaré disliked the old senator, but could not dispense with his services in this great hour of decision, which demanded cool heads. A meeting of the Supreme War Council was held on 7 October, with Lloyd George, Clemenceau and Vittorio Orlando (the Italian Prime Minister) agreeing to consider an armistice with Germany if the following conditions were fulfilled: the evacuation of France, Alsace–Lorraine, Belgium, Luxembourg and Italy; the German Army to retire behind the Rhine; the withdrawal of Central Powers’ forces from the Trentino and Istria, Serbia and Montenegro; the immediate restoration of all territory held by Russia and Romania before the war; and the cessation of submarine warfare. This was communicated to Tasker Bliss, the US representative – who could not attend, having come down with influenza – but he refused to sign the resolution without instructions from Washington.5
Concerns that the Americans would sign a peace treaty with Germany over the heads of the Allies began to heat up as the discussions continued. On the evening of 9 October, just hours after Wilson’s response had been sent, the three Prime Ministers addressed a joint telegram to the President calling for ‘an American representative possessing the full confidence of the United States Government’ to be sent to France to keep them ‘fully informed’ of US policy at all times.6 This was combined with furious behind-the-scenes lobbying to warn the Americans against making a separate peace. On 15 October, Irwin Laughlin, the US Chargé d’Affaires in London, reported to Lansing ‘a fear that the President may go farther along the road towards a final solution without consulting with and considering the particular wishes of his cobelligerents . . . Even should the danger of a premature armistice be avoided it is feared that we may be tricked by this hypocritical waving of a white flag into concluding a peace which will be but the shadow and not the substance of the complete victory which is within sight, and a peace which will provide Germany with undeserved opportunities for future mischief-making.’7
