1918 Read online

  One of the first initiatives of the new Hindenburg–Ludendorff command team was to try to bring Germany’s chaotic system of war production under control. The Hindenburg Programme, initiated on 31 August 1916, mandated a 100 per cent increase in ammunition and trench mortar production, a 300 per cent increase in artillery and machine guns, and substantial increases in aircraft and anti-aircraft artillery by the spring of 1917. Paradoxically, the programme also required the culling out of the labour force for military service. The Hindenburg Programme virtually ended civil government in Germany. Most industrial leaders enthusiastically supported the programme, but they also complained that there was not enough civilian manpower to carry it out. In response, Ludendorff ordered a phased release of skilled workers from active duty, which by the winter of 1916–17 reduced the front-line strength of the Field Army by some 125,000 troops. One of the second order effects was the reduction in the average strength of a front-line infantry battalion from 750 to 713.43

  The Hindenburg Programme made worse almost every problem it was supposed to fix. The OHL itself had neither the control structures nor the expertise to manage it. The direction of the majority of the industrial resources towards conventional artillery and machine-gun production closed off any possibilities for developing the tank and antitank weapons. The programme even failed to rationalize the production of the focused weapons. In 1914 German factories were producing 14 different models of artillery. By April 1917 they were producing 77 models; and by January 1918, 100 different models.

  The OHL quickly came to the conclusion that they needed a dedicated organization to manage the Hindenburg Programme, to include the control of all raw materials, labour, and munitions. On 1 November 1916, the Allgemeines Kriegsamt (General War Office) was established, headed by Generalleutnant Wilhelm Groener, who a little less than two years later would succeed Ludendorff as Erster Generalquartiermeister. Ludendorff originally intended that the Allgemeines Kriegsamt would be a direct subordinate of OHL. In one of the few bureaucratic battles he lost, the General War Office came under the Ministry of War. But Ludendorff retaliated by engineering the sacking of General Adolf Wild von Hohenborn, the Minister of War and a staunch critic of The Duo. Hohenborn was replaced by General Hermann von Stein, who was one of Ludendorff’s allies.44 The Allgemeines Kriegsamt, however, was nothing more than another layer on top of Germany’s already ossified bureaucratic structure. As a strictly Prussian institution, it had no real authority over the war ministries of Bavaria, Saxony, and Württemberg, which all established their own independent General War Offices. The three kingdoms sent liaison missions to the Prussian General War Office, only adding more bureaucratic disorder.45

  Ludendorff increasingly became obsessed with the problem of the ‘cohesion of the people’. Under his muddled concept of Total War (Totaler Krieg) he believed that all of Germany’s physical, economic, political, and psychological resources had to be directly subordinated to the war effort. In December 1916, he forced through the Reichstag the Auxiliary Service Law (Hilfsdienstgesetz), which made every German male between the ages of 17 and 60 liable for some form of involuntary wartime service. Ludendorff initially wanted to include females. Groener talked him out of it, but by June 1918 Ludendorff was again raising that issue. In October 1917 Ludendorff again tightened the screw of the Silent Dictatorship a notch, when he told Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg that the freedom of movement of civilian workers had to be restricted. The legal mechanism for that action was the Prussian State of Siege Law of 1851 (Belagerungszustandsgesetz).

  The combined effects of all of these ill-fated socio-political-economic initiatives probably did as least as much to weaken the German Army of 1918 as did Haig’s ‘wearing-out battle’. The number of soldiers freed for duty at the front by the law never equalled the number released from the front to support the Hindenburg Programme. By the start of 1918 the war had strained Germany’s archaic, rigid, and authoritarian political, social, and economic systems to the point where there was almost nothing left to support the army in the field. The virtual dictatorship of Germany was a function for which both Hindenburg and Ludendorff had absolutely no competence. In fact, German officers of the period generally prided themselves on their detachment from all things political and their contempt for politicians. Nor did The Duo have the time for something like that. Every hour they devoted to wrestling with Germany’s intractable domestic and diplomatic problems detracted accordingly from their ability to plan and direct military operations.

  Fed up with what they perceived as the lack of support from Chancellor Hertling, The Duo finally pushed him out of office. He was replaced on 3 October 1918 by Prinz Max von Baden, who right from the start had no intention of letting himself be bullied by Ludendorff. The friction between the two flared-up almost immediately, and Prinz Max told the Kaiser that there was no longer room at the head of the German government for both himself and Ludendorff. The Erster Generalquartiermeister’s increasingly erratic behaviour proved his final undoing. The Kaiser summoned Hindenburg and Ludendorff to Berlin on 25 October, and the following day he informed Ludendorff that his resignation would be accepted. In his memoirs, however, Ludendorff claims he offered his resignation first. The following day Groener replaced Ludendorff at the OHL, but he never developed the bond and the level of trust that his predecessor had had with Hindenburg.

  After Ludendorff’s departure, Groener tried to hold the pieces together at the OHL. The Germans then had some 80,000 wounded troops to be evacuated back to Germany; at the same time their useable rail lines were being cut off by the Allies one at a time. The political situation in Germany only served to complicate matters at the OHL. As the pressures to abdicate mounted on the weak and vacillating Kaiser, he decided to run away from the problems. Abandoning Berlin, Wilhelm and his entourage of royal camp followers arrived unannounced at OHL headquarters in Spa on 30 October. The Kaiser announced his intention to ‘lead his troops’ personally, which was the last thing that Hindenburg and Groener needed to deal with.

  By 7 November strikes and organized violence were rampant everywhere back in Germany. Bavaria was on the verge of breaking away from the Reich and declaring itself a free state (Freistaat Bayern). Believing that only he could restore order, the Kaiser ordered Groener to prepare the operations orders for the Supreme Warlord to march back into the homeland at the head of his troops. But Groener understood only too well that the troops back in Germany had already gone over to the revolution in large numbers, and that the army in the field would not follow the Kaiser against them. The Supreme Warlord apparently never stopped to consider what the Allied armies would be doing in the meantime. Groener was able to convince the vacillating Hindenburg of the reality of the situation, but the old Generalfeldmarschall refused to tell his king and emperor that the army was no longer loyal to him. Hindenburg passed the buck to Groener.46

  The usually implacable Hindenburg was completely unnerved when he and Groener met with Wilhelm and his aides on the morning of 9 November. Hindenburg asked the Kaiser for permission to resign; but Wilhelm refused. Hindenburg then ordered Groener to give the Kaiser the blunt truth, that it was the considered opinion of the senior officers at the OHL that the army would not follow him back to Germany, and that any attempt to use military force would result in full-scale civil war. Ironically, it was Groener who, during the years of the Weimar Republic, was held up as the scapegoat for Hindenburg’s inability to carry out his responsibility to the nation. As the Generalfeldmarschall blurted out to a group of nationalist political leaders after the war, ‘You all blame me, but you should blame Groener.’47

  Once faced with stark reality, the Kaiser then tried to convince himself that he could abdicate as German emperor but still retain the crown of the Kingdom of Prussia. He also announced that he would transfer formal command of the German armies to Hindenburg. But the train of history had already left the station, leaving the House of Hohenzollern behind on the platform. Shortly after 1400hrs that day the go
vernment of Chancellor Prinz Max in Berlin announced the Kaiser’s abdication, without even consulting Wilhelm.48 Prinz Max then resigned and was replaced as Chancellor by Friedrich Ebert, the leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

  On the morning of 10 November, the Kaiser boarded his private train and left for exile in neutral Holland, never to return to Germany. One day short of one year after the Mons Conference, the 500-year old Hohenzollern Dynasty of Brandenburg–Prussia collapsed. Wilhelm did not see Hindenburg that day, and he never did issue a formal abdication.

  Hindenburg retired in July 1919, but he had one more final word to deliver on the German Army, a word that would have fatal implications for the course of German and world history. That November he appeared before a special investigative committee of the Reichstag, where he testified that the German Army had not been defeated on the battlefield. Invoking the story of the hero Siegfried, who in the Nibelungenlied had been struck down by the treacherous Hagen, the Field Marshal insisted that the German Army too had been ‘stabbed in the back’ by a cabal of Jews, Marxists, pacifists, and socialists in the homeland. Thus, he unwittingly gave credibility to the myth that the nationalists, especially Hitler and the Nazis, would use to destroy the Weimar Republic, and ultimately lead Germany into World War II.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE FRENCH ARMY IN 1918

  Dr David Murphy

  Late in 1915 and 1916, Allied military and political leaders had met to discuss strategic plans for the next year. In a broad sense, they came up with what was essentially the same plan both times. In the spring and summer of the following year, there would be a massive effort on the Western Front, while ancillary attacks would be developed in Italy and Salonika. These plans also envisaged a large-scale offensive by the Russians in the East. The logic was simple: the combined pressure on all fronts would force a collapse of the Central Powers. The Allied leaders of late 1917, however, faced an operational situation that was totally changed. Their combined offensives of that year had not brought a decisive victory, and the failed Nivelle and 3rd Ypres offensives had been particularly damaging. The French and Italian armies had come close to collapse, and Russia had effectively dropped out of the war. For France, these developments were extremely worrying. The French Army ended 1917 very badly damaged and largely unfit for major offensive action. Général de Divison Phillipe Pétain, commander of the French field armies, had faced a daunting task in keeping the army intact and in a position to defend France. France now faced the prospect of being confronted with large numbers of German troops freed up from the Eastern Front, while at the same time trying to rebuild and retrain the army in the hope of engaging in decisive action in 1918.1

  The strategic context

  As the Germans and the Russians began discussing an armistice in late 1917, the French Army began developing plans to face a fresh German offensive. Pétain’s headquarters staff formed strategies based around a number of likely scenarios. They decided that a massive German operation was equally possible in either Italy or Salonika. It was more likely, however, that an offensive would develop on the Western Front with the aim of knocking France and Britain out of the war. Within this scenario, it was recognized that the German Army might invade via neutral Switzerland. In a series of meetings of the French War Committee, Pétain emphasized the need to adopt a defensive stance and, above all, to keep casualties low. By this point in the war, the French Army had suffered around one million fatal casualties. The army was, like the British and Italian armies, simply running out of men.

  There were various means employed to try to mitigate this reality. In 1917, the army structure had been reformed and the number of men in divisions reduced. Infantry companies were reduced from 250 to 200 men and, as a result, a division now numbered 13,000 rather than 15,000 men. So, while the number of divisions remained high, they were now smaller.2

  Manpower predictions anticipated a need for 110,000 new recruits each month up to late 1918, but, even with this influx of new troops, the French Army would still fall short. In the summer of 1916, the army had stood at over 2.2 million men, but the Verdun battles and actions of 1917 had resulted in a casualty rate of around 40,000 men per month. Faced with these rapidly dwindling numbers, staff officers at the Grand Quartier Général (GQG) and also Pétain’s headquarters developed assessments of how these losses would impact on the army.3

  A report of October 1917 predicted that the French Army would suffer over 920,000 casualties between October 1917 and October 1918.4 These troops needed to be replaced, and there was also a further need for additional troops to expand the artillery, military aviation, tank units, engineers etc. The final total for troops required stood at over one million men but the expectation was that only around 750,000 could be supplied. In this calculation, the expected shortfall stood at at least 250,000, while other estimates cited 320,000 as a more accurate assessment of the deficit. In early 1918, Pétain himself estimated that the requirement would be for over one million new troops during 1918 but that only 836,000 could be expected. This would leave a deficit of around 25 divisions, Pétain argued, leaving him with just 77 divisions in the field to face a growing number of German divisions.5 Ultimately, the figure of 750,000 potential new troops proved to be realistic, and French commanders argued over how this shortfall could be mitigated. Divisions would be dissolved and their remaining manpower incorporated into the remaining divisions, but sourcing further manpower continued to be a problem. Russia had provided men in the past, but this was no longer an option. There was discussion of bringing thousands of Chinese soldiers to serve in France, but this came to nothing. Polish and Czech units were formed based on recruitment among prisoners of war (POWs). Within France, a number of further strategies were employed. The draft of 1919 was called up early in April 1918, and men released for industrial work and also some reservists were called back to the army. The high casualty rates of 1918 ensured that manpower remained a key issue for the rest of the war, and this was only mitigated by the gradual deployment of American troops to the front line.

  Command

  The discussions on the manpower issue also highlighted French difficulties at senior command level and facilitated a power-play between the two key personalities. Even at this late stage of the war, the French had no overall strategic-level commander; Général de Division Ferdinand Foch occupied the position of Chief of Staff, while Pétain was commander of the field armies. French politicians had come to recognize the dangers of giving generals total control of all military forces and strategy. While this was seen as a democratic safeguard, the existence of the positions of both chief of staff and land commander effectively created a situation where unity of command, in the French Army’s case, was not possible. The question of strategic level command was further complicated by the appointment of Foch as the French military representative on the Conseil superieur de la guerre (Supreme War Council) in November 1917. This council was composed of the French and British premiers and war ministers and also military representatives. The British representative was General Sir Henry Wilson (later Chief of the Imperial General Staff). As the Supreme War Council was tasked with the overall direction of war strategy, this encouraged Foch in his efforts to be appointed as the Allied Supreme Commander. The institution of a special committee in January to organize an Allied general reserve also facilitated Foch’s wider plans. Yet his rise to the position was by no means certain.6

  In reality, the French Premier, Georges Clemenceau, was extremely hesitant about the Supreme Commander concept and also about Foch, whom he personally disliked, as a potential candidate. Foch had been a candidate to succeed Maréchal Joseph Joffre in December 1916 but had been passed over due to his devout Catholicism and, perhaps more importantly, his strategic ideas. These discussions also played out in the midst of a wider and more complex political and strategic backdrop. France, having fielded the largest force on the Western Front for the entire war thus far, would see its dominance reduced in 1918. Clem
enceau realized this but wanted France to direct the overall war strategy. The French Premier needed to carefully pick the right general to shape strategic discussions within the Supreme War Council for the remainder of the war.

  Within the French general staff itself there was further disunity. The other dominant figure was Pétain, whose opinion on future strategy differed totally to Foch’s ideas. While Foch still entertained the idea of offensive action, or rather counter-offensive action, Pétain was wedded to concepts of defence. He had experienced the fragility of the French Army throughout 1917 and was convinced that a defensive posture should be adopted, even relinquishing terrain during the German assault that he was sure was coming. Pétain’s opinion was simple: when the Germans attacked, the French Army should utilize a defence-in-depth system that consisted of a lightly-held forward zone and then a battle zone with heavier defences and with reserves deployed locally. Then they would use concentrated firepower to kill the Germans in large numbers as they attacked. It was a simple but brutal and potentially very effective defensive concept.7

  Throughout the early months of 1918, Foch and Pétain clashed at a number of successive meetings and on a number of issues. They differed fundamentally on strategy, how reserves were to be controlled and deployed, and how the American forces would eventually be deployed along the front. Field Marshal Haig agreed with Pétain and disagreed with Foch’s proposals to form a centralized Allied reserve. Both Haig and Pétain were slow to release divisions for Foch’s planned central reserve as they both tried to complete their defences in expectation of a German offensive. Pétain had maintained Nivelle’s infantry and artillery reserve formations after his departure but was now reluctant to split them up and not have forces to hand for his own use. The central reserve idea was shelved following a stormy meeting of the Supreme War Council in London on 14–15 March, as a German attack seemed imminent. Pétain and Haig convinced both Clemenceau and the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George that they needed to retain control over their reserve formations. At that moment, it seemed that Foch would not emerge as the Allied Supreme Commander. However, Lloyd George and Clemenceau were increasingly convinced that the position was required, and this discussion became urgent after the outbreak of the German Spring Offensive on 21 March. In the days that followed there was huge pressure to resolve the issue.