WW41+Armistice

=Events leading to the Armistice, 1918=


 * Focus questions**:
 * What impact did the Bulgarian armistice have on Germany?
 * What conditions did the Allies insist on before agreeing to an armistice?
 * Why did Ludendorff recommend armistice negotiations on 2 Oct?
 * What changes were made within the German government?

On 8 January 1918, **Woodrow Wilson** outlined his **Fourteen Points** in a speech to Congress. Here is a summary; the full text can be read below (Source A): As the only Allied statement of war aims, these were to become the basis for an armistice. By August 1918 the end of the war had became evident. With the collapse of the Balkan Front (Bulgarian armistice 28 September) Germany was forced to divert troops from the Western Front. The Central Powers gradually collapsed.
 * No secret diplomacy.
 * Freedom of the seas.
 * No trade barriers.
 * Arms reduction.
 * Settlement of all colonial claims.
 * The evacuation of all Russian territory.
 * Belgium must be evacuated and restored.
 * All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, Alsace-Lorraine returned to France.
 * A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.
 * Self-determination for the peoples of Austria-Hungary.
 * Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; Serbia access to the sea; and the relations of the Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel.[[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/53/Thomas_Woodrow_Wilson%2C_Harris_%26_Ewing_bw_photo_portrait%2C_1919.jpg/245px-Thomas_Woodrow_Wilson%2C_Harris_%26_Ewing_bw_photo_portrait%2C_1919.jpg align="right" caption="Woodrow Wilson"]]
 * Sovereignty for Turkey; the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened.
 * An independent Polish state with access to the sea.
 * A general association of nations.


 * Collapse of the Central Powers**

14 September 1918: Allied offensive in Macedonia against Bulgarian and German positions, led by Franchet d’Esperey (“Desperate Frankie”).
 * Bulgarian armistice**: 28 September

18 September: Allied offensive in Palestine under General Sir Edmund Allenby. Quickly captured Turkish positions: Haifa and Acre (23 Sept.); Amman (25 Sept); Damascus (2 Oct).
 * Turkish armistice**: 30 October

19 October: desperate Frankie reported that French guns were heard on the Danube for the first time in 109 years. Belgrade liberated 1 November. Frankie envisaged a march on Berlin via Budapest, Vienna and Dresden. However, Italy struck the final blow against Austria-Hungary: took offensive on 24 October – Austrian positions collapsed on 30 October.
 * Austrian armistice**: 3 November

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Ludendorff called for parliamentary government: “... to include also those circles in the government to whom we owe chiefly our present situation... let them now make that peace which has to be made. Let them now bear the consequences of what they have done for us.”

2 October 1918 – The German High Command made a speech to the Reichstag in which they recommended peace negotiations (see below Source B).

3 October 1918 – Prince Max von Baden was made Chancellor. His coalition government included Socialists (SPD) and the Centre Party (Zentrum).

4 October 1918 – Prince Max officially asked for an armistice based on the Fourteen Points – approached Wilson. Britain and France raised objections about some of the Fourteen Points, e.g. freedom of the seas (Britain); no reference to reparations (France).

23 October – Wilson demanded that the armistice would only be accepted if it were impossible for Germany to renew hostilities. The following conditions were insisted upon: These were to ensure no possibility of renewal of hostilities.
 * reparations for damage to civilian population and property
 * Germany evacuate all occupied territory
 * withdraw from overseas colonies
 * hand over supplies of armaments and railway rolling stock
 * surrender navy and merchant fleet to Allies

Ludendorff reversed his position: called for //levée en masse// to save the Fatherland – Götterdämmerung: “**Better an end in terror than terror without end**.”

Ludendorff was relieved of his duties on 26 October. He fled to Sweden.

The Allies were unwilling to sign an armistice with the Kaiser, only with a government representative of the people.

9 November – Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated. He fled to the Netherlands.

Max von Baden handed power to Friedrich Ebert (SPD)
 * Armistice signed 11 November, at 5.00am to come into effect at 11.00am**.


 * Source A – Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points, delivered in a speech to Congress 8 Jan 1918**

I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.

II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.

III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.

IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.

V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.

VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.

VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.

VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.

X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development.

XI. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.

XII. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of an autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.

XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

(Source: Source Records of the Great War, Vol. VI, ed. Charles F. Horne, National Alumni 1923 – at FirstWorldWar.com)
 * Source B – Major Freiherr von der Bussche's Address to the Reichstag of the Recommendations of the German High Command, 2 October 1918**

In a few days the situation has fundamentally changed.

The collapse of the Bulgarian front has entirely upset our disposition of troops... We were compelled, if we were not to leave the Entente a free hand in the Balkans, to send German and Austro-Hungarian divisions earmarked for the Western front to those regions... Almost simultaneously with the offensive in Macedonia, violent enemy attacks have been made in the West... The majority of our troops have fought splendidly and made superhuman efforts. Their old brave spirit has not died out. The numerical superiority of the enemy has not been able to terrorize our men. Officers and men vie with each other in deeds of valour.

In spite of these facts, the High Command has been compelled to come to the enormously difficult decision that in all human probability there is no longer any prospect of forcing the enemy to sue for peace. Two factors have had a decisive influence on our decision, namely, tanks and our reserves.

The enemy has made use of tanks in unexpectedly large numbers. In cases where they have suddenly emerged in huge masses from smoke clouds, our men were completely unnerved… and solely owing to the success of the tanks we have suffered enormous losses in prisoners, and this had unexpectedly reduced our strength and caused a more speedy wastage of our reserves than we had anticipated.

The current reserves, consisting of men who are convalescent, combed-out men, etc., will not even cover the losses of a quiet winter campaign. The enemy, owing to the help he has received from America, is in a position to make good his losses. The American troops… were… able to take over large portions of the front, thereby permitting the English and French to liberate some of their experienced divisions and in this way form an almost inexhaustible supply of reserves.

We can continue this kind of warfare for a measurable space of time, we can cause the enemy heavy losses, devastating the country in our retreat, but we cannot win the war.

This decision and these events caused the idea to ripen in the minds of the Field Marshal and Ludendorff to propose to the Kaiser the breaking-off of hostilities, so as to spare the German people and their Allies further sacrifice.

There is still time. The German army is still strong enough to hold the enemy for months, to achieve local successes and to expose the enemy to fresh sacrifices. But every day brings the enemy nearer his goal, and will make him less inclined to conclude a peace with us which will be satisfactory on our side.

Therefore no time must be lost. Every day the situation may become worse, and give the enemy the opportunity of recognizing our momentary weakness, which might have the most evil consequences for peace prospects as well as for the military situation. Neither the army nor the Homeland should do anything which would make our weakness apparent; on the other hand, the army and the Homeland must stand together more closely than before.