In 1918 on November 11th the Germans still occupied parts of both France and Belgium. At the time of the ceasefire why did not use them as bargaining chips, to at least mitigate the harsh terms that were sure to follow.
In order to use seized territory as a bargaining chip, you must be able to plausibly defend it. It’s not a chip if the other side can just walk in and take it back themselves, and this is the situation that Germany was in in 1918. The Navy was in full mutiny, the Army wasn’t much better, and there were revolutions breaking out all over. If Germany had broken off negotiations and said, we aren’t going to honor this armistace any more, the Allies would have taken those areas back anyway, and then kept going. Not only was Germany unable to defend seized territory, but it also was not able to fully defend its own territory, and everyone knew this.
Germany had to give back all of the French & Belgian territory they’d captured, plus they lost Alsace & Lorraine to France (undoing the Franco-Prussian War), part of Schleswig to Denmark, and other areas to Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Lithuania. Part of the industrial heartland of Germany, the Saar region, was detached as a League of Nations mandate which was effectively a French economic colony. A Germany capable of using captured territory as a bargaining chip would not have had these losses.
True, but on the allied side the French were about finished as an offenive force, the Americans were still inexperienced (except for formations who had seen action from March onwards, such as the 3rd Infantry Division) and the British while having won continious victories since August did not have the ability to deliver the knock out blow on their own. The Germans could well have made the 1919 campaign a costly one for the allies. That and combined with the effort needed to take back the occupied territories could well have forced a solution.
The collapse was of the german government as opposed to the German Armies who were still a threat.
I could disagree with your assessment of relative strengths, but that’s mostly quibbling. A much more important point is: Germany as a political entity was no threat, and as Clausewitz said, “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” For a number of months, Germany wasn’t even a single political entity, with soviets being formed in all the port cities and naval bases, as well as Munich, Hanover, Brunswick, and Hamburg. Munich was the center of a short-lived independent Bavarian Socialist Republic, in fact. Under these conditions, the Army’s material condition is. well, immaterial. There was no will to fight, hence no ability to fight.
Morale in the German army was non-existent. The Ludendorff offensive had smashed the morale and offensive capacity of the German army, and it had no reinforcements or any way to get them up to the front line.
After the failure of the offensive, the Germans were in retreat all up and down the line, and the last three months of the war was one German retreat after another. By the time of the armistice, the Hindenberg line had been broken, and the Allies were about to seize the rail lines necessary for the army to supply its troops on the front (not to mention the trouble the Germans had getting supplies in general). Meanwhile, the Allies were getting all sorts of supplies and troops, thanks in part to the American entry into the war, and while the American troops were, as you said, still largely inexperienced, numbers can make a pretty good substitute for experience, especially because the American troops, not having been through four years of war, still had high morale.
The idea that the German army was still in fighting shape, while it was forced to stand down by poor morale on the homefront was a myth promoted by the German officers and right wing after the war; the so called Dolschloss- the “stab in the back” legend.
As stated, you can’t bargain with territory (including that held in Russia) that you can’t defend.
Things were falling apart everywhere - a lack of supplies for the troops, a populace without bread, a failed U-boat offensive due to convoys, and a fresh, still enthusiastic and increasing body of troops to boost numbers and morale on the Allied side. It was a case of “make the best deal you can now, or risk collapsing into revolution and losing even more territory”.
Germany was on the brink of collapse, but of course so were France and Britian, but the Allies had the USA which was fresh and ready to fight.
There was no point to going on. Germany was already at starvation levels. Without the USA the Allies maybe could’ve won, but so could’ve have Germany, at best you would’ve gotten a stalemate.
The USA involvment changed that. Once the US entered there was no way the Germans could hope for any victory.
The key to remember was Germany was already at the starvation point by the end of the war. The Allies were not because the US would simply give them food.
A similar situation existed in WWII. Hitler didn’t learn the power of American, not in military means but in production. By 1944 the USA was producing four for every one sunk item. In other words if the British were getting 3 units of a good, and the German submarines were sinking American and British ships and shipping for every one that was sunk to the ocean’s bottom three were getting through.
All Hitler saw was “Gee our submarines are sinking Allied ships.” He didn’t see that that was the plan, just make more than the Germans could sink. It’s like killing ants. Sure you can kill one or twenty but when millions attack you can’t kill them all.
This is why it’s very correct to say it wasn’t British tenacity or Russian lives that won WWII it was American Lend-Lease.
Germany had already lost most of the French territory it had held by the Armistice and had been driven over thirty miles back into Belgium in some places. This map shows the advance of the Western powers in the six weeks before the Armistice.
The Unknown Soldier by Niel Hanson is about the burial practices of ww1. The frame for the book is recreating the lives, and deaths, of three soldiers, British, American and German based on their letters home.
The German soldier survived almost the entire war but was killed in the final months. His account of the German offensives gives an eye opening account of just how desperate the situation was.
He describes how the high moral generated by the amazing success of the offensives was wiped out by the discovery of huge Allied stockpiles. The soldiers had been told that the Allies were suffering just as much as their families in Germany were suffering, because of the submarine blockade. The ample supplies the allies had, showed the soldiers the truth and made the war seem hopeless.
The same section also had a heartbreaking letter were he apologises to his younger brother because he was unable to find any boots to send home. He instead sent some rubber and bits of leather and hoped his brother could make something with those.
There was no negociation: the treaty of Versailles was essentially designed by the winners, and imposed to Germany. Here is a little cite from Wikipedia.
I think you over estimate the condition of Germany and the armed forces. The army had suffered numerous defeats, the air force was in bad shape, and has been mentioned the navy was in revolt. One major factor was the blockade of the Royal Navy which had prevented so many supplies getting through to Germany.
There was little fuel, there was bugger all food and even things like boots and rubber were non existent. It may seem simple to grow food, but the fertilisers were not available. Just to emphasise, some naval units found it difficult to proceed to Scapa Flow due to the lack of lubricant.
The British Army was (in my view) the best fighting unit in the war at that time and with its supplies, it could have over run Germany. The Americans were fast becoming an experienced Army and their units were arriving in masses.
Can’t it be all three? Without British tenacity and Russian lives American Lend-Lease would have been useless.
The British Army was too small to do that on its own, the French Army’s elan was broken in 1917 and the fighting in the early months of 1918 had destroyed whatever offensive potential it had left.
In Sep 1944, with the lines approximatly where they were and in a worse position at home and the allies being much stronger, the Germans were able to fight for many months.
Because they knew what the Allies would do to them if they lost.
WW1, for all its brutality, was at its heart a 19th Century war - you lose, you sign a treaty, you get on with your life. WW2 was something different.
Yes, under a Nazi dictatorship that maintained absolute control over the country and the armed forces until the bitter end. If the weak, newborn German Republic which overthrew the Kaiser on 11/9/1918 had tried to fight on, the result would have been the same as in Russia–a Bolshevik takeover.
Arguably there was something that Germany got from retreating from France, Belgium and Luxembourg under the armistice terms: a peaceful retreat, without further casualties.
I said earlier that disputing this would be quibbling, but now I’m going to do so because I see your question is based on an incorrect assumption. This judgment about the relative strengths is just plain historically incorrect. You can’t just count divisions or whatever you’re doing to judge how strong Germany was. You’re completely ignoring logistics, for example.
In 1918, the Allies had fresh troops at a time Germany had spent all of its manpower reserves. They had more troops arriving at time Germany had no way of finding new troops short of necromancy (The inexperience argument holds absoutely no water here, I should point out. American units arriving in the line weren’t straight out of basic, and when they were put into their first actions, they generally beat the veterans opposite them). They had working supply lines at a time Germany’s were broken and under threat of being overrun. They had a working logistics network that supplied all the materiel they needed at a time Germany had nothing left to give and people were beginning to starve.
When I say “the Allies” here, I’m even including the French. The French Army mutinies were in 1917, and by 1918 they were not the “broken” formation you think. They were, in fact, pushing back the Germans on a front from St. Quentin nearly to Verdun. In the Hundred Days Offensive put two French Army corps in the center of the general advance knocking back German lines by miles a day.
You are also ignoring the command and control situation. All the Allies had a operational and complete command & control structure from the very top to the very bottom of the chain. The Germans basically didn’t. Furthermore, the Allies, even the French, had more commitment to the fight than the Germans, both miltary and civilians. Most importantly, there were actual governments in London, Washington, and even Paris, while Germany was starting to turn into Somalia with lederhosen.
Taken together, this means the Allies were actual armies, while the Germans were on the verge of being a bunch of guys wearing the same clothes.
[nitpick]Close. It’s the **Dochstoss **legend. [/nitpick]
We’re both wrong! The word’s Dolchstoss-Dagger Stab.