When did the First World War Really End?

The very question as to when the First World War ended may appear an unnecessary question as the accepted date as November 1918 is firmly imprinted on our memories in those nations that gather for Remembrance Sunday to observe a respectful two-minute silence. However, the intention is not to rewrite history or challenge historians. When we examine other factors in some more detail the answer may not be so definitive. There may be alternative dates that can stretch the timeline as to when the Great war finally was concluded.

Steve Prout explains.

The so-called ‘Big Four’ at the Paris Peace Conference, May 27, 1919. Left to right: Prime Minister David Lloyd George (Great Britain), Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando (Italy), Premier Georges Clemenceau (France), President Woodrow Wilson (USA).

Continuing battles

The armistice of November 1918 did not bring the fighting to an immediate end. It continued for limited periods elsewhere around the world and in isolated pockets in Europe. The First World War in terms of battles and bloodshed was mainly fought on European soil, but it did extend because of colonial extension on a more limited scale in the Pacific, Middle East, and Africa. The African theatre continued days after the November armistice. A typical telegram sent to east Africa from Europe could take up to a full day to arrive before it could be actioned upon, and this was what exactly happened in German East Africa.

The allies had anticipated that there would be delays and therefore in advance of the armistice, on 10 November, the British General Staff sent a telegram to east Africa asking them for the quickest way to get a message to Von Lettow-Vorbeck, the commanding officer of the German colonial army. He was an exceptional German officer who had been successfully fighting and evading the Allies for four years. Vorbeck had his forces scattered over the vast territories of German East Africa and so reaching him and co-ordinating a truce would be a logistical challenge. On November 12, the day after the armistice, the two sides clashed again, and on that day Von Lettow-Vorbeck only received the telegram that the war had now ended after the battle. The two sides declared a truce, and Von Lettow-Vorbeck formally surrendered at Abercorn, Zambia on November 25, 1918, therefore extending the accepted end date by two weeks.

The Peace Treaties

An armistice is only a ceasefire and only a when a treaty is signed with the conditions determined can war be formally concluded - at least formally. Another interesting angle is to consider the dates and the timelines that these actual treaties were signed. Treaties for multiple participants and belligerents take time to finalize. The debates and negotiations for some of these treaties stretched into the early 1920s.

The treaties for the remainder of the Central Powers such as Bulgaria, Austria and Turkey were concluded long after November 1918 - and in fact the very last treaty was signed in 1923 extending diplomatically at least World War One by a further five years. Once Versailles set its uneasy peace with Germany in 1919 the rest of the Central Powers needed to be reckoned with. The order ran as follows: Austria was addressed at St. Germain-En-Laye in September 1919 and in November 1919 at Neuilly Bulgaria followed suit. In June 1920, a treaty was set with Hungary in Trianon and the first of two treaties with Turkey followed in August of that year in Sevres. It would not be until July 1923 at Lausanne that the Turkish matter would be finally settled and with that finally bringing the war to its diplomatic and formal conclusion.

The peculiarities continue because in the case of Costa Rica, who declared war on Germany, a peace agreement for the First World War was not signed until 1945 due to a diplomatic oversight. It is interesting how many of our past wars are technically continuing in forgotten diplomatic archives.

Demobilisation and preparing for war?

The announcement of the armistice did not bring a settling feeling to post war Europe. Underlying tensions still existed and in the forefront of the allies minds there was a prospect of the war being resumed. Although the German Army was at the point of exhaustion in November 1918 it had not actually been decisively beaten. There was only a tentative ceasefire in place until peace terms could be settled. The demobilization of British, colonial, and imperial troops did not finish until 1920 so in a sense a war footing was maintained. This was much longer than service members had anticipated and was not welcomed by many, causing mutiny in some instances. They did realize they might be called upon to fight again but fortunately the hostilities did not resume.

However, it was not just the fear of a return to arms in Europe that delayed demobilization. There were huge challenges like transporting millions of dominion troops home. There was the immense administrative burden on a scale never seen before that contributed to the enormity of the task. Events abroad also influenced the issue as Britain and France required a military presence to maintain order in their wider Empires, especially for Britain in the Middle East and Ireland where dissent was growing and needed containing. There was also the question of Russia and the fear of the spread of Bolshevism from Lenin’s revolutionary fervour. The fear was so great that a combined allied force from Britain, Commonwealth, US, Italy, France, and Japan were deployed between 1919 and 1920 in strategic areas of Russia in what is known as the War of Intervention. Interestingly the armistice agreement also included the requirement for German troops to remain in the Baltics to also assist and contain the Bolshevik spread. Europe was still not free from the effects and uncertainties of the war and Poland would soon join the fight against Russia in a grab for territory. Old allies and adversaries were still fighting in various limited forms.

Conclusion

The post war settlements were far from being settling and they planted the seeds for future wars as the likes of Germany, Poland, Hungary, and other newly formed states would be dissatisfied with their new borders. This was also suspected and known by the participants of the time. Some diplomats such as Smuts, and preceptive journalists and intellectuals like John Maynard Keynes could almost predict this happening. Perhaps the best example was as the famous illustration by William Orpen who produced the famous cartoon depicting a child crying at the prospect of a war within twenty years of the 1919 Versailles Treaty.

In answer to our question as to when World War One ended symbolically it will always remain with November 1918 when the general desire for peace brought about in the main a cessation of hostilities - but if we want to be technical we can stretch that date anywhere between 1918 and 1923 (although there are also unreconciled declarations of war sat lost in diplomatic archives). The case of Costa Rica signing her treaty in 1945 brings forth an interesting point as to how many other conflicts sit in a similar state of limbo? Are there any nations still technically at war since 1918 with the central powers due to diplomatic oversight? This is certainly true of modern times. Citing a study of war, Quincy Wright observed that from the end of World War Two up to 1970 (when the actual study was conducted) that over thirty-four conflicts just ended with an armistice or ceasefire and not by formal treaty. It makes an interesting trip into the annals of our accepted history - and perhaps history is not as absolute as we imagine.

When do you think the Great War ended? Let us know below.

Now read about Britain’s relationship with the European dictators during the inter-war years here.

Sources

AJP Taylor - English History 1914-45 and Origins of The Second World War

British policy and Bulgaria, 1918-1919. Treanor, Patrick Joseph; (1999) British policy and Bulgaria, 1918-1919. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D.), University College London. 

Europe of The Dictators 1919-1945 -Elizabeth Wiskeman- Collins 1966

Chronicles of Twentieth Century – 1987 - Longman

Henry Ford’s “Ship of Fools”: Ending the First World War through Citizen Diplomacy

In 1915 American industrialist and business magnate Henry Ford launched an amateur peace delegation aimed at stopping the First World War raging across Europe. Although it turned out to be disaster rand subject to ridicule, the mission offers an important example of the unorthodox ways in which private citizens have sought to broker peace.

Felix Debieux explains.

A December 1915 Punch cartoon "The Tug of Peace". It ridicules Ford’s peace mission to Europe.

When we think about ‘diplomacy’, a number of images spring to mind. Official-looking statesmen in grey suits, facing off across long tables as they discuss the terms of treaties, ceasefires and trade. This image is a narrow one, and places a great deal of importance on the work of nation states. We might call this ‘Track One’ diplomacy, that is to say the kind of diplomacy conducted in official forums by professional diplomats. There is, however, a second track. Indeed, ‘Track Two’ diplomacy – sometimes referred to as ‘backchannel diplomacy’ - refers to the non-governmental, informal and unofficial diplomacy of private citizens, major corporations, NGOs, religious organisations and even terrorist groups. 

Easily overlooked, this second track has sought to shape major historical events – often at times where government-to-government diplomacy is perceived as inadequate, ineffective or to be failing in some way. This was certainly the case with American industrialist and business magnate Henry Ford, who in 1915 launched an amateur peace delegation aimed at stopping the First World War raging across Europe. Although it turned out to be complete disaster ridiculed mercilessly by the contemporary press, the mission offers an important example of the unorthodox ways in which private citizens have sought to broker peace.

A humanitarian industrialist

While Henry Ford’s motives for involving himself in international diplomacy have been disputed, Ford certainly held sincere pacifist sentiments and, from early 1915, had begun to condemn the war in Europe. Indeed, unlike the jingoism readily found among other automotive industrialists like Roy D. Chapin and Henry B. Joy, Ford described himself as a pacifist and aired his frustration with both the war and the profiteering associated with it. This caught the attention of two prominent peace activists, who approached Ford with an ambitious proposal: launch an amateur diplomatic mission to Europe and broker an end to the war.

The two peace activists play a crucial role in this story. The first was Hungarian author, feminist, world federalist and lecturer Rosika Schwimmer. Closely associated with a number of movements including women’s suffrage, birth control and trade unionism, Schwimmer from the very outset of the war had advocated for neutral parties to mediate a peace. In 1915, she successfully persuaded the International Congress of Women at The Hague to support the policy. Her companion was Louis P. Lochner, a young American who had acted as secretary of the International Federation of Students. In 1914, Lochner had been appointed as Executive Director of the Chicago-based Emergency Peace Federation, and – like Schwimmer – called for neutral nations to mediate an end to the war. Both were fervent champions for world peace, and they hoped to persuade Ford to throw his resources behind their proposal.

While their eventual meeting with Ford was a success, the proposal put to the industrialist was not entirely honest. Indeed, Schwimmer claimed to possess key diplomatic correspondence which proved that there were neutral and belligerent nations receptive to her idea of mediation. The documents, however, cannot be described as anything other than a complete fabrication. Nevertheless, they were enough to persuade Ford that there was appetite in Europe for negotiations and so he agreed to finance a peace mission. “Well, let’s start”, he said. “What do you want me to do”? 

Chartering a mission to Europe

With Ford sold on the idea of neutral mediation, Lochner suggested that they seek the endorsement of President Wilson. The President could establish an official commission abroad until Congress made an appropriation. If this ‘Track One’ diplomatic route was to fail, Lochner explained, then the President could back an unofficial mission to undertake the work. Ford supported the idea, and seemed excited at the promise of good publicity. Indeed, the industrialist revealed a natural flair for epigram, thinking up such pithy pronouncements as: “men sitting around a table, not men dying in a trench, will finally settle the differences”. 

On November 21, 1915, Ford, Schwimmer and Lochner lunched with a group of fellow pacifists. Everybody in attendance approved the plan of sending an official ‘Track One’ mediating mission to Europe and, if that failed, a private ‘Track Two’ delegation. To set the plan in motion, Ford and Lochner would travel to Washington to secure President Wilson’s backing. Possibly jesting, Lochner suggested to the group “why not a special ship to take the delegates over [to Europe]?” Ford immediately jumped at the idea. While some members of the group thought it ridiculously flamboyant, Ford liked the idea for that very reason. Almost immediately he contacted various steamship companies and, posing as “Mr. Henry,” asked what it might cost to charter a vessel. In no time at all, Ford had chartered the Scandinavian-American liner Oscar II. 

The very next day, Ford and Lochner arrived in Washington for an appointment with the President. The meeting began well enough, with Lochner observing how “Mr. Ford slipped unceremoniously into an armchair, and during most of the interview had his left leg hanging over the arm of the chair and swinging back and forth”. After exchanging pleasantries, Ford outlined the mission, offered to finance it, and urged the President to establish a neutral commission. While he approved of the principle of continuing mediation, the President explained that he could not anchor himself to any one project and, regretfully, that he could not support Ford’s plan. This was not what Ford had prepared himself to hear. He explained that he had already chartered the ship, and had promised the press an announcement on the following day. “If you feel you can’t act, I will”, he said. While Wilson did not budge from his initial position, this was not enough to deter Ford. “He’s a small man”, Ford said to Lochner as they left the meeting. An unofficial, ‘Track Two’ mission this was going to be.

Casting a net

Eager reporters began to arrive at Ford’s hotel. The industrialist opened his press announcement with a simple question: “A man should always try to do the greatest good to the greatest number, shouldn’t he?” He continued: “We’re going to try to get the boys out of the trenches before Christmas. I’ve chartered a ship, and some of us are going to Europe”. When pressed for more detail about the voyage, Ford explained that he was going to bring together “the biggest and most influential peace advocates in the country”. Some of the heavyweights he listed included Jane Adams, John Wanamaker, and Thomas Edison. 

The voyage, unsurprisingly, made front page news in both New York and around the country. While it is not clear what kind of coverage Ford expected, the reaction he did receive was generally derisive. Among his harshest critics was the Tribune, which ran with the headline:

GREAT WAR ENDS

CHRISTMAS DAY

FORD TO STOP IT

Other commentaries were more direct in their criticism. The New York Herald, for instance, described the mission as “one of the cruellest jokes of the century”. This was echoed by the Hartford Courant, which remarked that “Henry Ford’s latest performance is getting abundant criticism and seems entitled to all it gets”. Usually more sympathetic towards Ford, the World deemed the mission an “impossible effort to establish an inopportune peace.” 

Ridiculed though it was, the mission – even before setting sail – was at least generating the kind of publicity which Ford craved. This, however, only disguised the huge logistical problems which the organisers of the project faced. Indeed, having announced 4th December as the date of embarkation, Ford had left only nine days to assemble an entire delegation. This was not only unrealistic, but also put the project on the back foot from the very outset.

Wasting no time in racing towards an impossible deadline, invitations were sent out at once to prospective delegates. The general response provided only further ammunition for the jeering press. Indeed, within just one day of Ford’s press announcement, John Wanamaker and Thomas Edison clarified that they would not be joining the voyage. While Jane Addams confirmed that she, at least, did plan on joining, it was hard to ignore the avalanche of refusals. These included distinguished figures such as William Dean Howells, William Jennings Bryan, Colonel E. M. House, Cardinal Gibbons, William Howard Taft, Louis Brandeis, Morris Hillquit, and many others who would have lent their credibility to the project. 

Nevertheless, the net was cast wide enough that some notable peace activists were able to join. Leading suffragette Inez Milholland and publisher Samuel Sidney McClure signed up for the mission, along with more than forty reporters. Also committing to the cause was the Reverend Samuel S. Marquis, a close friend of Ford’s. In the end, the delegation was as large and distinguished as Ford could reasonably expect to assemble within such a tight timeframe. Indeed, the fact that so many were willing to abandon their commitments with only nine days’ notice, in some cases at their own expense, pointed to the prestige and appeal which they believed the mission carried. 

All aboard!

The Oscar II set sail from Hoboken, New Jersey on December 4, 1915. Much to the delight of the press, arrangements began to unravel just days before embarkation. On December 1, Jane Addams – one of the mission’s key delegates – fell unexpectedly ill and had to pull out of the voyage. This was a major blow, and no doubt undermined the leadership of the expedition. It was not enough, however, to deter a crowd of roughly 15,000 people from gathering to watch the Oscar II leave the dock. As the band started to play “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier”, Ford appeared and was met with resounding cheers. 

There was certainly no shortage of entertainment to occupy the press. Indeed, just before the ship's departure, a prankster placed a cage containing two squirrels on the gangplank. An accompanying sign read "To the Good Ship Nutty". This was followed by a man who leapt into the water, and proceeded to swim after the ship as it left the dock. Once hauled ashore, he declared that he was “Mr. Zero” and explained that he was “swimming to reach public opinion.” Oblivious to the commotion, the crowd continued to wave and cheer. This clearly made an impression on Ford. As Lochner observed:

“Again and again he bowed, his face wreathed in smiles that gave it a beatific expression. The magnitude of the demonstration—many a strong man there was who struggled in vain against tears born of deep emotion—quite astonished and overwhelmed him. I felt then that he considered himself amply repaid for all the ridicule heaped upon him.” 

As the Oscar II faded out of sight, Americans waited to see what effect she might have. 

What nobody foresaw was just how soon the delegation would descend into squabbling and infighting. Much of this was triggered by President Wilson’s 7th December address to Congress, in which the case was made for military prepardness and an increase in the size of the US army. This proved to be an incendiary development, with the activists simply unable to agree on their collective response. Indeed, some aboard the Oscar II felt very strongly that the delegation should deprecate preparedness and call for immediate disarmament. Others, however, would not countenance criticism of either the President nor Congress. McClure made his position quite clear:

“For years I have been working for international disarmament. I have visited the capitals of Europe time and time again in its behalf. But I cannot impugn the course laid out by the President of the United States and supported by my newspaper”.

While some among the delegation understood this position, there were those on the voyage who were not so tolerant. Schwimmer, for instance, accused McClure of corrupting the delegation. Lochner went further still, asserting that supporters of preparedness who had joined the voyage must have simply come along for the “free ride”. Such comments only served to stoke disunity, and were lapped up by the ship’s reporters who narrated the infighting in day-to-day stories. “The dove of peace has taken flight,” cried the Chicago Tribune, “chased off by the screaming eagle”. Such reports were accused of having magnified the dispute. “The amount of wrangling has been picturesquely exaggerated,” wrote the activist Mary Alden Hopkins. “A man does not become a saint by stepping on a peace boat.”

While himself strongly opposed to preparedness in any form, it was in the end left up to Ford to patch things up. For him, the success of the voyage was paramount and, if that meant working alongside peace-lovers who supported a degree of preparedness, then so be it. Ford signed a statement, which outlined what he saw as the incompatibility between peace and prepardness but – more importantly – emphasised that all delegates on the mission were welcome. The damage, however, was already done. Indeed, delegates were very aware that their closely-held principles were being savaged in the press. “The expedition has been hampered at every step by the direct and indirect influence of the American press, by the Atlantic seaboard press,” declared one of the passengers.

As the Oscar II continued to steam across the Atlantic, the situation aboard went from bad to worse. An outbreak of influenza spread through the ship, resulting in one person dying and many others falling sick. Ford also fell ill, and retreated to his cabin in hopes of avoiding reporters. This led to a rumour that he might have secretly died, and so a group of the ship’s less considerate reporters forced their way into his quarters to check on the veracity of the story. At the same time, reporters had become highly suspicious of Schwimmer and the diplomatic correspondence she claimed to possess. After some negotiation, Schwimmer agreed to show her evidence but, angered by their comments, cancelled the exhibit. The Hungarian expressed her frustration by locking the reporters out of the Oscar II’s wireless room. By this point the group looked desperately forward to their planned arrival in Norway, where they had been promised a grand welcoming party. Like many other aspects of the mission, however, their expectations were not realised. 

Land ahoy! 

In the early hours of December 18, the Oscar II docked in Oslo. A handful of Norwegians came by later that morning to welcome the delegation, but this was nothing like the rousing welcome they had been promised. The reception was in fact much cooler, with many Norwegians generally supportive of military preparedness and sceptical towards the mission – particularly Schwimmer. Indeed, Norwegians felt that it was inappropriate for a citizen of a belligerent power to play a leadership role in the peace mission of a neutral country. Further still, Norwegians were generally pro-Ally and believed that peace could only be attained after Germany’s military strength had worsened. Onlookers were surely disappointed when a very sick Ford, who insisted on walking from the dock to his hotel, collapsed and went to bed. The most distinguished member of the delegation would make no further public appearances while in Norway.

Regretfully, Ford’s health showed no signs of improvement. He “was practically incomunicado”, recalled Lochner, who suspected that Ford’s friend, Samuel Marquis, was trying to talk the industrialist into returning to America. “Guess I had better go home to mother”, Ford eventually said to Lochner, “you’ve got this thing started now and can get along without me.” Lochner strongly objected, believing that Ford’s presence was critical to the success of the mission. This was to no avail, and on December 23 Ford began his long journey back to the US. 

The effect this had on the rest of the delegation is rather predictable. Some felt depressed, disheartened and perhaps even a sense of betrayal. Lochner attempted to re-motivate the group: “before leaving, [Ford] expressed to me his absolute faith in the party and… the earnest hope that all would continue to co-operate to the closest degree in bringing about the desired results which had been so close to his heart—the accomplishment of universal peace”. While certainly commendable, Lochner’s efforts to soften the blow fell short. After all, everybody knew that Ford was the only one among them who commanded the stature needed to impress and energise the representatives of neutral nations. Though he continued to support the mission both morally and financially, the activists who Ford left behind inevitably splintered further apart. Nevertheless, the disjointed delegation was able to claim one success: the establishment of the Neutral Conference for Continuous Mediation. 

Held in Stockholm, the Conference - attended by representatives from the US, Denmark, Holland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland - sought to encourage neutral governments to mediate an end to the war. On May 18, 1916, the Conference issued a manifesto asking belligerent nations to participate. The manifesto laid out three general activities: mediation between belligerents, propaganda to build public support for peace, and scientific study of the political problems. The Conference even managed to meet with the Danish Secretary of Foreign Affairs, its first formal recognition by a European government. Ultimately, however, there were no further successes that the activists could point to. Indeed, their quick work to develop a program failed to gain traction in the parliaments of the neutral nations; no action at all was taken by any of the targeted governments. By March 1, 1917, with the US moving closer to entering the war, Ford made the decision to discontinue the Conference. The total bill for the peace mission? Half a million dollars - $10,100,000 in 2022.

A total failure? 

How should we evaluate the peace mission? Former US Senator Chauncey M. Depew famously reflected that “in uselessness and absurdity” the peace mission stood “without equal”. This, perhaps, is the easiest assessment of the delegation’s efforts. Indeed, without ever agreeing on how they intended to achieve peace, the group failed to persuade any neutral nation to adopt a policy of mediation. In the process, those who boarded the Oscar II were subjected to relentless ridicule and criticism. This was always about more than bruised egos, with some believing that the ridiculousness of the mission risked the credibility of their deeply-held principles. The Baltimore Sun, for instance, judged that "all the amateur efforts of altruistic and notoriety-seeking millionaires only make matters worse".

Nevertheless, Ford himself asserted that the peace ship was a success. It "got people thinking” about peace on both sides of the Atlantic, he claimed, and “when you get them to think they will think right”. Was he hurt by the level of ridicule he was subjected to? It is impossible to say, but he later reminded people that at a time when no serious effort was made to bring the war to an end, he stood up and acted. “I wanted to see peace. I at least tried to bring it about. Most men did not even try”. Ford’s positive assessment of the peace mission was surely influenced by its commercial outcomes. Tellingly, he described the expedition as the “best free advertising I ever got”. 

Indeed, Ford was very much attuned to the commercial benefits of a highly publicised journey to Europe. Lochner, in fact, concluded that publicity was the only definite part of Ford’s thinking. “If we had tried to break in cold into the European market after the war, it would have cost us $10,000,000. The Peace Ship cost one-twentieth of that and made Ford a household word all over the continent”. While for the activists peace was everything, for Ford this was also an investment - an opportunity to advertise his benevolent character across Europe and America. After the war, Ford would go on to become the largest manufacturer of Liberty Motors for aircraft, blurring the boundaries he had once set between profiteering and pacifism. 

A rounded assessment of the peace ship would not be complete without considering its long-term impact. Indeed, it should be remembered that ideas stimulated during the mission eventually wound up in President Wilson’s Fourteen Points, a statement of principles for peace to be used in negotiations to end the war. Notably, the list included a commitment to transparent peace treaties, free from the greedy tentacles of private deals struck on the side. This was an idea thought up by activists who had participated in the peace mission. Though they might have failed to bring an end to the war, these ‘Track Two’ citizen diplomats can claim a legacy of sorts, pioneering alternative modes of peace-building less dependent on government leadership. 

What do you think of the ‘Ship of Fools’? Let us know below.

Now read Felix’s article on Henry Ford’s calamitous utopia in Brazil: Fordlandia here.

References

Open War Aboard the “Peace Ship", J. Mark Powell.

The Peculiar Case of Henry Ford, The University of Michigan and the Great War.

Henry Ford And His Peace Ship, American Heritage, Volume 9, Issue 2, February 1958.

The “Peace Ship”: An Early Attempt at Citizen Diplomacy, Read the Spirit.

The Peace Ship: Henry Ford’s Pacifist Adventure in the First World War, Barbara Kraft, New York, 1978.

The Odyssey of Henry Ford and the Great Peace Ship, Burnet Hershey, New York, 1967.

Second Track / Citizens' Diplomacy: Concepts and Techniques for Conflict Transformation, John Davies, Edward Kaufman, eds., Maryland, 2002.

Britzkrieg: British Bankers’ Secret Plan To Win World War I

Libraries of books have been written about the causes and effects of the two worst financial collapses since 1900: The Great Depression of the 1930s and The Great Recession of 2008. Yet it is much harder to find a book about the Financial Crisis of 1914, one in which British bankers tried to suspend capital flows in order to rapidly win World War I. Daniel McEwan explains.

A 1922 US gold certificate. The ‘gold standard’ system was key to the international economy at the outbreak of World War I.

The crisis ranks as “an extraordinary and unique moment in global economic history” that saw over 50 nations experience bank runs and asset crashes. For six nail-biting weeks during August and early September, as Europe’s great powers made their march of folly into war, stock exchanges world-wide were closed until further notice, including the exchange in London - closed for the first time ever! Just down the street, the Bank of England was coping with a run on gold sovereigns. And then, as suddenly as it had started, it was over. Overshadowed by news of the war’s first bloody battles, the crisis made few headlines. “Every political, social, cultural, and economic dimension of life was in crisis in summer 1914: there was nothing especially notable about the financial sector being in trouble.” The cause of the crisis remained a banking industry whodunit for nearly a century.

The story of how a roomful of the best and brightest bankers in The City, as London’s cloistered financial district is called, gambled on their own country’s future by purposely crashing the world economic system... “is simply absent not only from general texts but also from most of the specialist literature,” laments Richard Roberts, a Professor of Contemporary History at King’s College London. That these financiers triggered; “one of the top five all-time worst international banking crises makes the silence surrounding this episode all the more mystifying.”

Stopping capital flows

In 2013, Roberts attempted to unravel the mystery of the events of those six weeks in his book Saving The City: The Great Financial Crisis of 1914. The book reveals; “...there was no downfall of a major financial institution [in Britain]. The reason was massive and unprecedented state intervention that looked like wartime controls rather than financial crisis resolution.” In other words, a government bailout. 

Nicholas Lambert at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia picked through the entrails of the crisis and divined a more sinister interpretation of its events. Like Roberts, he claims the true story of the 1914 crisis has been “airbrushed out of the official history.” In his book, Planning Armageddon, Lambert exposes a conspiracy of such breathtakingly scope that critics would later denounce it as “an act of madness” and “economic suicide”. Call it “Britzkrieg”.

In 1914, The City was the beating heart of the global economy. British financiers controlled sixty to eighty per cent of every war-critical sector of the global economy, giving it “an ability to manipulate the economic system to a degree unparalleled even today,” says Lambert. Beguiled by this power, the bankers decided to break Germany’s economic ability to prosecute the war militarily, hopefully before the shooting even started!

There is no question that everyone around the table clearly understood what they were planning would cause catastrophic collateral damage to their own domestic economy! Even worse, it would hurt the economies of neutral countries; countries Britain would need as allies in the event of war -especially America. Yet still they did it, based solely on their collective assumption that as the world’s leading export nation, Germany would break first and in just a few months! All Britain had to do was endure the pain until then and presto, the war would be won! So confident were these moneymen of their plan’s success, they single-handedly touted the “home-by-Christmas” myth that would lure throngs of their fellow citizens into army recruiting stations, many never to be home by any Christmas.

Admiralty

Perhaps the bankers’ confidence was bolstered by their accomplice in this secret endeavor, the British admiralty. Theirs was the largest and most powerful blue water fleet in the world and it had practically invented the naval blockade. During its conflict with France from 1754-63, British warships had sealed off their major ports, slowly strangling the French economy. They had done it again with equal effect against Napoleon’s own attempts to blockade Britain with his Continental System. Inspired by this track record, the admirals were only too keen to do their bit to hasten Germany’s downfall, which explains why the Royal Navy moved so quickly once the shooting did start, blockading Germany and seizing/sinking a quarter of its merchant shipping in just three months!

At first, the bankers’ ruthless plan worked brilliantly. By stopping the flow of capital, they effectively locked down the world economic system. Factories and mines closed. Shipping lanes emptied but Germany did not break. It had its own plan and the Kaiser’s legions rolled across over Belgium into France, only narrowly halted just eighty miles from Paris. The war the bankers’ thought they were preventing was on. By then, their plan had made them new and powerful enemies at home and abroad. The political blowback was thunderous. Exactly as they had anticipated, the first and loudest complaints were lodged by English industrialists being hammered by the crisis just as much as Germany. And they made their displeasure known to their friends in high places who were equally appalled by what the bankers were doing.

End of the scheme

“It turned out that while the Admiralty was perfectly willing to countenance ending the economic world as they knew it, other parts of the British government were far less enthusiastic about that prospect,” observes Mark Stout, Senior Editor at War on the Rocks.

They weren’t alone. American manufacturers quickly joined the chorus of protests. Their factories were producing over a quarter of the consumer goods purchased by Europeans and the lockdown was crimping their style – and profits. After some dark warnings from the White House, the British government demanded the financiers abandon their ruinous program, no questions asked.

The war consumed the crisis but it remains an example of economic brinkmanship no nation has ever been foolish enough to repeat.

What do you think of the scheme? Let us know below.

Now read Daniel’s article on Russia’s 4 great resets here.

How the Triple Entente Formed in World War I: Part 1 – The Origins of Germany

World War I is of course one of the most important wars in modern history, and of the key geo-political aspects of the war was the formation of the Triple Entente between Britain, France, and Russia. These Great Powers with overlapping interests were not necessarily natural allies in World War One, but the nature of international affairs in the preceding decades pushed them together.

Here, Bilal Junejo starts a series looking at how the Triple Entente was formed by considering the impact of the formation of the German nation in 1871 on other European countries. In particular, Austro-Russian tension in the Balkans and Franco-German tension on the Rhine, and a paranoia in Berlin is considered.

Otto von Bismarck, a key person in the early days of the German nation.

The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 remains, to date, one of the most formidable events in the entire history of mankind. The world, as we presently know it, owes the greater part of its lineaments to that carnage which pervaded Europe and her many empires for four years, and the (happy) abortion of which drastic upheaval might have resulted in contemporary atlases manifesting radically different features from those that happen to adorn it today. By 1918, many empires had evaporated and new states emerged in their stead; older powers were humbled and eventually supplanted by newer and bigger ones. The process that commenced in 1914 reached its apotheosis in 1945, when the losers of the First World War— who had fought in the Second specifically to reverse the verdict of the First— emerged as losers of the Second as well, but not before ensuring that the penalty of their misadventures exacted tribute from the victors too, since 1945 also marked the end of a whole era— the age of a world order dominated by Europe. What emerged in its wake was a bipolar, and infinitely more rigid, international system that lasted until the collapse of the redoubtable Soviet Union in 1991.

However, there was nothing inevitable about the Cold War, for all that happened post-1945 was largely determined by what had happened pre-1945 (or, to be more precise, post-1918). And what happened post-1918 was again determined by what had transpired prior to that time, particularly since 1871. This is by no means a year chosen at random, for, with the indispensable benefit of hindsight, this was the twelvemonth in which, it can reasonably be argued, the seeds of the ultimate downfall of Europe were sown. What came to pass in 1914 was caused directly, inasmuch as one event leads to another, by what had happened in 1871; but what happened post-1918 was determined in conjunction with what had transpired during the War itself, from 1914 to 1918. But, it should not be forgotten that the motives which precipitated World War I— avarice and/or fear, such as have animated just about every war waged in human history— had little or nothing to do with the magnitude of the conflagration that ensued, and subsequently engulfed the world. What was different in 1914 from any previous time in history were the means available, and the scale consequently possible, for the purpose of waging war. The formidable achievements that had been made in military technology since the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century, and the vast colonial resources that were available to each of the Great Powers to realize the full potential of the technology at their disposal (indeed, it was primarily the existence of vast colonies and empires that had turned an essentially European war into a World War), ensured that even the slightest insouciance on anyone’s part would engender a maelstrom that would consume everything until there was nothing further left to consume. Given the exorbitant cost that was almost certain to attend any impetuous escapade, it becomes any thoughtful soul gazing down the stark and petrified roads of time to ask how the ends justified, if they ever did, the means. To recall the jibe of Southey:

“And everybody praised the Duke,

 Who this great fight did win.”

“But what good came of it at last?”

 Quoth little Peterkin.

“Why that I cannot tell,” said he,

“But ‘twas a famous victory.”

A short war?

Why did the European powers decide to appease Mars, at the woeful expense of Minerva, in that fateful year? Was it out of sheer necessity, or mere audacity? Possibly, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Every war invariably stipulates a certain boldness that must be exuded by the participants, since it is humanly impossible to guarantee the outcome of any conflict, let alone one in which weapons capable of unleashing destruction and havoc on a colossal scale are to be employed. When war broke out in 1914, there was a wave of joy that swept through each of the belligerent countries, even though their respective governments did not exactly share that enthusiasm. Maybe this seemingly inexplicable effusion was owing to a misapprehension that the war would shortly culminate in a decisive victory— a reasonable enough supposition, since a World War, by definition, remained without precedent till 1914. Even the statesmen of the various countries involved did not anticipate anything like what eventually came to pass, a notable exception being the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, who presciently, if sadly, prophesied on the eve of the conflict that:

“The lamps are going out all over Europe— we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”

The popular mood, however, was depicted more accurately by the last lines of His Last Bow, one of the many Sherlock Holmes stories penned by the estimable Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Although possibly a piece of propaganda to boost public morale, given that it was published after three years of savagery in September 1917, the lines in question, notwithstanding the palpable pathos they garner from the fact that both Holmes and Watson— proverbial for their friendship— are about to go their separate ways on the eve of war, are still notable for their espousal of, and patent lack of any regret for, war.

“There’s an east wind coming, Watson.”

“I think not, Holmes. It is very warm.”

“Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age. There’s an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it’s God’s own wind nonetheless, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared.”

Why were the peoples of Europe so bellicose in 1914? A cogent rejoinder was tendered by the perspicacious Doctor Henry Kissinger, when he observed:

“In the long interval of peace (1815-1914), the sense of the tragic was lost; it was forgotten that states could die, that upheavals could be irretrievable, that fear could become the means of social cohesion. The hysteria of joy which swept over Europe at the outbreak of the First World War was the symptom of a fatuous age, but also of a secure one. It revealed a millennial faith; a hope for a world which had all the blessings of the Edwardian age made all the more agreeable by the absence of armament races and of the fear of war. What minister who declared war in August 1914, would not have recoiled with horror had he known the shape of the world in 1918?”

The Triple Entente

Even if the people felt ‘secure’ and animated by a ‘millennial faith’, could it be said that their respective governments also felt exactly the same way? Was there not even the slightest degree of compulsion that was felt by the statesmen of each belligerent nation as they embarked upon war? It seems that but for one glaring fact, the answer could have been readily given in the affirmative. That fact is the nature of those alliances into which the Great Powers were firmly divided by 1914. On the one hand, there was the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy; on the other, there was the Triple Entente of Great Britain, France and Russia. The rearrangement of some loyalties during the war, with corresponding additions and subtractions, lies beyond the purview of this essay, the sole purpose of which is to illuminate international perceptions as they existed prior to the outbreak of war. And it is in the realm of these perceptions that the cynosure of our discussion today is to be found, for there was something inherent in the Triple Entente that was very untoward and, consequently, very ominous. It was the fact that the Entente— a precise and deliberate reaction to the creation of the Triple Alliance— had come into being between sovereign states who were anything but natural allies of each other! Each of the three parties thereto was, for reasons to be canvassed later, an object of immense detestation to the others, so to whom must the credit for so unnatural a coalition be given? The answer is immediately clear— Imperial Germany. With its acutely myopic foreign policy, pursued unfailingly, from 1890 to 1914, it succeeded, however inadvertently, in ranging three very unlikely allies in an association aimed solely against itself.

Every war, it must be remembered, has both immediate causes and distant causes. In the case of the First World War, the former are ascertained by asking why did the War break out at all in the first place; whereas the latter by asking why did it break out in 1914. We shall review both of these questions, but it is by dint of this peregrination that you shall assure yourself of how the same impetus that had precipitated so aberrant an association as the Triple Entente in the first place, was also responsible for its ineluctable clash with the Triple Alliance, since nothing but the keenest awareness of an overwhelming peril in their neighborhood could have convinced such inveterate foes as London, Paris and St Petersburg to settle their mutual differences and together strive for the attainment of a common, to say nothing of congenial, end— the defeat of Germany. In this article, we shall confine ourselves to a succinct examination of the new European order (and its irrefragable hallmarks) that emerged in 1871. Since the Entente came about by way of reaction to the Triple Alliance of 1882, which was itself a natural consequence of this new order, it behooves us to first comprehend the origins of this order, before proceeding to contemplate how it influenced the advent of that century’s most portentous dichotomy.

The birth of modern Germany

To begin, it was the year 1871 that marked the birth of the new Germany. Up till that point in time, no such entity as a united Germany had existed. A myriad of states dotted the landscape to the east of France, north of Austria and west of Russia. Naturally endowed with every blessing that was the prerequisite of a Great Power in the nineteenth century— a people who were at once proud and prolific, vast natural reserves of coal and iron, and a position of geopolitical eminence in the center of the Continent— the German peoples north of a decrepit and declining Austria only needed a leadership of iron will and indomitable resolve to sweep away that panoply of effete princelings who still hindered the destined unity of an ancient race by dint of their endlessly internecine strife. And Providence favored the Teuton just then, for there arose a man whose impregnable personal convictions, filtered through his unmatched political acumen, were to forever change the course of European history. That man was none other than the formidable Otto von Bismarck, the founding father of modern Germany. Bismarck may not have been the first one to realize that a multitude of independent but moribund German kingdoms could never realize the dream of securing Great Power status for the German people, and that the course most favorable for its achievement would be a political union of all the kingdoms under the auspices of the strongest one of them, Prussia, which had become a major European power since the days of King Frederick II (1740-86); but he was certainly the one who demonstrated the veracity of that proposition beyond doubt. From the moment that he was appointed chief minister of Prussia in 1862, Bismarck set out to accomplish this stupendous goal that he had set himself with indefatigable perseverance. A statesman of unmatched astuteness, he perceived only too clearly for their own good which of his neighbors he had to humble before a tenable German Empire could be proclaimed. To that end, he waged three specific wars— against Denmark in 1864, Austria in 1866 and, finally, France in 1870. It is beyond the scope of this essay to delve into the particulars of those wars because what concerns us here are their political effects after 1871, when the Treaty of Frankfurt concluded the Franco-Prussian War by proclaiming the birth of Imperial Germany and the simultaneous demise of the Second Empire in France.

Liberalism and nationalism

At any given time in international relations, there are certain aspects that constitute constants, and certain that do variables. Just as the values of variables in a mathematical equation are determined by the constants that it entails, so also does it happen in the complex world of diplomacy and foreign policy, that the issues which lie beyond negotiation greatly circumscribe the range of values that may be attributed to a particular variable. The provenance of a constant in any state’s foreign policy lies in that state’s raison d’être; whereas that of a variable lies in the ambitions pursued and expedients adopted by the state to seek maximum expression for that raison d’être. It so happened that the three wars fought by Bismarck’s Prussia in the 1860s furnished European diplomacy with two of its most fateful and unfortunate constants, which lasted with uncanny steadfastness until 1914 and thus rendered the outbreak of a general European war inevitable. But what were the circumstances that made the two outcomes so rigid and impervious to any variation whatsoever? In other words, what was it that made the two outcomes constants? The answer to that can be found in the two cardinal features of nineteenth century Europe that were the legacy of the momentous French Revolution— liberalism and nationalism. Throughout the period designated by the late Professor Eric Hobsbawm as the ‘long nineteenth century’— i.e. from 1789, when the Revolution in France broke out, to 1914— these were the two isms that together comprised the ubiquitous hope of the people and the ubiquitous fear of their rulers.

The age of empires, which are inherently based upon the generation of fear and the deployment of force, was gradually drawing to an end, and what was to supplant it would be a polity whose quintessence could already be discerned in the United States and the United Kingdom— democracy. A true democracy, owing to its very nature, is inherently opposed to organizing its society by dint of force, which means that it perforce must turn to the precepts of nationalism and liberalism for inspiration, with the former defining its borders and the latter its government. For this reason, the autocratic courts and chancelleries of Europe were already on edge by the time Bismarck added to their troubles with his decisive victories over a stagnant status quo and forever altered the European balance of power. Having thus ascertained the background and context in which his feats operated, it should now be easy for us to understand how the two constants that we alluded to earlier actually came into being.

The first of them arose as a result of the Austro-Prussian War (also known as the Seven Weeks’ War) in 1866. Bismarck’s earlier victory over the Danes had been the means for engendering this conflict, since a portion of the territory that he had gained in 1864 (Schleswig-Holstein) had been granted to Austria, subsequent allegations of maladministration against whom eventually furnished Bismarck with the pretext that he needed for going to war against her. In reality, the reason for wishing to humiliate Austria was the fact that she remained the oldest German power, far older than Prussia, in existence on the Continent, the Habsburgs having ascended the throne as long ago as 1273. Austria, therefore, could have no rivals amongst the multitudinous German kingdoms when it came to legitimacy and pedigree, but her empire was an exceedingly multi-ethnic one, with just about as many Magyars and Slavs as there were Germans. In an age permeated by the ideas of the French Revolution, such an entity could not last for very long, since if Bismarck were to succeed in establishing a pan-German confederation, then the march of international events would dictate that the Germanic parts of the Austrian Empire should merge with Germany; whereas the Slavonic ones with the principal Slavonic power, Russia.

Bismarck, however ironic it may sound, was not at all keen to orchestrate such a development, for it would have turned his whole policy upside-down. Rather than being the offspring of popular sentiment alone, the German Empire, when it was eventually born in 1871, had primarily resulted from consent by all the German kings outside of Austria to unite as one under the indubitable hegemony of the Hohenzollern King of Prussia, who became the German Emperor (or Kaiser). Had German Austria, which was overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, been allowed to merge with a Germany dominated by Protestant Prussia, then the decisive influence exercised by the latter would undoubtedly have been diluted, especially since the aforementioned credentials of legitimacy favored the hallowed Habsburgs, the Hohenzollerns only having become the Royal House of Prussia in 1701. However, this fateful decision to exude magnanimity towards Austria after her defeat eventually became the first step in the march towards World War I, for having been allowed to exist but permanently barred from any further expansion towards the north in German-speaking lands, and never given to any kind of overseas colonialism, Austria had only one place left in which to expand and thus keep up the pretense of still being a Great Power— the Balkans. Overwhelmingly Slavonic and partitioned between the equally moribund and crumbling Austrian and Ottoman Empires for centuries, the Balkans of a nationalistic nineteenth century determined not only the common, not to mention insuperable, enmity of the two alien behemoths in Slavonic lands with Russia, the champion of Panslavism, but also the most egregious flashpoint in Europe that could trigger an irrevocable catastrophe of monumental proportions at the behest of even the slightest provocation. And eventually, in 1914, it was a Balkan conflict that, owing to centuries of arrogance and paranoia, eventually transmogrified into the cataclysm of World War I (in which both Austria and Turkey fought together on the same side, against Russia, and all three collapsed from a mortal blow at the end). Thus, intractable Austro-Russian rivalry in the Balkans became one of the unfortunate constants in international relations from 1866-1914.

Germany and France

The second constant emanated from the Iron Chancellor’s triumph over the Sphinx of the Tuileries, the vainglorious Emperor Napoleon III of the French Second Empire (the First Empire designating the rule of his illustrious uncle, Napoleon Bonaparte). Up to the point of its categorical defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, France had been generally perceived as being the strongest power on the Continent, and the Emperor Napoleon III as engaged in plotting machinations supposed to be as ambitious as they were surreptitious (hence his sobriquet). Moreover, France’s foreign policy during the Second Empire had done little to endear the country to her neighbors. Great Britain, the historic rival of France and the dominant figure in whose political life from 1852-65 had been the overtly chauvinistic Palmerston, was not reassured by French imperial endeavors, which spanned the globe from Mexico to North Africa to the Far East. Moreover, the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, which had been constructed by a French company headed by a French diplomat and engineer called Ferdinand de Lesseps, was greatly resented by London (which had taken no part in either the canal’s funding or its construction) because of its geopolitical importance. Standing at the crossroads between three continents, it was palpable in the age of empire that control of the Suez Canal meant control of Asia. For example, using this Canal meant that the distance from India to Great Britain was reduced by approximately 6,000 miles/9,700 kilometers (for both troops and traders). And for a predominantly mercantile people like the British, the more they could reduce the costs of their shipping to and from India, the more competitive would their goods become in the world market, and thereby improve profit margins all over. So Britain, at this time, had every possible interest in weakening France relative to its present standing. On the other hand, with regard to her eastern neighbors, France had stood by in unhelpful neutrality when Austria was defeated in two wars, first by the Italian kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in 1859, and then by Prussia in 1866. Russia had been humiliated by France in the Crimean War (1854-56). And as for Italy, whose unification could not be complete without the expulsion of the French troops in Rome who guarded the Pope, her reasons for supporting Prussia in 1870 were as comprehensible as were Austria’s and Russia’s.

Thus, with all the Continental powers keen to usher in a deflation of her ego, it is not surprising that France should have received no support in a war which, most importantly of all, she had been imperious enough to initiate herself against an ascendant Prussia. But what came to matter even more than the war itself were the peace terms upon which it was concluded. Enshrined in the Treaty of Frankfurt (1871), these terms stipulated that France must cede Alsace and most of Lorraine in the north-east to Germany, pay an indemnity of around five billion francs to the Germans, and accept an occupation force in the country until the indemnity had been conclusively defrayed. Whilst the indemnity was paid soon enough, and the German army withdrawn accordingly, the seizure of Alsace-Lorraine (an area rich in natural deposits of iron) continued to remain a focal point of French resentment, which would only fester with the elapse of each year. Moreover, Bismarck, who had been as vindictive and punitive towards France as he had been lenient and magnanimous towards Austria, had chosen to proclaim the birth of the new German Empire from the hallowed Palace of Versailles, in the presence of all the German princes and upon the ashes of French pride. This manifest insult, coupled with the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, meant that henceforth (and up to 1914), France would be permanently available as an ally to any country in Europe that wished to wage a war against the newborn Germany, who, in turn, would be on an equally permanent lookout to nip the prospect of any such alliance in the bud. That this synergy of malice and paranoia on the Continent could betoken nothing better than what eventually deluged Europe in 1914 was eloquently illuminated by the late historian, Herbert Fisher, when he observed:

“During all the years between 1870 and 1914, the most profound question for western civilisation was the possibility of establishing friendly relations between France and Germany. Alsace-Lorraine stood in the way. So long as the statue of Strasbourg in the Place de la Concorde was veiled in crêpe, every Frenchman continued to dream of the recovery of the lost provinces as an end impossible perhaps of achievement— for there was no misjudgement now of the vast strength of Germany— but nevertheless ardently to be desired. It was not a thing to be talked of. ’N’en parlez jamais, y pensez toujours,’ advised Gambetta; but it was a constant element in public feeling, an ever-present obstruction to the friendship of the two countries, a dominant motive in policy, a dark cloud full of menace for the future.”

To recapitulate, the Europe that emerged after 1871, and lasted until 1914, bore three characteristics that were, sadly, as permanent as they were formidable: Austro-Russian tension in the Balkans, Franco-German tension on the Rhine, and (consequently) festering paranoia in Berlin. In so delicate a situation as now defined Continental affairs, and one which had been entirely of his own making, Otto von Bismarck would henceforth have to summon the services of all the diplomatic finesse and chicanery that could be proffered by his scheming mind, and which was the only force capable of staving off the consequences that inevitably follow in the wake of a rival’s bruised ego. That his worst fears for Germany were not realized until after his unfortunate dismissal in 1890 remains a testament to the fact that something went very wrong in the succeeding twenty-four years.

We shall turn our full attention to this after we have canvassed the marvels of Bismarckian diplomacy, from 1871 to 1890, in the next article.

What do you think of the wars Germany had in the 1860s? Let us know below.

References

Doctor Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (Simon & Schuster Paperbacks 1994)

Doctor Henry Kissinger, A World Restored (Phoenix Press 1957)

H. A. L. Fisher, A History of Europe (The Fontana Library 1972)

Nicola Barber and Andy Langley, British History Encyclopaedia (Parragon Books 1999)

A. W. Palmer, A Dictionary of Modern History, 1789-1945 (Penguin Books 1964)

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Why did Germany get the blame at the end of World War One? Part 3 – Ever Greater Tensions in Europe

Germany is often blamed for causing World War I – and the 1919 Treaty of Versailles led to the country needing to pay large reparations to the winners. Here, Denise Tubbs continues her look at why Germany got much of the blame for World War I. She considers the roles of Russia, Germany, France, and Britain prior to war breaking out in August 1914.

Part 1 in the series is on the decades leading up to World War One is here and part 2 on the role of Austria-Hungary in the outbreak of war here.

German troops marching through Blankenberge, Belgium in World War I.

We ended part two with Austria beginning to mobilize towards war. The generals had a plan; and sad to say it’s probably the most flawed war plan of all time. Their plan was based on a six-week timeline. In that time they planned to invade Serbia, destroy it, and subsequently conquer it. Anyone else see a problem with this plan? Its ambitious sure, it may even be a feeling of confidence. But any confidence Austria had is sheer cockiness. Let us face it, Austria has always wanted the area that makes up Serbia and needed a reason to go in and take it. The Archduke’s death allowed this to happen.

There is a truth to what is really going on in Austria. The last time the country was at war, was 48 years prior in 1866. Between then and now, there is no definitive armed force. The would be soldiers were actually farmers and industry workers – these soldiers weren’t even alive the last time war came to their homes. Right off the back Austria needed to train soldiers and quickly. But that’s not the only reality they hadn’t faced. The railroad system had not been tended to in years, and there were areas across the country that still didn’t have rail tracks at all. The ones that remained had not been tended to in years. Lastly, there were the ranking members of armed forces - these men were veteran soldiers. They were also overly confident. But these were also men who fought 48 years before. Their tactics and plans and approaches were all outdated. Their choices in formations and the use of cavalries weren’t feasible any longer.  

With all these issues and preparation for war, they faced one more issue. The timing of the escalating conflict had occurred in the middle of the farming harvest for the year. So now not only did they need to train soldiers, update railway systems, and plan with outdated military resources, but they also had to wait for those farmers to finish their harvest. This is why the plan of six weeks was fundamentally flawed. They’d need six weeks to take care of the issues they have and then prepare for war. In short, it was an unrealistic plan. 

Russian Action

Meanwhile, over in Russia, the Tsar had some choices to make. He knew that if Austria mobilized her army that Germany would too. Germany had a border with Russia; which increases the chances of conflict at that border. There was also the relationship with Serbia. There was no formal agreement in place like Belgium had with Britain. Either way, the tsar felt that there was some level of protection he should give to help the Serbs. He decided to mobilize. 

In terms of preparedness, Russia was like Austria; the only caveat is that they did not have a timeline of how events were to play out. They too had outdated rail systems, farmers that needed to be trained as soldiers and commanders overly confident in the power of what the country can muster in a crisis. Russia is the largest country on earth, and with that distinction comes another: the largest army in the world. But the number of men cannot be successful if they were beaten by technological advancements. 

Back in the late 19th century Russia had a spat with Japan. This conflict would become known as the Russo-Japanese War. Other powers in Europe assumed that any ‘civilized’ country could easily beat a country that is little more than an island chain. Well good thing no one bet on the matchup because Japan won the war. Their win sent shockwaves through Europe. The war revealed to the world two dark truths of Russia: that their army could not be controlled, and there was an uneasy resentfulness of the monarchy. 1905 was a year that had handed a warning in another way - it gave the royal family a warning that the Russian people were not happy. 

No one could understand how a country as large and as populated as Russia could lose a war in such a way. The reasons lay in the lack of training we mentioned above as well as technology advancements elsewhere. But there was also the issue of transportation. The country probably had a worse rail system than Austria did. In fact, at the time, the United States had more railway systems than Russia had ever put down. 

Military Commanders in Russia were not appointed based on experience. It was a society of ‘who knows who’ aristocracy that paid little attention to threats facing the country. That’s not to say that all positions were based on who you knew; there were a few ranks that required military experience but they were far and few. The commanders of the war would make decisions that had major repercussions across the country during the war years. These actions only added to the fuel that was the Russian Revolution in 1917. 

German Ultimatum

Now that Russia had mobilized, Germany sent an ultimatum: Either stop the preparations or they would be forced to mobilize their forces. While the official message was clear, what was not is the relationship between their respective heads of state. Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas were third cousins; both sharing the same great great grandfather Peter I of Russia. The two began writing to each other in hopes of coming to some kind of agreement. The letters, later known as the “Willy-Nicky correspondence” did not have the result either of them wanted. The reason being that by now the decision making was well out of their hands - generals, prime ministers, and other officials were now calling the shots. 

Seeing how the letters did nothing to soothe the situation, and with Russia concerned over her ability to succeed in another war, Russia made a few calls to their ally France. The Franco-Russian Alliance was essentially a military agreement between the two nations. With Germany gaining strength in the late 19th century both countries found it needed to align with each other in the event of conflict. Now with Germany giving ultimatums, Russia activated the alliance with France. 

France up until this point had been waiting in the wings. The government had been paying attention to the events knowing that this may be the chance to get a little revenge on Germany. When Russia called on France they are all for it. The territories they lost in the Franco-Prussian War were still a sore spot and they wanted that land back. 

Escalating Tensions

Lets stop and recap for a second. Two sides have now formed: Germany and Austria-Hungary versus Serbia, Russia, and now France. If you looked at a map, or even from space that is a solid chunk of Europe and part of Asia. This is escalating, but at the level of the commanders and leaders, it's still not apparent that it will end in war. 

Germany realized that with France to its west and Russia to its east they were looking at a two front conflict. On one point they were determined to finish off France. Russia they thought could be dealt with later. This is where their plan forms to deal with both countries. As long as they could take out one of them first before either is ready, they had a shot of winning. This plan looked great on paper, but was not fully investigated. The German plan was to invade one of them, and take them out. This way a two front conflict becomes one. In looking at their options, Germany chose France to invade first because they assumed that it would take Russia longer to mobilize its forces. In that time it was theorized they could eliminate France before Russia could come with aid. 

So France was the first step. It would not be an easy approach either. Commanders went over all possible points of entry to invade France. Only one made the most sense and that was to march through the relatively new country of Belgium. Germany asked Belgium if they could march through to get to France and Belgium said no. Well Germany didn’t take well to the denial and begin to threaten Belgium that they would march through with or without permission. This was a huge mistake on the part of German arrogance. They neglect the fact that Belgium is under the protection of Great Britain.

Britain’s Role

If there was any European Power truly not directly affected by the events in Sarajevo, it was Great Britain. She’s is like the sleeping bear in the back of the cave; she may stir every once in a while, but as long as you don’t bother her or her cubs she’ll stay sleeping. Belgium is one of her cubs. When the country was formed a treaty was put in place. The Treaty of London (1839) stated that if any state threatened the neutrality of Belgium, Great Britain was required to enforce the treaty and protect Belgium. This is where Germany went wrong. When it came down to it, Great Britain was the one country that Germany did not want to go up against.

Britain had not only the firepower and global standing, they had more troops than any other country across its territories. Those troops would be not only from Britain, but also Canada, Australia, India, New Zealand, etc. With the largest empire on earth Germany knew fighting them would likely mean defeat. But by now the situation was too far along. And the confidence Germany had blinded them to any real logical action. After threatening Belgium, they invoked the terms of The Treaty of London.

War Begins

Britain wasn’t really trying to go to war. They had their own problems in Ireland. Political unrest and violence between Catholics and Protestants kept them from really watching what’s happening across Europe. The Prime Minister David Lloyd George received the call of help from Belgium and discussed it with his government. They decided to give Germany a timetable. They had until midnight local time to send word they would not enter Belgium. Midnight came and went, and Britain had her answer. They started mobilizing their troops. 

By now Germany was at the border of Belgium. They did ask one more time about marching through. Again Belgium declines. Germany began entering Belgium. The date was August 4, 1914 and the war was officially live. So now we know how it all began. What’s next? Part 4 will have that and the wrap up to this tale.

What do you think about Germany invading France through Belgium? Let us know below.

Sources

Wikipedia 

Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History Podcast (Blueprint for Armageddon parts 1-6)

The History of the Great War Podcast

A World Undone: The Story of the Great War by G.J. Meyer

Why did Germany get the blame at the end of World War One? Part 2 – Crisis in Austria-Hungary

Germany is often blamed for causing World War I – and the 1919 Treaty of Versailles led to the country needing to pay large reparations to the winners. Here, Denise Tubbs continues her look at why Germany got much of the blame for World War I. She considers Austria-Hungary and its pivotal role in the events that led to the outbreak of World War One.

Part 1 in the series focuses on the decades leading up to World War One: Available here.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in 1914. His assassination precipitated a crisis that led to World War One

In Part 1 we talked about the basics - some of who the main players were, and Germany’s habit of having a ruler who is an overachiever. We know that the country as a whole felt boxed in due to the alliances surrounding them. But what about their allies? We left off on the background of one of them: Austria-Hungary. Get comfy because this is where things get interesting.  

Succession in Austria-Hungary 

Wondering why the country was called Austria-Hungary and today they are just Austria and Hungary? Well, it is a bit complicated, but essentially both are separate countries and both are monarchies. Only, they have the same ruler just under different names. Using this example makes it clearer: after Queen Elizabeth I of England died, King James was called James I of England. But in Scotland, where he had been king since he was an infant, he was known as James VI of Scotland.

So, the ruler at the turn of the century was Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary and he was in a bit of a pickle. Good Emperor Franz had no male heir to take his place when he died. At the start at the war in 1914, he was 84 years old. He and his wife, the Empress Elisabeth (known as Sisi) had four children. But of those four, only one was a son. One thing to mention about Empress Sisi is that she was the most beautiful woman of her time, and was beloved by her people. Franz Joseph was deeply in love with her. Only she never quite felt the same. Her death in 1898 by an assassin deeply affected the Emperor and the country at large. The Crown Prince Rudolf was groomed from day one to replace his father. Only he would never get the chance.

Like many marriages of the day the relationship between Rudolf and his wife Stephanie of Belgium was an arranged one. Still they were able to have one child together. Perhaps it is fate, but that child would be a girl. Every prince had their occasional or favorite mistress, but Rudolf seemed to be a bit more involved with his than most. Mary Vestra was from society but had a reputation herself. At 17 years old the two of them had a torrid affair. In January 1888, Rudolf and Marie were found dead at the Mayerling Hunting Lodge. No one knows the circumstances of what the motive was or if they had planned it. The story that seems to fit best based on the discovery of Marie’s diary in 2015 is that they had a suicide pact. 

Either way, Rudolf’s death shook the country to the core. Franz only had one son and he was no longer alive to take his place. A true succession crisis was now clear to all those around the Emperor. After some consideration, the Emperor decided to make his nephew the Archduke Franz Ferdinand his successor. Ferdinand didn’t have the greatest relationship with his uncle and most of his family. His choice in marrying Sophie Chotek, a woman with no title and a morganatic marriage (a marriage with somebody of different social rank) alienated everyone. Upon the marriage, Sophie and Ferdinand waived the rights of succession for any children they had together. This was based on the fact that Sophie wasn’t of noble blood. It was a pain point for the couple, as in every official duty Ferdinand attended, his wife was forced to ‘take her place’ in the back of the room. 

Austria-Hungary’s maneuvers

Around this time, Austria-Hungary decided to officially annex the lands in Bosnia and Herzegovina into the country. This land had been under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, but had been occupied and essentially run by Austria-Hungary since 1878. What they didn’t consider was the reaction from nearby areas. Serbia, for one, was not happy about the annexation. They felt that lands in the Balkans should be ruled by those living in the Balkans. As a result of this, pro-independence and terrorist groups begin to form within Serbia. By making this move, Austria-Hungary’s actions led to conflicts in the years leading up to World War One - the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913.

With tensions high, Franz Joseph asked the newly made heir-apparent Ferdinand to travel to the region under instructions to review the military. The day of June 28, 1914 started just like any other day. Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were in Sarajevo; and they were put into an open car. Side note: it amazes me how long it took people to realize that any “open” mode of transportation linked with a target with this kind of high profile. Anyway, they traveled along behind local officials. As they moved through the streets, a man threw an object at the couple. There was an explosion, but the only people hurt were civilians. This would be assassin took a cyanide pill and planned to take his knowledge with him. He also threw himself in a river – but lived.

The danger apparently over, the motorcade arrived at the scheduled destination. The Archduke and his wife are a tad shocked but not too worse for wear. As they leave both Ferdinand and Sophie decide to change plans and make a visit to the local hospital to see those that were hurt in the bombing. The motorcade leaves, but no one told the driver that the plans changed and he made a wrong turn. In order to get them back the way they came and to the hospital he needed to turn around. It was in this moment that Gavrilo Princip just happened to be standing within steps of the couple. He pulled a gun and shot both Ferdinand and Sophie at point blank range. Initially those in the car did not realize that either of them had been shot. It wasn’t until Sophie loss consciousness and collapsed in Ferdinand’s lap that the realization set in. Ferdinand yelled “Sophie, don’t die. Stay alive for the children.”

Then Austrian-Hungarian Colonel Count Franz von Harrach asked if Ferdinand had been wounded. He only replied: “It is nothing. It is nothing”, before he too lost consciousness. Those in the car with them moved with all haste to the Governor’s house for immediate care. Unfortunately both Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie Chotek, Countess of Hohenberg, were dead on arrival. And with their deaths springs open a can of worms that changed everything for the next hundred years.

Aftermath

You would think that an assassination of an Archduke and heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary would send shockwaves across the globe. When we modern day folks tell the story, that’s the perception it gives. In reality, internationally it was not major news. It ended up in a few papers in some countries; but it certainly was no front-page affair. In the immediate days after their deaths, the government of Austria-Hungary wanted answers. In all honesty they were pretty annoyed. The Emperor had now lost his only son and heir, and that heir’s replacement.

Austria-Hungary knew the assassins were Serbian and wanted answers. And if they couldn’t get them, they were threatening a fight. The Serbian government was in a tough spot. The assassination wasn’t sanctioned by them, but the planning and execution of the plan were made by Serbs. For you conspiracy buff’s out there; there is a theory that the real killers were in fact part of a Serbian military force and Gavrilo Princip, along with the others, were just patsies. Maybe or maybe not, there were still no good options here for the government. So they did what any little brother would do when caught in a tough spot - they called their big brother Russia.

Now in part one I mention that the alliance between these two was nothing in a formal sense. What tied them together were ethnic lines. Many Russians were Serbian, and many Serbians were Russians. Serbia gave Russia the heads up that this situation may turn south and if it did they will need help against Austria-Hungary in a war. Russia, at the time, was still ruled by the 300-year-old Romanov Dynasty under Tsar Nicholas II. After consulting with his advisors, he opted to not make any move yet. Instead, he waited to see how things played out.

The July Crisis

While all this was going on in Serbia, Austria-Hungary made a call of their own to Germany. As part of the Triple Alliance, Austria-Hungary asked Germany to support them if war breaks out against Serbia. It’s important to keep in mind here that these events are happening lightening fast. The assassination was June 28, 1914. By the time Austria-Hungary reached out to Germany the date was July 6, 1914. From this point until the outbreak of war, it will go down in history as the “July Crisis.” 

Germany decided to pledge to Austria-Hungary in the event of war. This is called the “Blank Check;” where it is implied that Germany more or less just agreed to whatever Austria-Hungary wanted to do. By agreeing, this was a huge risk for Germany. They were already surrounded by Russia and France. And while France was not in the picture yet, if fighting broke out at the Russian border, it could trigger a two front war. The other issue was the thought of honor. Their ally had suffered a terrible blow. The honor they lost from the initial act should be defended. There was one positive going for the Germans - that Russia was still rearming itself following the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War. In order for them to come to Serbia’s aid, they had to mobilize faster than Germany thought they could. With that in mind, the war generals considered the idea of a quick and easy conflict. 

Meanwhile in Austria-Hungary the plan for war was in full motion. Generals devised a timeline of how they would deal with Serbia. Side note: this was a horrible. Anyway, their timeline was to invade, destroy and occupy Serbia in six weeks. We all should be for lofty goals but this is not one of them. Why won’t this timeline work? Because Austria-Hungary was seriously underestimating its own people and their readiness to prepare for war. Also, from a technology perspective, they had little to no paved roads, and a lack of a railway system. It had been 48 years since they’d seen a war; and their generals had an outdated way of thinking. Either way, the plan was to mobilize and when they did Russia would have to make a choice. That’s for next time.

What do you think about Austria-Hungary’s importance in the outbreak of World War One?

Sources

Wikipedia 

Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History Podcast (Blueprint for Armagedden parts 1-6)

The History of the Great War Podcast

A World Undone: The Story of the Great War by G.J. Meyer

Why did Germany get the blame at the end of World War One? Part 1 - The decades leading up to the war

Germany is often blamed for causing World War I – and the 1919 Treaty of Versailles led to the country needing to pay large reparations to the winners. Here, Denise Tubbs starts her look at why Germany got much of the blame for World War I. She considers Germany’s 19th century rise, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and the complicated alliances in place in Europe before the war broke out.

German Kaiser Wilhelm II with Winston Churchill in 1906.

This is a question I asked years ago when I first learned about the World Wars. No one could really give an answer though. Even in college, the narrative was the same: An Austrian Archduke was assassinated and a war begins because of it. After four years of fighting, the country that started this whole thing isn’t even blamed or even stuck with some share of guilt? It seemed unfair for Germany to have all that on their shoulders; and it makes one wonder if it would have made a difference in the years leading up to WW2. So, because no one ever told me why I will tell you why. And I promise it won’t be boring, let's make history fun.

1871 – Germany is born

Now in order to understand how and why Germany gets the blame, we first have to look at the circumstances that started the war in the first place. We’ll need to take a trip down memory lane to establish just where everyone involved is in time. The year is 1871, and Germany, as we know it today territorially, is born. Before this, there was no unified German state. It was just a collection of separate Duchies all being ruled by their own head of the house. One of the most famous was the Duchy of Bavaria (and later the Kingdom of Bavaria). Its claim to history is the gorgeous Neuschwanstein Castle, built by Ludwig II. Ludwig wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, and had a rather odd demise. That’s a story for another time. 

Each of the duchies (or in the case of Bavaria Kingdom) elected to become one country with one Emperor to rule. The one chosen became known as Kaiser Wilhelm I of house Hohenzollern. The name Kaiser is the German word for Caesar, the traditional name used by later Emperors of Rome. A little known fact about this - we in the present day have been mispronouncing Caesar this whole time. The German pronunciation of Kaiser is actually close to the Latin pronunciation. The ‘c’ is not an ‘s’ sound but more of a ‘ke’.

Wilhelm, I at the time of his ascension had a son that would in time wed the oldest daughter of Queen Victoria. Victoria, Princess Royal, married Frederick; who would later be known as Kaiser Frederick III. The son they have will become Kaiser Wilhelm II. Wilhelm was born with a deformed arm as a result of complications at birth. As a result, the arm was withered and smaller than the other. He, not wanting to look weak, took up every manly thing there was to do at the time.

A complex?

Wilhelm had this complex about himself, and really about the German people. He was proud to be a German and did not identify with his mother’s perception that everything British is best. She made him speak English to her and not his native German, and she also looked at Germany as a sort of step down. After all, her mother was the Empress of Britain, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, and other places... So he hated all things British; and spent most of his life trying to be better in everything they did. But even though he hated all things British, he adored his grandmother Queen Victoria - a feeling that was not mutually shared by her. 

Knowing this about Wilhelm I will help to understand why Germany did the things it did as a whole. His commanders and leaders had the same feeling of pride about themselves and wanted the world to know it. He wanted to be up there with his cousins; King George V of Britain and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. He would never be like them though in temperament or in ruling. Wilhelm got his chance when he ascends to the throne after his father Frederick III dies before anyone had a chance to get used to him being Emperor. He’s basically the blip on the story that is WWI. So Wilhelm gets the crown in 1888 and begins making his mark on the country.

Franco-German relations

He starts to build up his military and begins to take on colonies. Wilhelm is all about getting to this table; his cousins are already there. He’s the new kid on the block and he wants them to know that he can roll with the big boys too. But that’s not all the reason he’s building. Germany’s arch-rival is France. They’ve had quite the skirmishes in the past. The last being the Franco-Prussian War; where at its conclusion Imperial Germany was born. They won this war against France and took land in that victory. So the more powerful he looked the better to keep France from thinking about revenge. 

But all the building and changes he did was really making people uneasy. To its east, in Russia, there was a concern that if they got too confident Germany could try and gain more territory. To the west, in France, they were immensely concerned that the rapid armament of Germany was increasing the chances of a conflict. Even though France lost the war, they still wanted that land back. They wanted payback, but not if they couldn’t do it alone. They needed some help.

The Triple Entente

One of the many reasons the war occurred was due to the number of treaties, alliances, and pacts made between countries over the 30-40 years prior to 1914. These agreements crossed over each other; some secret, some out in the open, and some that weren’t even official. When it came to France, they knew that if Germany became too powerful, it could be a threat to everyone in Europe. So in 1904, they proposed a formal agreement with Great Britain. For those not familiar, this was significant as the fight between Britain and France is legendary for the sheer span of time that they fought off and on. Both countries agreed to come to each other’s aid; with Britain not being exclusively required to do so. That would be determined by the circumstances. Either way, France now had an ally. This agreement became known as the Entente Cordiale. 

Russia, feeling the same as France and not wanting to fight without an ally, also formed an alliance. The Franco-Russian Alliance enabled each to come to the aid of the other when or if Germany ever threatened their parts of mainland Europe. Great Britain also teamed up with Russia and formed an alliance at the Anglo-Russian Convention in 1907. Now we have three countries that all have some kind of an alliance with each other. They combined into one alliance becoming the Triple Entente. 

One treaty that is not part of the Triple Entente is the Treaty of London of 1839. This treaty applied only to Great Britain. The treaty was in regards to the newly minted country of Belgium. One of its main terms were that being a new independent state, Belgium had to remain neutral in any subsequent conflicts. This will become an important treaty to remember as we get closer to Germany’s overall blame.

The Triple Alliance

Now, just because there were alliances on one side didn’t mean that Germany was alone. Because of the Franco-Russian Alliance, they were now facing a potential threat both east and west. In adding Great Britain with the Triple Entente, the threat was even more stressful. Britain and Germany had been in a small but potentially heated arms race between 1898 and 1912. Both countries essentially tried to psych the other out. The idea was for Germany to build a fleet of ships that could defeat Britain, assuming that any relief from a British Colony would take time to arrive. (This thought process is an example of Germany thinking too well of itself and having the confidence that they could actually do this. Having self-confidence isn’t a bad thing, but it is problematic when that self-confidence isn’t based in reality). Germany would continue to make that assumption of their power, and this will eventually lead to their downfall. 

In 1882, an agreement was struck between Austria-Hungary and Germany. It will come to be known as the Triple Alliance. Like the Triple Entente, there were three countries in the agreement to support each other. The third country was Italy. (This is surprising to some since we know what happens during World War I, but the events of the beginning of the war will cause Italy to reconsider some priorities.) Eventually, another country would be added to the alliance bringing the total to four, yet still kept the name triple. The alliance had discussed the opportunity of Italy gaining colonies just like the other powers of Europe. The Triple Alliance was a renewable agreement, and it would be renewed up until the breakout of war in 1914. But unbeknownst to Germany and Austria-Hungary, Italy had also signed a secret treaty with France in 1902. Italy did this because they still did not have any new territories that were promised to them from Germany. So the treaty with France is similar in nature to the original one with Germany.

Up until now we’ve explored Germany’s rise to an empire, covered their ruler, and discussed the enemies surrounding them. Their allies, though they may look great on paper, are in reality no more than out-dated old men.  In part two, we’ll start with the Hapsburg family in Austria-Hungary. 

What events in the decades prior to World War One were most important to Germany getting the blame at the end of the war? Let us know your thoughts below.

Sources

Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History Podcast (Blueprint for Armagedden parts 1-6)

The History of the Great War Podcast

A World Undone: The Story of the Great War by G.J. Meyer

Wikipedia

From Rails to Ransomware – From a Prussian War in the 1860s and World War I, to Recent Russian Actions

While examining the past will not allow us to exactly predict the future, we can identify patterns whose parts could prove useful in understanding contemporary affairs. By considering a key cause of World War I, the War of 1866/Austro-Prussian War, we may be able to see similar patterns in present events and forecast how they could shape the future.

Here, Lieutenant Colonel Sean H. Kuester tells us about Germany and the War of 1866, and contrasts this with Russian actions over the last decade.

The Battle of Koniggratz in the War of 1866/Austro-Prussian War.

"We spend a great deal of time studying history, which, let's face it, is mostly the history of stupidity." 

-Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking may be right.  Nevertheless, in an effort to change the would be historical trajectory he describes, let’s take a stab at the past to craft a better future.  For the next year, we will remain in the centennial window of World War I (WWI); one of the greatest man-made catastrophes in history.  As such, it’s appropriate to refresh ourselves on how this momentous upheaval came to pass with a view toward understanding goings on in our own time.

There is quite a bit more to WWI’s causes than the standard fare of rigid mobilization schedules and Archduke Ferdinand’s assassination.  While these explanations capture immediate catalytic events, they neglect less visible yet more significant (in their predictive value) underlying causes.  It is in these underlying causes where the true extrapolative lessons lie and where modern strategists may seek insights for contemporary happenings.  One of the underlying causes occurred 71 years prior; the second war of German unification, also known as the War of 1866.  This seven week clash was in its own time, and remains today, replete with both strategic and tactical portents.

However, rather than being viewed as a singular incident it is better regarded as one of several successive gales in a gathering storm of national intent.  This interconnectedness of events as indicators is a salient lesson.  Given the conflict’s brevity and the fact that it occurred in the wake of the political upheavals of the 1848 European liberalist revolutions, most leaders failed to see the more profound implications of this war.  As a result, one of the foundations for WWI was quietly laid.

Waged between Prussia and Austria over the territory of Schleswig-Holstein, which Prussia and Austria won from Denmark in 1864, this short decisive war resulted in the Prussian state securing hegemony over the German speaking peoples of Europe.  Perhaps more importantly, however, the struggle dampened liberalizing effects born out of the revolutions of 1848, namely broad popular support for more representative style governments.  This dampening effect was combined with Prussian influence gained through battlefield preeminence and breathed fresh life into autocratic rule which would manifest itself ultimately in the visage of Germany’s powerful Kaiser.  The temporal extension of this autocratic system allowed an inordinate amount of power to be placed in the hands of a very aggressive and ambitious few.  While the Prussian victory in 1866 did not represent a tectonic shift in the continental balance of power it did indicate one of the first strategic tremors in the second half of the 19th century in Europe.

Prussia would further unify the German peoples by defeating France in 1870-1871, placing itself at increased variance with the great European powers.  Through degrees, which Europe saw but did not directly contest, Prussia consolidated the myriad German speaking states, subdued its weaker neighbors, appeased larger states and in time carved out an empire that challenged the continental order. Viewed in this light, the War of 1866 was the first major point of departure from German disunity to unity. 

Lessons for today?

Are we witnessing manifestations akin to the above scenario today?  The case of a resurgent Russia is instructive.  In 2008 Russia tested the world’s tolerance for her application of force to protect her so called privileged zone of influence when she invaded Georgia.  The world complained, even elevating their outrage to “serious concern,” but did little else. Perhaps the world was not prepared to imagine that only 16 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia could pull this off.    

Western democracies bogged down in Afghanistan seemed disinclined to affix themselves to another conflict and confirmed their assumed passivity regarding a major force on force challenge on the continent; especially one so far East.  Like the War of 1866, the Russian invasion of Georgia was a whirlwind, lasting only 5 days.  Ending as quickly as it started allowed nations to surreptitiously go back to those affairs occupying them before.  Russia had nimbly reasserted herself on Europe’s political stage.  The aftermath is comparable to the relative calm that enfolded Europe after 1866.  This calm in both cases was, of course, a phony edifice concealing loftier designs.

Six years later Russia annexed Crimea and the world complained again.  NATO complained loudly.  However, three years on Russia still controls the Crimea and has flexed her might in the Middle East as well.  She, like late 19th century Germany, seems single-minded in steadily gathering her strength to become a global force.

What next for Russia?

Just as the War of 1866 was not the first nor last act of national intent to achieve Germanic unity, we must ask ourselves, where will Russia cast her gaze next?  The West seems to remain fixated on the stalemate in the Ukraine and Crimea and equally as frustrated with Russia’s involvement in Syria.  In spite of Russia’s clear successes in these areas will the west clumsily glower in those directions? With so much NATO effort on the Alliance’s eastern periphery, will Russia truly attempt to expand “Gray Zone” warfare into the Baltics or deeper into the Ukraine?  Or, might Russia pursue something less obvious and less interesting for the West? 

Perhaps an attempt to consolidate her authority in Abkhazia and South Ossetia is the next increment of expansion; Putin commemorated the Russian-Georgia War by visiting Abkhazia this year.  This is clear diplomatic signaling that this region is in Russia’s sphere of influence.  Or perhaps Russia will attempt something still less predictable such as working to tilt Moldova in her direction.  Moldova has parliamentary elections in 2018, and has been a traditional geopolitical halfway point between East and West.  Or possibly Russia will be content expanding her influence east into the Central Asian Republics (CAR) where she can both grow her prestige, increase economic opportunity, and avoid substantial NATO interference while simultaneously frustrating NATO efforts in Afghanistan.

The point is this: much like 19th century Germany, 21st century Russia possesses a long range national vision that certainly has stages and designs western strategists can discern.  The Georgian War, the annexation of the Crimea, and Russia’s enthusiasm in Syria are not random acts of opportunity, just as the War of 1866 was not uncalculated opportunism.  Russia’s next move will be no less premeditated.

21st century railways

Inclining back to the War of 1866 with a view toward a phenomenon that resided below the strategic echelon, another observation may serve to reframe current events.  One major feature of the War of 1866 was the growing ability to concentrate troops by rail to achieve mass at a point of one’s own choosing.  In Arden Bucholz’s book, Moltke and the German Wars, 1864-1871, he concludes that rail usage was one component of a technological revolution in military affairs.  What then is the significance of rail today?

The key factor of rail in 1866 was that it provided a means to rapidly concentrate that era’s defeat mechanism (land power) where it needed to be before the adversary could counter it. The object for modern strategists, however, is to uncover the 21st century’s comparable means that can deliver this era’s defeat mechanism. 

One modern equivalent of this ability to concentrate a defeat mechanism may be found by splicing two rapidly evolving concepts: the swarm attack and cyber warfare.  The potency of cyber warfare is self-evident and on the rise; its working definition is now generally well enough understood too.  A useful initial definition of a swarm attack is provided by Sean J. A. Edwards in his 2004 RAND dissertation, “Swarming occurs when several units conduct a convergent attack on a target from multiple axes.” Swarm attacks are generally viewed as being physical attacks, but that interpretation is now incomplete, outmoded and likely on the cusp of shifting.

The railway of the 21st century may be the internet with the coin of the realm being digitized information and operations (think banking data and air traffic control systems) and the ability to message or influence (think online news, social media and email servers).  So how do swarm attack and cyber warfare conjoin together as a defeat mechanism?  Imagine a scenario where distributed cyber operatives (hackers) use the internet to deliver malware.  Envision further that instead of attacking one sector such as happened in 2015 against the Ukrainian power grid, cyber operatives simultaneously attack multiple sub-systems of a larger more complex system.

What if operatives, for example, instantaneously targeted the health system, telecom industry, natural gas sector and electrical grid?  In fact, such a scenario already played out – this year.  The attack began in Europe and spread to over 100 countries.  The motive in this ransomware attack appeared to be the accumulation of bitcoin.  Imagine though, if the motive had been more sinister, with broader and a longer duration impact being the objective.

Digitally delivered defeat mechanisms can be designed to achieve something akin to what the US Army’s Doctrine Reference Publication 3-0, Operations, calls disintegration which is “…to disrupt the enemy’s command and control system, degrading its ability to conduct operations while leading to a rapid collapse of the enemy’s capabilities or will to fight…specifically targeting…command structure and communications systems.” While it is difficult to imagine a state being “defeated” in the classical sense by a cyber-attack it is easy to conceive use of the internet “railway” to “collapse” a state or institutions’ critical capabilities or as part of a broader campaign or preliminary strike.

The War of 1866 in retrospective

“Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times.  This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions and thus they necessarily have the same results.”  Machiavelli may have been no less jaded than Stephen Hawking regarding the record of mankind’s past.  He did, however, see merit in studying the past.  This work subscribes to Machiavelli’s outlook that clues to the future can indeed be found in the past if strategists ask the right questions and use their imagination.   Historical patterns often repeat themselves.  World War I was not the result of spontaneous combustion. The fuel for this fire was gathered and plainly stacked for all to see over the course of half a century.

The War of 1866 was a primary underlying cause for WWI even though it occurred seven decades previous.  While it did alter the strategic landscape in its overall result, as a single event it did not make WWI inevitable.  Conversely, if viewed as one rung on a larger German ladder of national purpose and aligned with earlier and subsequent events, the case for a European showdown is strong.   Embedded within the conflicts’ day to day operations innovations such as rail transport gave a marked advantage to the state visionary enough to exploit it.

Comparing and contrasting the War of 1866 and other events that contributed to WWI with the case of today’s resurgent Russia is educational.  Considering how modern technology might be leveraged by a state like Russia is equally educational.  Strategists must constantly engage in these types of academic exercises in the pursuit of “why.”  As Phillip A. Crowl concluded in The Strategist’s Short Catechism: Six Questions Without Answers the future cannot be exactly predicted by studying the past; yet, as Crowl goes on to say, “…the study of history will help us to ask the right questions so that we can define the problem – whatever it is.”

What did you think of this article? How are events of the last decade comparable to events before World War One?

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Army, Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

The World War One German invasion of Belgium… What happened next?

In the early days of World War One, the Germans planned to march through Belgium as part of their plan to win the war. The Germans did not expect the Belgians to put up much resistance; however, events did not quite turn out that way. In the second of a two-part article, Frank Jastrzembski continues from part 1 and tells the tale of the heroic Belgian defense of its homeland in 1914…

General Gerard Leman., the Belgian in charge of the defense of Liege.

General Leman set up his headquarters in Liege on July 31, 1914. On August 3, he ordered the destruction of the bridges, tunnels, and railways connected to Liege as the German forces began to flood across the small Belgian border. The next day the German Army of the Meuse arrayed for battle outside the ring of forts. An ultimatum was sent out to allow the Germans to enter Liege. Leman boldly refused the demand to surrender.

The Third Division occupying the trenches between the easternmost forts was attacked by the units of the Army of the Meuse. The German officers arrogantly launched their assault shoulder to shoulder as if organized on a parade ground against the sheltered Belgian defenders. The German assault was cut to pieces with the help of Belgian machine guns placed in the adjacent forts. At Fort Barchon, the Belgians mounted a counter strike and threw the wavering Germans back with their bayonets. The German attackers withdrew bloodied and completely stunned by the dogged Belgian resistance.

The Germans mounted a daring attempt to capture or assassinate Leman on August 6. A detachment of thirty German soldiers and nine officers dressed as British soldiers drove up to Leman’s headquarters. One of Leman’s aides, Major Marchand, soon caught on to the trap and alerted the headquarters, but was subsequently shot down. The surprise German attack carried Leman’s headquarters, but in the confusion Leman escaped to Fort Loncin, west of the city.

Closer to Liege

The German high command decided on the realignment of their strategy by focusing on capturing the city of Liege itself. Thousands of German reinforcements were soon flooding to the outskirts in an attempt to make a concentrated breakthrough past the forts into the city. After refusing to surrender once again, Liege was shelled on August 6 by a Zeppelin LZ-1, killing nine civilians. The Germans would become vilified for the atrocities committed against the Belgian population. With enough pressure, there was a breakthrough between Fort Fleron and Fort Evegnee on August 10, putting the Germans in range of Liege itself.

The Third Division was controversially sent to join the main Belgian Army in Louvain. The reasoning behind this move was that it would be better suited if it joined King Albert and the main army rather than being bottled up within the forts and surrounded. The movement of the Third Division to join Albert left Liege with weakened defenses as German reinforcements continued to strengthen their chokehold around the city.

The few Belgians in Liege were eventually forced to surrender the city. Even though the city was in German hands, the forts were still intact, and the guns of the forts controlled the roads coming in and out of Liege. The German’s held Liege with approximately 120,000 men, but could not move in and out of the city without being under persistent artillery from the forts. The Germans could only move undetected at night and in small parties.

In the meantime, the Allies sluggishly reacted to honor their guarantee to protect Belgian neutrality. The French, under General Joseph Joffre, were too infatuated with attacking through Alsace-Lorraine, and were indifferent to the genuine threat on their left in Belgium. The British, who decided on sending an expeditionary force of four divisions of infantry and cavalry, were slow in transporting these men across the channel to help the besieged Belgians.

A new weapon

General Erich Ludendorff, the new commander of the Fourteenth Brigade, realized the Belgian forts were not going to surrender even with Liege occupied. He decided on a method other than sacrificing his men in useless frontal assaults. He ordered up some 305 mm Skoda siege mortars borrowed from Austria, and a 402 mm howitzer produced by Krupp steelworks. None of these steel behemoths had been used in combat before. The 402mm Krupp weighed 75 tons and had to be transported by rail in five sections then set in concrete before going into action. It would fire up to ten 2,200 lb. projectiles per hour. It had a range of up to nine miles and was fired by an electric charge with a 200-man crew.

On August 12, the German government relayed another message to King Albert demanding the Belgians surrender. “Now that the Belgian Army has upheld its honor by heroic defense to a very superior force,” the Germans arrogantly indicated, they asked that the Belgians spare themselves from “further horrors of war.” King Albert refused to reply. The massive siege guns were soon unleashed on each fort in succession.

The forts had a major weakness in their design. They were vulnerable to artillery attacks from the rear. The siege guns took two days to assemble, and on August 12, they began to pound the remaining forts in detail.

The massive shells decimated the defending concrete and steel forts and buried the defenders. The forts could not return fire as the German guns were out of range. The defenders of each fort were forced to hunker down and withstand the bombardment. On August 13, three of the forts fell. Fort Pontisse withstood forty-five shells in 24 hours of bombardment before it was taken by an infantry assault. Fort Chaudfontaine surrendered with only 75 out of 408 still alive from the hellish shelling. By August 14, all forts east and north of the city had fallen.

After the eastern forts were reduced, the siege guns were brought up against the forts positioned to the west of the city. Fort Boncelles survived a 24-hour bombardment but soon fell on August 15 leaving little more than particles of concrete and scraps of metal. The bombardment left clouds of poisonous gas. By August 16, eleven of the twelve forts had fallen. Only Fort Loncin remained.

The last battle

General Leman had positioned himself in the last standing fort. The bombardment lasted for three days, from August 12-15. In an interval between the bombardments, the Germans sent emissaries under the white flag to try and convince Leman to surrender the garrison. Leman refused all demands. On August 16, Loncin was hit by a 420 mm shell that penetrated the magazine and exploded, demolishing the fortress.

German soldiers then entered on foot after the explosion. The majority of the garrison was buried in the debris, including their commander. Leman later vividly remembered the effects of the explosion as, “Poisonous gases seemed to grip my throat as in a vise.”

Hopeless as the situation was for the Belgians, they attempted to hold on to the fort. The last twenty-five or so Belgian defenders still able to stand were found in a corridor preparing for a last ditch effort to ward off the Germans. In another instance of tenacity, a corporal valiantly tried to drive the Germans back single-handily by firing his rifle in vain with one good arm, as his other arm was dangling wounded at his side. In a show of compassion, the Germans threw down their weapons and ran to the aid of the Belgian soldiers. Of the 500 defenders in Fort Loncin, 350 were dead and 150 wounded.

Fort Loncin in the aftermath of the battle.

The General

The Germans came upon the lifeless body of General Leman pinned beneath a block of stone. “Respect the General, he is dead,” uttered a nearby weeping Belgian adjutant. When it was realized that Leman was actually not dead, his lifeless body was carried out of the fort unconscious by German soldiers to General von Emmich. When he regained consciousness, Leman was said to have proudly pronounced, “It is as it is. The men fought valiantly. Put in your dispatches that I was unconscious.” Moved by his heroic proclamation, General von Emmich replied, “Military honor has not been violated by your sword. Keep it.”

Leman was transported to a prison in Germany. From his prison in Germany, Leman wrote to Albert pledging, “I am convinced that the honor of our arms has been sustained. I have not surrendered either the fortress or the forts…I would willingly have given my life the better to serve them, but death was denied me.”

The day after the fall of Fort Loncin, the German Army resumed its march through Belgium toward France. Though unsuccessful at Liege, the Belgian forces had delayed the German advance for two priceless days in its sweep toward France. The German invasion was stopped dead in its tracks on the Marne River on the outskirts of Paris in September of 1914. The chance of a quick German victory faded away and trench warfare began in earnest.

Leman was kept as a prisoner of war until December 1917, when due to his failing health, he was released to travel to France. After the war, he returned to Belgium with a hero’s welcome for his heroic defense of Liege. He retired to the city he was born and fought to defend. He died on October 17, 1920.

Some may argue that the importance of the two-day defense of Liege is inconsequential. However, the Belgians helped to dramatically alter the outcome of the 1914 campaign. The Times of London declared that Belgium earned “immortal renown” by helping to shatter the superstition that the German armies were invincible. Today Fort Loncin is a grave to roughly 300 of those who died and remain buried in the wreckage.

Did you find this article interesting? If so tweet about it, like it, or share it by clicking on one of the buttons below!

Further Reading

Davis, Paul K. Besieged: An Encyclopedia of Great Sieges from Ancient Times to the Present. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2001.

Donnell, Clayton. The Forts of the Meuse in World War I. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2007.

Horne, Charles F. The Great Events of the Great War Part Two. Volume II ed. The National Alumni, 1920.

Keegan, John. The First World War. New York: Vintage, 2000.

Lipkes, Jeff. Rehearsals: The German Army in Belgium, August 1914. Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 2007.

Meyer, G. J. A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914-1918. New York City: Delacorte Press, 2007.

Pawly, Ronald, Pierre Lierneux, and Patrice Courcelle. The Belgian Army in World War I. Oxford: Osprey, 2009.

Tuchman, Barbara Wertheim. The Guns of August. New York: Ballantine Books, 1990.

Tucker, Spencer C., and Priscilla Mary Roberts. World War I: A Student Encyclopedia. 5 vols. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2006. 

The true story of the World War One German invasion of Belgium…

In the early days of World War One, the Germans planned to march through Belgium as part of their plan to win the war. The Germans did not expect the Belgians to put up much resistance; however, events did not quite turn out that way. In the first in a two-part series, Frank Jastrzembski explains the heroic Belgian defense of its homeland in 1914…

The Defense of Liege by W.B. Wollen. Source: available here.

All that stood amid the concrete wreckage of Fort Loncin were roughly twenty-five battered Belgian defenders out of the original 500-man garrison. The small portion of surviving Belgian defenders were gathered together in a shattered corridor. Soiled with dust, they stood anxiously clutching their rifles and awaiting the onslaught of German soldiers swarming over the rubble of the once formidable fort. Today a monument stands at the fort celebrating their heroic defense with the inscription, “Passer by... go say to Belgium and France that here 550 Belgians sacrificed themselves for the defense of freedom and the salvation of the world” based on the epitaph by Simonides for the Spartan dead at the battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC:

Go tell the Spartans passerby,

That here obedient to their laws we lie.

Brave Little Belgium

The German invasion through Belgium in August of 1914 was presumed to have been an effortless undertaking. The German soldiers and their officers were stunned by the tenacious defense the Belgians exhibited. The soldiers of the Belgian Army were jokingly referred to as “chocolate soldiers” for the way in which they would melt away in combat from any determined opposition. The Kaiser once said to a British officer, “I will go through Belgium like that!” slicing his hand through the air. However, this gallant little nation shocked and inspired the world with their dogged stand against an enemy invasion force that outnumbered them roughly fourteen to one. “Brave Little Belgium” became a rallying cry around the world signifying a free nation defending their sovereignty against an aggressive German invader.

The Belgian Army was ill prepared to face the juggernaut of the German Army. It numbered seven divisions amounting to 117,000 men, with only 93,000 considered combatants. The Belgian forces in the forts surrounding Liege numbered around 4,500 men, with the mobile Third Division stationed in the city composed of 25,000 soldiers.

The Belgian Army was considered one of the most decrepit armies in Europe. The cavalry still wore early nineteenth century uniforms, with the infantry sporting shakos, bonnets, or bearskins as headgear. In some instances, machine gun crews were drawn behind teams of dogs. What the Belgian forces lacked in size and modern equipment though, they more than made up for in their tenacious willpower to defend their borders.

Schlieffen Plan

The neutral nation of Belgium found itself positioned in the center stage of a colossal conflict when the Great War broke out in August of 1914. The German General Staff dusted off the Schlieffen Plan geared to strike a devastating blow to their French enemies. They sensibly anticipated that France would naively concentrate an offensive toward Alsace-Lorraine along the Franco-German border. The German General Staff was delighted when the French proceeded to overextend themselves in this aggressive movement.

While France was preoccupied with this maneuver, the Germans concentrated their soldiers on the opposite side on the Ardennes in an aggressive flanking movement. The heavily wooded Ardennes would shield this movement, allowing German infantrymen to boldly sweep around the French left flank and crash into Paris. The movement would allow them to outflank and strike the French Army from an exposed position. This was a brilliant strategy aimed to end the war with one swift and devastating strike.

One of the many major flaws in the Schlieffen Plan was underestimating the opposition of the neutral nation of Belgium. In order to successfully implement the Schlieffen Plan, German soldiers would have to move through Belgium. This movement would allow for the easiest route to travel through northern Germany into France. An ultimatum was sent out on August 2 with a twelve-hour window to reply. The Germans demanded that the Belgian King, Albert I, grant them military access and allow their infantrymen to march through Belgium uncontested. Albert was skeptical of German intentions, and flatly refused, asserting that if they entered Belgian territory their neutrality rights would be violated.

The Germans moved into Belgium nevertheless, deliberately violating Belgian neutrality. The Belgian’s only hope was to contain the German Army long enough for French or British support to arrive. If a stand was to be made, it would be done at the formidable fortresses surrounding the city of Liege.

Liege

The city of Liege was strategically located on a high bluff overlooking the Meuse River. Twelve massive triangular forts surrounded Liege, forming a circle of thirty-six miles in circumference. Each fortress was located a distance of six miles from the center of Liege. The fortresses were two to three miles apart, with fortifications dug in between to form a connected chain. Fourteen guns were located in each fort under revolving iron turrets and secured in concrete. Built to garrison around 200 men, these forts were made to withstand direct hits from the heaviest of artillery. World opinion viewed the position the most fortifiable in Europe, and expected it to hold out at least nine months against any serious military threat. 

Albert named his former teacher at the Belgian War College, Gerard Mathieu Leman, as the overall commander of the forces surrounding Liege. He could not have selected a better man for the defense of Belgium. At sixty-three years old, the commander would be fighting literally in the city of his birth in 1851. In the prelude of the battle of Gettysburg in the summer of 1863, Abraham Lincoln claimed the newly appointed Pennsylvanian commander George Meade would “fight well on his own dunghill.” Albert must have had the same predispositions of Leman.

In his youth, Leman was admitted to the Belgian Military School in 1867 and proved to be a brilliant student. He opted to serve in the engineers upon his graduation in 1872. In 1880, he was placed in command of the Belgian Royal Engineer Corps. In 1898, he was made professor of mathematics and fortifications at the Belgian Royal Military School. The scholarly papers related to mathematics and siege warfare published by Leman earned him world renown. In 1912, he was made a lieutenant general. Leman was described as a somber, distant man who inspired respect rather than devotion.

Albert appointed him a permanent member of the National Defense Council. This gave him command of the Third Division and the Liege fortified zone on the border with Germany. He zealously studied the approaches to the Ardennes and Meuse River crossings in anticipation of the German invasion. Albert gave Leman a direct order to hold Liege “to the end”. This was a daunting task for the inadequate force he had at his disposal.

Preparation for the attack

Roughly 60,000 soldiers were detached from various units in the German Second Army to form a special striking force to attack and neutralize the forts surrounding Liege. The Army of the Meuse, as it became known, consisted of six brigades under the command of General Albert Theodor Otto von Emmich. General von Emmich was convinced the Belgians would quickly submit.  

General Leman set up his headquarters in Liege on July 31, 1914. On August 3, he ordered the destruction of the bridges, tunnels, and railways connected to Liege as the German forces began to flood across the small Belgian border. The next day the German Army of the Meuse arrayed for battle outside the ring of forts. An ultimatum was sent out to allow the Germans to enter Liege. Leman boldly refused the demand to surrender.

The attack then began, and the Belgians offered much greater resistance than the Germans had imagined. Next time we will continue this little-known tale… Find out what happened here.

Did you find this article interesting? If so tweet about it, like it, or share it by clicking on one of the buttons below!

Further Reading

Davis, Paul K. Besieged: An Encyclopedia of Great Sieges from Ancient Times to the Present. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2001.

Donnell, Clayton. The Forts of the Meuse in World War I. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2007.

Horne, Charles F. The Great Events of the Great War Part Two. Volume II ed. The National Alumni, 1920.

Keegan, John. The First World War. New York: Vintage, 2000.

Lipkes, Jeff. Rehearsals: The German Army in Belgium, August 1914. Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 2007.

Meyer, G. J. A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914-1918. New York City: Delacorte Press, 2007.

Pawly, Ronald, Pierre Lierneux, and Patrice Courcelle. The Belgian Army in World War I. Oxford: Osprey, 2009.

Tuchman, Barbara Wertheim. The Guns of August. New York: Ballantine Books, 1990.

Tucker, Spencer C., and Priscilla Mary Roberts. World War I: A Student Encyclopedia. 5 vols. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2006.