Revolutions and Peace Treaties 1917–1920

Gerhard Schulz, Marian Jackson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781032130569
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000535686
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book, first published in 1972, is an analysis of popular movements, political convulsions and settlements that led to and resulted from the climax of the First World War and its aftermath. It considers the aims, achievements and failures of both the Allied and Central Powers, the major internal changes which took place during and just after the war, and the significance of the newly shaped Europe and Near East which emerged from the peace treaties.

PART ONE Crises and Revolutions

1. Peace feelers and war aims before the United States entry into the war

Once the Central Powers made up their minds that there would be no compromise, the story of their domestic affairs becomes a tragedy. The commitment to ‘positive’ aims which could only be achieved after a military victory made all out war inevitable and put a stop to any move to limit the war. Some of the attempts which had already been made to do so resulted from gloomy but not necessarily unrealistic estimates of the Central Powers’ real chances.

General von Falkenhayn, Moltke’s successor as Chief of the General Staff and therefore as Germany’s military leader, had taken a pessimistic view of the consequences of Italy’s entry into the war, displaying only a little less gloom than his Austrian colleague, Conrad von Hötzendorff, who painted the prospects in the blackest colours. Conrad advised the Foreign Minister, Burián, to make immediate peace with Russia, even to offer it, at the expense of Germany’s ally Turkey, complete possession of the territory on the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus. Almost simultaneously Britain and France actually made the same offer to their Eastern ally so as to keep him on their side. In addition Conrad even wanted to give the Tsar parts of Austrian Galicia and to let Austria recoup its losses in Serbia and Montenegro. With a remarkable lack of political perceptiveness Conrad wanted to end the war against Russia. This explains some aspects of the July crisis and Austria’s hesitation in preparing for war against Russia due to gaps in Conrad’s plans which counted on Rumanian and Italian divisions. When the military arrangements of the most enthusiastic advocate of a preventive war against Serbia were upset by the situation of 1914 and in 1915 were about to collapse, Conrad became as determined to get out of the war against Russia as he had been to have a war against Serbia.

Burián was not prepared to go as far as Conrad wished. Nevertheless he decided to suggest to Bethmann Hollweg that Germany should make peace with Britain and withdraw from Belgium so as to have troops available for the Italian front, although the moment when Italy decided to join the Entente powers was probably the least auspicious occasion on which to tempt Britain with a separate peace.

But Italy’s entry into the war did not affect the position of the Central Powers as adversely as the military and the diplomats had feared. From a military point of view the situation looked much more favourable than expected after the spring of 1915. Yet Conrad’s peace proposals did not remain the only ones. Earlier the German Foreign Ministry had responded to peace feelers put out by the Japanese Ambassador in Stockholm and by personalities in St Petersburg. But when in May 1916 these activities came to light the diplomat was disowned completely by his government. What was of interest to Germany in these proposals was the possibility, which was also being explored through other channels, of making a separate peace with Russia. In spite of contacts with the Tsar’s entourage and with Russian policy makers nothing came of the idea. Equally unsuccessful were the peace feelers that were put out via the German Embassy in the spring of 1916 to King Albert of the Belgians and to opposition groups in the French Chamber. In all these activities the war aims problem played a part. Historians remain divided in their opinion on these peace moves. But to the Central Powers they held out no prospect of change or of relief, so that until the end the only way out of the war remained military victory on all fronts.

In the spring and summer of 1915, under the pressure of Falkenhayn’s great offensives in the East, the whole of Galicia was won back and Poland, Lithuania and Courland conquered in a little over four weeks. In the next few months almost the whole of Serbia and Montenegro was occupied, so that at the beginning of 1916 Central Europe formed one great German—Austrian power complex. In spite of a few crises the favourable position of the Central Powers remained unshaken by the renewed heavy and costly fighting in the West. This was followed in the East by the last great Russian offensive under Brusilov and — in connection with this — by Rumania’s entry into the war and its brief victorious campaign. But these battles affected the situation in other ways; above all in that the army came to play a greater role in political decision making. Because these tangible successes had not been won by diplomacy but by the strength of the nation in arms, military confidence in the army now grew to almost limitless dimensions. But as the power of the military increased for all to see, the expectations and aims became correspondingly more ambitious.

In many ways the political system of the parliamentary democracies was more suited to the growing demands of the war than that of the semi-parliamentary, essentially autocratic monarchies of Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary. Since Bismarck no efforts had been made to liberalise Germany’s constitution by the introduction of a greater degree of parliamentary government and democracy. As the Chancellor had to dispense with parliamentary support, his position depended in the last resort on the Kaiser and he sought to do his duty as the Kaiser’s trusted adviser within the framework of the possibilities as he saw them. But after the start of the war the monarch had not been able to increase his authority. Whereas in 1870-71 William I towered above the military in reputation and was assured of lasting devotion, in 1914–18 the autocratic system lost its autocratic point of reference. William II never became a popular leader. He was temperamentally unsuited to be commander in chief because he lacked perseverance and energy and often also the ability to make objective judgments. He remained ‘supreme commander’ in name and tradition only. As the war went on other forces were quick to move to the fore. Nor was the Chancellor able to have his way as the Kaiser’s mouthpiece when the all-powerful military insisted on a point. In the first years of the war, however, the army leaders did not as yet have the position and general standing which Hindenburg and Ludendorff enjoyed from the summer of 1916 onwards.

Even in the days of undisturbed parliamentary truce the Chancellor’s position was not really secure. He was harassed by economic pressure groups as much as by the Admiralty and the General Staff. He frequently turned for support to the Reichsrat and to the Federal States, particularly to Prussia. But with the war the complicated relationship between Prussia and the Reich entered upon a new phase. When Count Hertling, hitherto Prime Minister of Bavaria, became Reich Chancellor and Prime Minister of Prussia the administrative links between Prussia and the Reich were strengthened because several Secretaries of State in charge of Reich ministries became at the same time Prussian ministers. In the other states the Chancellor had to look for support elsewhere so as to survive the ‘first real test’ of the Reich constitution, which was in reality a test of the political leadership of the country.

The German Reich had emerged in 1871 from a wartime coalition of German states; it was made up of three Hanseatic cities and twenty-two states governed by princes some of whom continued to regard themselves merely as ‘allies of the German Emperor’. Some of the old glory of the princes of the Holy Roman Empire came to life once more in the war. Here again Bethmann Hollweg faced the threat of a new internal opposition if he refused to fall in with the special wishes of the great dynasties and of the Kaiser’s ‘noble allies’. This meant that the Chancellor was repeatedly compelled to take note of the war aims put forward by the states or by their dynasties. The foreign affairs committee of the Bundesrat, under the permanent chairmanship of Bavaria, remained unimportant until the war. During the war it was convened frequently to discuss questions of foreign policy with the Chancellor.

The states were afraid that future annexations would lead to a unilateral enlargement of Prussia and result in a further change in the balance of power in the Bundesrat in Prussia’s favour. This they were not prepared to accept. The Bavarian king and Count Herding, the Bavarian Prime Minister who had at heart remained a grossdeutsche federalist, insisted that in addition to Prussia other German states must share in the German booty and that the situation must be clarified in good time. Bavaria’s claims were, at least initially, on the ambitious side. It demanded Alsace; then there was the question of Bavaria’s access to the sea with Antwerp as the favoured port. Louis III was inclined to claim the whole of Belgium for Bavaria so as — with a few frontier rectifications and territorial changes in the Lower Main region — to bring a continuous land mass from the Alps to Antwerp under the rule of the House of Wittelsbach. But the Bavarian claims led the other states to demand compensation. Count Hertling and William II finally settled down to allocate the disputed territories and agreed that Lorraine should go to Prussia, Lower Alsace to Bavaria and Upper Alsace to Baden; Estonia, Livonia and Courland they made part of Prussia in a personal union, Lithuania an independent dukedom under a Saxon prince and Poland a kingdom under the regency of a member of the Royal House of Württemberg.

Although these war aims — like others — are of no interest taken singly, they are of symptomatic significance historically, particularly in view of the fact that it was always necessary for the Chancellor to consider the wishes of the states and that this tended to complicate his position. His difficulties increased as the war took a more eventful course, largely because it proved impossible to contain or permanently weaken the unyielding claims and persistent opposition of the alldeutsche chauvinists to whom every report of victory was an additional stimulus.

German Weltpolitik never pursued firm or logical objectives. It was vacillating, opportunist and often vaguely formulated. The same was true of the German war aims, but given the assumption of total victory, from which all demands, started any possible opposition from other powers was disregarded. The picture was thus more or less dominated by the reckless agitation of the Pan-Germans, the Alldeutsche Verband. The variety of influences and interests which had found expression in German pre-war world policy is also much in evidence in the German war aims, the common characteristic of which remained a lack of consideration for the needs and interests of other peoples and powers. In putting forward the official policy Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg quickly found himself defending the Burgfriede, the party truce, and the point of view of national policy. From the start overwhelming emphasis was thus placed on the ‘primacy of domestic policy’ as against foreign policy and the opportunities to put out peace feelers were reduced.

Under the impact of military success and the influence of a purposeful ‘war aims movement’ organised by the Alldeutsche, imaginary zones of interest were mapped out at any early stage. These revealed a variety of war aims, some of which were pursued side by side and simultaneously while others had no connection with one another. First there were the direct annexations, in the West the ore deposits of Longwy-Briey and Luxemburg and in the East a strip along the Polish frontier, as well as Courland and Lithuania. Then there was to be a European customs union between France, Belgium, Holland, Luxemburg but also including Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Italy, Austria-Hungary and an independent Poland under German economic hegemony. Along the German frontiers in the West and also in the East there was to be a chain of buffer states under German influence, Belgium, Poland and the Ukraine. Next Germany was to have an economic sphere of influence in the South East which would encompass Rumania, Turkey and Georgia. Finally Germany’s colonial possessions would be rounded off by the formation of a militarily viable German ‘Central Africa’ with land links with Turkey. The civil leadership of the Reich was involved in the preparation of some of these plans and representatives of most of the political parties also took an active part in these discussions.

Occasionally Bethmann Hollweg gave way. But it is difficult to find a clear line running through his policy which he himself described as a policy of the ‘diagonal’. At the beginning he was anxious as far as possible to avoid annexations in Europe and to agree only to changes on the Belgian and French frontiers, primarily for reasons of military security. The only exception to this was the small but valuable ore basin of Briey. But in two other important spheres the Chancellor showed himself very receptive to certain ideas that were gradually gaining in popularity. He recognised the goal of a consolidated Central African colonial empire for Germany. Less exclusive than the great ‘Central Africa’ of the Alldeutsche the plans for this went back to the territorial objectives of the Anglo-German treaty for a division of the Portuguese colonies, which never came about because of the war. The proposal now was to unite the areas claimed in the treaty by Germany, Angola and the northern region of Mozambique, with Germany’s African colonies, and to add to this the Belgian Congo, French Equatorial Africa which bordered on the German Cameroons and French Niger.

But the most important point in Bethmann Hollweg’s programme was the idea of a Central European economic association. This was to take the form of a customs union of states with equal rights and in the first place to include Austria-Hungary and France, without any political constitution being envisaged. Such an arrangement would no doubt have given Germany tremendous economic advantages. But the same was also true for Austria-Hungary and perhaps even for France. The parallel with modern economic communities springs to mind, although in the first place the 1914 project extended much further to the East and the South East and secondly its loose organisation was still far removed from the permanent administration of economic communities today. Proposals of this kind were nothing new. In the days before the war there had been suggestions of a Franco—German settlement along these lines which conflicted with the ideas of the Alldeutsche. Such proposals now took a more definite shape while being modified so as to leave no doubt about German hegemony.

From the outset, looked at superficially, there was some measure of agreement between the demands of the Alldeutsche and the plans of the Chancellor. More significant and more revealing, however, are the differences and disagreements between them. Yet it is evident that even Bethmann Hollweg’s programme was based on the assumption of a definite German victory; this alone would have provided the necessary degree of political superiority which Bethmann Hollweg saw as a prerequisite for the achievement of his war aims. In some respects Bethmann later even went beyond the early aims; in particular he explored the possibilities of lasting political influence by Germany on the ‘tributary state’ of Belgium and in the end he also toyed with plans for the annexation of Polish and Baltic territory. But the moving spirits behind these projects were not at the Imperial Chancellory.

Another idea, however, was probably conceived there. It is not surprising that, following the political practice adopted by the Germans at the peace negotiations after the Franco-German war of 1870–71 and also after earlier wars, it was again proposed that the vanquished enemy should pay war indemnities. But now the indemnity to be imposed on defeated France was to be such that for the next eighteen or twenty years it would be unable to spend sizeable sums on armaments. This idea was voiced by the Germans as soon as the war began; later it was taken up by the French Minister of Finance and finally it became part and parcel of the Allied peace conditions. Neither side, however, was definite before the end of the war on the size of the payments to be demanded. Fiscal experts and economists considered the question of war indemnities in detail; international financiers and bankers played a leading part in the reparations story, then and later.

In Bethmann Hollweg’s view it was the government’s duty to give way to certain interested parties. The widespread propaganda of the Alldeutsche made the pressure to which the Chancellor was subjected from the right more visible than any other influence on him. But we must not underestimate the importance of the army of publicists, journalists and pamphleteers who preached national enthusiasm to all classes and occupational groups and who in the ‘ideas of 1914’ waxed lyrical about Germany rising to a higher position among the Great Powers and lauded the daily ‘plebiscites’ held to demonstrate the unity of the German nation. These ideas were spread by both liberals and conservatives and with the first military victories contributed to the initial exuberance. They survived almost intact even as the war dragged on and were in part responsible for the stubborn determination without which Germany could not possibly have survived those four hard years of war and the tremendous demands it made on its people.

A similar state of affairs could be found among the other belligerent nations, Russia being no exception. During mobilisation there the feeling of the rulers was one of apprehension and uncertainty. Their anxieties about the uncertain internal situation almost overshadowed their fears about the war and forbade any thought of military defeat. Nikolai Alexeievich Maklakov, Russian Minister of the Interior during the first months of the war, is said to have remarked that the war was not popular with the mass of the people who found it easier to understand the meaning of revolution than of victory over the Germans; but Russia would not escape its fate. The conflict between national and revolutionary...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction: World War and World Crisis
• Part One Crises and Revolutions
• Part Two The Restoration of Peace
• Bibliography
• Index