Michael S. Neiberg - Why the US Entered the First World War and Why it Matters

Transcript
0:00 · good afternoon everybody and let me add my welcome to NSS week into Carlisle barracks and to the great state of
0:05 · Pennsylvania my home state I'm gonna give this lecture today they've asked me to also let you know that this is going
0:11 · to be put on the army war colleges YouTube channel in case you don't get enough of it once and you want to see it again you have that option what I want
0:18 · to talk about is America's entry into the first world war in 1917 which happened just over a hundred years ago
0:24 · this month and it's a subject that we as a community of historians I think have treated particularly badly there's not a
0:31 · lot of research on it what does exist is mostly focused on Woodrow Wilson who as I hope to show you here is really not
0:37 · all that relevant to the story and the tale that I like to tell folks my daughter came home a couple of years ago
0:42 · with a homework she had to do for high school asking what event led to America entering the First World War and she was
0:48 · so excited that she was studying something that I was interested in and she came to me and said dad what do I Circle and I said well they're all wrong
0:55 · but circles see because that's the one your teacher wants which confuses a 10th
1:01 · grader but for the record see was of course the sinking of the Lusitania which occurred in May of 1915 which
1:08 · almost by definition therefore can't be a proximate cause of something that happens two years later now as I hope to
1:14 · show you here the Lusitania is important but not because it led the United States into the first world war what I'd like
1:20 · to do is take you on a little bit of a journey and the man that I want to use for this is a North Carolina newspaperman named Walter Hines Paige
1:26 · who became Woodrow Wilson's ambassador to Great Britain in 1914 now Paige had
1:32 · no background in diplomacy he had absolutely no background in foreign affairs he went there because he had
1:38 · been one of the earliest supporters of Wilson in a critical State North Carolina when the war broke out in
1:44 · August of 1914 Walter Hines page wrote a letter to Woodrow Wilson that ended like this now whenever I thank heaven for the
1:51 · Atlantic Ocean thank God we are out of it in other words this is none of our concern it doesn't affect us in any way
1:57 · we're gonna help the people who are disadvantaged by this war Walter Hines page is pro-british and pro-french when
2:04 · the war begins in his mindset that is he wants Britain and France to win the war but it's not our fight just over a year
2:10 · later he wrote another letter to Wilson which he said if Germany wins the Monroe
2:16 · Doctrine will be shot through we shall have to have a great Army and Navy and I always pause here to remind folks he
2:22 · meant this negatively he meant that the United States which had paid almost nothing for its Army and Navy had had
2:30 · its security on the cheap was now gonna have to invest in a conscript army like the German and a modern Navy like the
2:36 · British and he thought that was bad in another letter written about the same time he said we're going to have to make
2:41 · a choice to build one battleship or one University per month and it was quite clear he preferred the University but
2:48 · suppose that England wins we shall then have merely an academic dispute with her it is a matter of life or death for
2:56 · english-speaking civilization and what I was really interested in in putting the book together that this talk is based on
3:01 · is how the United States went for now and ever I think heaven for the Atlantic Ocean thank God we're out of it so now
3:07 · it's a matter of life and death what's happened in those 1415 months now I
3:12 · could have picked a lot of people that went through this similar arc Walter Hines page to me is the most interesting
3:18 · both because of how vehement he is about this how early he is in this process and
3:24 · what he did next he left London came to the United States hoping to get some
3:29 · time with Woodrow Wilson to convince him that this war would eventually drag the United States in and that he as
3:35 · president better start doing something about it he got to the White House to find out that Wilson was doing everything he
3:41 · could to avoid him wouldn't meet with him so Walter Hines page went down to shadow Lawn which was Wilson's residence
3:47 · on the Jersey Shore it's no longer there near Long Beach Island New Jersey and literally sat on the president's front
3:53 · porch until Wilson showed up that's how convinced page was that something was going on here so what I want to do is
4:00 · kind of take you through that arc and then carry it a little bit further now the first thing I want to do is dispel a couple of myths the most important of
4:06 · which is the idea that still pops up in American history textbooks now and again that the American people were just
4:12 · ignoring the First World War just weren't paying any attention to it when the first world war broke out in July
4:18 · August of 1914 European government started selling their security started selling the stocks that they owned in
4:24 · American companies converting that money dollar for dollar into gold which was legal in 1914 and then trying to get
4:31 · that gold back to Europe the United States government recognizing that if that continued the US would quite
4:37 · literally run out of gold took the extraordinary step of ordering the New York Stock Exchange the Chicago Stock
4:44 · Exchange and the Philadelphia Stock Exchange all to be closed and they stayed closed until after Thanksgiving
4:50 · 1914 you can imagine what that did to Americans even those that don't own stocks what a shock that was and you
4:58 · could also see this by taking just a simple look at American newspapers which are covering the First World War
5:03 · covering the events in Europe constantly you're gonna see a lot of things here from Pittsburgh both because that's
5:09 · where I'm from and because welcome that's the only reason really this is an ad from the Pittsburgh Gazette times a
5:15 · newspaper that no longer exists it's now part of the Pittsburgh post-gazette I guess it does exist advertising that they had signed on with the New York Sun
5:22 · to get the war reports of Richard Harding Davis who was then the most famous of the American war
5:27 · correspondents somebody everybody in America would have known a good friend of Theodore Roosevelt's he's actually at
5:32 · San Juan Hill with Theodore Roosevelt in the spanish-american war he covered the Russell Japanese war 1904-1905
5:39 · and when this war breaks out he went to New York City he got on the first boat he could book passage on it turns out to
5:45 · be the Lusitania to get to Europe as quickly as he possibly can and here is the Pittsburgh is at times telling its
5:52 · readers we have Richard Harding Davis it's also the case that very early on in
5:57 · the war most Americans are sympathetic to the British in the French and there are plenty of reasons for that that we
6:03 · can talk about very few Americans want to do anything about it but their sympathies are clearly pro-british and
6:09 · prevention that's going to continue and I'll show you a little bit of why that is so important as this goes on this is
6:15 · even true among many communities that are pro-german that are German excuse me or are Irish and we'll talk a little bit
6:23 · more about this as things go on but from the beginning there's a clear distinctive measurable obvious sympathy
6:28 · with the two democracies of Britain and France against the military societies of Germany and austria-hungary russia
6:35 · here's a little bit of a difficult exception because russia is one of the allies but it too is militarist and
6:40 · autocrat so that's a little bit of a complicating factor and as I'll talk about in a little bit America's entry into the war
6:46 · comes shortly after the Russian Revolution that takes the tsar out of the picture it's that event that allows
6:53 · Woodrow Wilson to make the claim that this is a war to make the world safe for democracy he can't use those words until
6:59 · the Tsar is deposed and I want to tell you a story about another Pittsburgh person she's from Sewickley Pennsylvania just outside Pittsburgh this is Mary
7:06 · Roberts Rinehart in her day she was known for writing mysteries like this one the circular staircase probably her
7:12 · best-known book as a good historian I read it it's not very good she was also a muckraking progressive political
7:19 · reporter and very very very well known in her day the story goes in as soon as
7:25 · the war had broken out right about September of 1914 The Saturday Evening Post invited her to come to New York
7:31 · City for a big dinner and the editors surprised her by saying I have arranged for you to go to the great capitals of
7:39 · Europe to meet the president and his wife and Paris the Kaiser and his wife in Germany the Emperor and his wife in
7:46 · Vienna and the king and queen in London I've also arranged for you Mary Roberts Rinehart to be the first female
7:52 · correspondent allowed into the trenches and I'll pay you $1,000 per dispatch if
7:57 · you'll do it which is an enormous sum of money it's not bad even today for a journalist to get the story goes that
8:04 · her husband stood up and said my wife isn't going I forbid it and Mary Roberts Rinehart then stood up
8:10 · looked her husband right in the eye and said the greatest thing in the history of my life is not going by without me
8:15 · being a part of it then the husband said to the editor of The Saturday Evening Post give me a $10,000 insurance policy on
8:22 · her life and I'll let her go be that as it may be that as it may
8:28 · Mary Roberts Rinehart went to Europe in the fall and early spring of 1914 and
8:33 · 1915 and the things that she saw and the things that she did are really important
8:38 · in the dispatches that she wrote back to Europe and what I want to do is cover really four themes in her writing that
8:44 · are important and again she comes back just before the sinking of the Lusitania just literally weeks before first she
8:52 · wrote in The Saturday Evening Post as did Richard Harding Davis and any other of the great reporters that
8:57 · they were gonna go to Europe and condemn both sides but this war was an idiocy perpetuated by everybody nevertheless
9:04 · the more Mary Roberts Rinehart was there the more Richard Harding Davis was there
9:09 · the more they started writing about how the Allies were in fact in the right that France was in the war for the most
9:16 · just reason of all another army had crossed its border that Britain was in
9:21 · the war to defend the international rule of law to defend the borders of Belgium to
9:26 · defend the principles that the international system was built upon the second thing she argued is that the
9:33 · British media was nevertheless lying to the American people they were telling
9:38 · atrocity tales that weren't true they were trying to inflate the bad things
9:43 · that the Germans were doing so she said as did Richard Harding Davis don't believe them believe what we Americans
9:50 · have seen with our own eyes Richard Harding Davis was in the belgian university city of Leuven when the
9:55 · Germans burned it they locked him in a railway car to try to prevent him from seeing what was going on nevertheless he
10:01 · manages to kind of push the boards apart and pierce through and whatever and can see what's happening then they release
10:07 · him and he can walk through the town he can talk to German officers who say yeah we torched this town to teach these Belgians a lesson notice we didn't touch
10:14 · the American consulate see we're okay we're good right American reporters are telling Americans what we've seen what
10:20 · we can prove is bad enough don't believe the British atrocity stories third she
10:27 · argued that if the United States had to get involved in the war Americans should fight for American goals the United
10:34 · States should under no circumstances be tricked into fighting this war merely to rescue the British and the French from
10:40 · their own mistakes if however this war were to affect American interests the
10:46 · United States should fight it and forth she argued again this is right before the Lusitania America should start
10:53 · thinking about this problem now it is not a good idea to wait and hope that as
10:59 · she described it the fire in your neighbor's house won't reach your roof it's time to start thinking about this
11:05 · now and those are themes from Mary Roberts Rinehart they're all so themes from Richard Harding Davis a
11:10 · bunch of others there were even a couple of American war correspondents who tried to sign up and join the French army
11:15 · while they were over there only to be talked out of it by their editors that's how strongly they come to feel for the
11:21 · British and French side the more that they see it this is a page from her diary as you can see there it's kind of
11:28 · had difficult handwriting to read but that's another great challenge of the historian to read that kind of stuff
11:33 · this sense the first face of America's involvement with the First World War for the purposes of this lecture ii happens
11:39 · when she comes back and then the Lusitania is sunk by the Germans and we can talk much more about it if anybody
11:44 · is interested the bottom line is that 128 Americans are killed on a cruise liner that no German sea captain could
11:52 · have mistaken for any other ship the Lusitania is one of a kind the question
11:57 · is how do you want to respond as Americans the recently Lusitania
12:02 · appeared as see on my daughter's homework is because the sinking of the Lusitania now raises this question now
12:10 · you can't just sit on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean and pretend that this won't affect you now you have to make a
12:16 · decision and there are at least three schools of thought one is the former American President Theodore Roosevelt
12:22 · who says now is the time to cut diplomatic relations with Germany now is the time to internationally define them
12:29 · as an outlaw and now is the time to start getting ready to send an American army and navy into this war if we have
12:35 · to do it to protect American interests at the other end of the spectrum is the American Secretary of State William
12:41 · Jennings Bryan who says no the way to approach this is to ban Americans from traveling into a war zone the way to
12:48 · keep Americans safe is to keep us as far away from this as we possibly can Woodrow Wilson is going to try to chart
12:55 · a middle ground as he's going to try to do for about three years make the Germans admit that they did something
13:00 · wrong but don't risk war and it appears that his was the most popular course of
13:06 · action in 1915 there's no enthusiasm if you scan American newspaper editorials look at members of Congress look at what
13:13 · even Mary Roberts Rinehart is saying there's no enthusiasm for going to war however there is every desire for the
13:21 · United States to make point that Germany can't get away with this that's what Wilson's trying to do
13:26 · and that's the original line of debate that starts to get set up William Jennings Bryan at the one end resigned
13:32 · as Secretary of State because he couldn't stomach Wilson's policy he thought it was too aggressive on the other end of the spectrum Theodore
13:38 · Roosevelt and a bunch of his friends in the Republican Party started criticizing Wilson openly for having acted to tame
13:46 · Lee Wilson stuck in the middle of this the Germans also get blamed in the
13:53 · United States for a rash of other things besides the Lusitania they get blamed
13:58 · for the Armenian Genocide this is a cartoon from the New York Herald which shows the gudgeon york tribune
14:03 · excuse me which shows Kaiser Wilhelm wearing an ottoman Fez and carrying an ottoman scimitar which is dripping with
14:09 · blood and the caption reads alum it tunes a take-off on the German belt buckles got mittens God is with us
14:15 · American newspapers argued that the Ottoman Empire would never have been
14:20 · able to massacre that many Armenian Christians without at least the German saying that it was okay now we know now
14:27 · that there were many German officers who are thoroughly appalled by what the Ottomans were doing but what actually happened matters less than what people
14:33 · believe is happening right there was a sabotage campaign here in the United
14:38 · States run by German agents we know about it although we've largely forgotten it today if you go to New York City to Liberty State Park in New Jersey
14:44 · that used to be the black Tom railway depot where all the munitions and all the steel and all the everything made in
14:51 · Cleveland and Pittsburgh in Chicago all came to Jersey City to be shipped overseas in July 1916 while the German
14:58 · army was fighting the Battle of the Somme against the British where most of those weapons were destined to end up to
15:03 · German agents blew it up and then managed to get to Mexico before they could find out deadliest act of
15:09 · terrorism in American history before 9/11 you can still go to Liberty State Park beautiful view of Manhattan but if
15:15 · you go to the back of the park you can still see the piers where the Germans did this there was a railway bridge between Vance borough Maine and Nova
15:21 · Scotia that the Germans tried to blow up before police caught them there's a series of these things there were two German officials one as a naval attache
15:29 · one's a commercial attache that Wilson finally had to declare persona non grata and expel them from the United States
15:35 · one of them is a man by the name of Franz von Papen who was the last Chancellor of Germany before the rise of Adolf Hitler right a major sabotage
15:42 · campaign that's going on the first year I was here at the War College I went down to the New York City trip we went we all the whole class goes to New York
15:48 · for a couple of days and I had the address of the building the Germans ran the spy operation out of and I thought
15:54 · well I'm gonna be in downtown New York let's see what it is today it is the international headquarters of Deutsche Bank today so there you go
16:03 · the question again is what should the United States do about this what should the United States do and
16:10 · that cartoon I had at the beginning of the dogs than neutral dogs now the image
16:16 · that Americans start to use it's a curious image is that what the United States ought to do instead of being a neutral dog what the United States ought
16:23 · to become as a porcupine an animals strong enough to defend itself but of no
16:28 · threat to anybody else that can't hurt the other animals in the jungle there are other Americans who are starting to
16:33 · use this phrase of preparedness they are arguing that the United States has to
16:39 · build what they sometimes call a peace army build something strong enough so
16:45 · that the Germans the French the British the Russians anybody out there has to take the United States seriously have a
16:52 · military strong enough that nobody would dare sink a ship that has 128 Americans sitting on it and this begins this
16:59 · program called preparedness and for lots of reasons that I'd be happy to talk about in QA it's a fascinating
17:04 · fascinating thing the US government is happy to spend money on ships navies are
17:10 · easier to spend money on than armies are the argument can be that they're out there projecting American power and
17:16 · they're protecting the coastlines if on the other hand you want to build a very large army the question that then comes
17:22 · is what are you going to do with it and some of you may know some of the things that come out of this Theodore
17:28 · Roosevelt and his friend General Leonard Wood and the United States Army General decide that if the United States
17:33 · government isn't gonna do this we'll do it and they create these things called the Plattsburgh camps in upstate New
17:39 · York in 1915 and 1916 where young men most of them college students at elite universities spend their own money go up
17:47 · to Plattsburgh New York and get yelled by retired army officers voluntarily they do this now again Theodore
17:53 · Roosevelt doesn't think this is going to create the basis of a wartime army what he thinks it will do is shame Woodrow
17:59 · Wilson into doing something about it the United States Army comes up with a plan
18:05 · called the Continental Army plan very famous at least in its day the Continental Army plan begins from the
18:11 · presumption that the United States Army as currently organized is a mess in 1916
18:18 · the United States Army was basically one central army the US Army and 48 State
18:23 · National Guard's meaning that if the US Army had to go to war it would technically have 49 commanders-in-chief
18:30 · 49 systems of training 49 standards of weaponry 49 different ways of doing
18:36 · business the Secretary of War a New Jersey Presbyterian minister named
18:42 · William Lindley garrison no military experience at all a progressive reformer took a look at that and said that's
18:47 · ridiculous what we have to do is replace all those National Guard's get rid of all of them and replace them with one
18:54 · Continental Army of 500,000 men the initial work is done by the US Army War
18:59 · College on how you would do this so I have a headline somewhere if it slides somewhere with a headline that says Army War College wants 500,000 man army right
19:08 · just so you know right you guys were doing this even then even a hundred years ago garrison pitches the plan to Wilson he
19:15 · probably leaked it to the media as well and 48 governors and most of the House
19:20 · of Representatives lose their minds you can't have one central army we want this
19:26 · done through the National Guard garrison went to Wilson and said you got to do something about this you're the President of the United States we can't
19:33 · fight the German army with 49 different systems Wilson said I can't support the Continental Army plan there isn't enough
19:39 · political support and I'm not putting my political capital behind it garrison and his Assistant Secretary of War Henry
19:44 · Breckinridge both resigned in protest in the middle of a presidential election the result is something called the 1916
19:52 · National Defense Act which says that the National Guard stays in place but can be federalized in the event of an emergency
19:58 · it ends the Plattsburgh program in favor of something that becomes called Reserve Officer Training Corps program
20:04 · to educate young men at the American universities and campuses and to
20:09 · Garrison's absolute fury it took the money he wanted for the modernization of
20:14 · the United States Army and gave it to the state National Guard's to modernize them as a result the United States Army
20:22 · is not prepared for this war when it began in 1917 there's also a very nasty end of this to garrison believed if the
20:30 · US Army was going to get to 500 or 600 thousand men it had to recruit those men
20:35 · irrespective of race it had to recruit African Americans and white soldiers and
20:40 · immigrants on an equal basis this is at a time when only two states in the united states allowed african-americans
20:46 · to serve in their National Guard's Illinois New York that's it both both in segregated companies I
20:52 · might add right so there is a race too element to this that Wilson was also unwilling to accept what happens to me
20:59 · is fascinating to me it's absolutely fascinating when it becomes obvious that preparedness is not gonna do what
21:06 · American needs it to do when it becomes obvious that there's going to be a lot of parades but little else American
21:13 · corporations step in this is an ad from AT&T
21:18 · it has in the semi circle there Paul Revere making his midnight ride in 1775
21:24 · and on the right it has hopefully an Army War College graduate 1916 in front
21:31 · of a map of the Bell Telephone system and the ad says in it's wonderful preparedness to inform its citizens of a
21:37 · national need the United States stands alone and unequaled it can command the entire Bell Telephone system which
21:43 · completely covers our country with its network of wires individual American companies stepped up the Pennsylvania
21:51 · Railroad then the largest corporation in the world its CEO said any employee of the Pennsylvania Railroad that wants to
21:57 · take military training we will guarantee them their job will continue to pay their salary and will pay the cost of
22:03 · the training Thomas Edison formed a committee for American scientific preparedness to get science organized
22:10 · Charles Mayo of the Mayo Clinic formed a committee of American medical preparedness
22:16 · it's all done to say to the US government why aren't you doing more why aren't you organizing it at the
22:22 · federal level right and my favorite example of all Columbia University whose president was a pacifist sent a memo out
22:31 · to the Columbia University faculty saying the army is organized by g1 g2 g3 put your name on this form which of
22:38 · those G things you can help if the country finds itself in a national emergency and every member of the
22:45 · Columbia faculty put their name on that form the history department the history department led daily calisthenics on the
22:52 · green at Columbia hoping to inspire young men to work out and get in better shape right believe me the history
22:57 · departments not the organization you want running that money of course plays
23:03 · a role in this this is a fabulous cartoon I stumbled across almost by accident in Chicago in the Newberry
23:10 · Library this is from John mcCutchan who won the first Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in the United States this is called coming our way
23:16 · April 1915 and if you look at it very closely you'll see the docks of New York
23:23 · City are literally magnets pulling the hard currency of Europe over to the United States while the bankers in
23:30 · Berlin in Paris and London look on exasperated Americans make an
23:36 · unbelievable amount of money off of the first world war both because of the products that the u.s. can sell to the
23:43 · Europeans and because certain products that Americans used to buy in Europe they now buy in the United States 1915
23:51 · and 1916 are the two best years in the history of American Bible sales because
23:56 · American families are no longer buying their Bibles in Europe the same thing is true of bicycles pencils eyeglasses
24:03 · whatever you can manufacture lower the American trade balance when the war
24:09 · breaks out we have a net negative trade balance with Europe look how fast that changes by December of 1914 there's one
24:16 · study that connects America's attitudes towards the war in 1914 and argues that
24:22 · the only parts of America that are not pro British and French are the parts of
24:28 · America not getting in on this and that is mostly cotton communities in the American South because the British
24:34 · blockade cotton shipments to Germany I could talk a little bit more about that if anybody wants this raises a moral
24:41 · issue for a lot of Americans here's Mary Roberts Rinehart after Pittsburg Westinghouse corporation signed a major
24:46 · contract right Pittsburgh's trying to get the new Amazon headquarters right now the rhetoric is similar when America
24:52 · signs that cons when Pittsburgh signs that contract Mary Roberts Rinehart wonders that the her home town is fattening on catastrophe in Nashville I
24:59 · found a series of lectures given by the sermons given by Tennessee ministers it's a common theme in 1916 what does it
25:07 · say about America if we want Britain and France to win this war but our role is mostly just to make money what does that
25:13 · make us who are we now of course some Americans did more than just sit back
25:19 · this is an ad advertising serbian day at the amusement park that I went to
25:24 · growing up Kennywood Park in Pittsburgh they still do Serbian day today it's people of Serbian descent who go and
25:29 · have a day in 1916 it meant that all profits from Kennywood on that day went
25:35 · to the relief of Serbia Americans gave enormous amounts of money my colleague
25:40 · Julia Irwin at the University of South Florida estimates that one in three Americans gave money in the First World
25:47 · War and 95 percent of that money goes to three countries France Belgium and
25:52 · Serbia all members of the Allies John Wanamaker the great Philadelphia industrialist raised one hundred million
25:59 · dollars for Belgium alone Philadelphia raised enough money in three hours to
26:04 · fund two entire field hospitals for the French army right enormous amounts of money that are going from the United
26:11 · States to Europe and they are going almost exclusively to the Allies some
26:17 · people were willing to put their lives on the line delwyn star one of the great American football heroes a Harvard star
26:23 · in 1916 killed on the Western Front fighting in the British Army these men are members of an American air squadron
26:30 · the Lafayette Escadrille another Pittsburgh guy Billy thaw thats him right there son of one of the executives
26:36 · of the Pennsylvania Railroad got the idea what we'll do is we Americans will volunteer to fly in a squadron for the
26:42 · French Air Force we almost of them had their own planes Billy thoughts the first private pilot's license in the United States flew an
26:49 · airplane underneath the Brooklyn Bridge in 1912 these guys get together and they
26:54 · form a volunteer air squadron for the French army Theodore Roosevelt Cornelius Vanderbilt loved it so much that they
27:01 · write checks to these guys and tell them here's some money do whatever you want with it so they throw lavish parties
27:07 · they have whiskey and soda - lion cubs as their mascots everybody who's anybody
27:13 · comes to a Lafayette Escadrille party I think this is the origin of the American fighter pilot culture I mean this I mean
27:20 · this sincerely the American army doesn't want to discipline or cannot discipline these guys the French army doesn't want
27:26 · to as long as the combat record is great which it is the PR record is
27:31 · unbelievable the PR value is incredible why do anything to discipline them the
27:38 · the nice side note of this is when the United States got involved in the war the US Army rejected many of these guys
27:43 · on health grounds and wouldn't let them fly so they stayed inside the French army okay so a lot of Americans as you
27:51 · know some very famous people are over there JP Morgan's daughter and Morgan is over there she builds a chateau rebuilds
27:57 · a chateau for the care of women or orphans and widows it's still there it's now the museum at Blair incor dedicated
28:04 · to Franco American friendship Ernest Hemingway goes over there as you know as an ambulance driver first in Italy later
28:10 · on other places as well there are Americans fighting in the armies of the British and the French there's a new
28:16 · study out of Canada that estimates that as many as 70,000 7-0 thousand members
28:22 · of the Canadian Army might have been Americans the easiest way to join the British Army is to walk across the
28:27 · border in Canada claim that you were born in Ontario and put your name and sign the thing right there's a research
28:33 · team in Canada that's actually going back and finding the birth certificates of these guys 70,000 they estimate were
28:39 · in fact born in the United States the French consulate in New Orleans opens up an office specifically for Americans who
28:45 · want to fight for France right at first the US government threatens to take away citizenship and all this stuff right
28:51 · then they realize they can't do it they can't stop it so I've explained to you why the United States is sympathetic to
28:56 · the Allies what I have yet done is explain why we enter the war and that's what I'd like to do in the 15 minutes or so that is left and that'll
29:02 · be happy to take your questions sometimes when you're doing research you come across something and it just stops you in your tracks this is it this is
29:11 · the cover of Life magazine On February 10th 1916 I'd like you to note the date please
29:17 · February 10th 1916 this is early on I
29:22 · hope it's not too hard to see in the back there the the publisher of my book would not let me use this image as the
29:28 · cover image because they said it was too busy right I think it's actually beautiful this is the cover of the of the magazine
29:33 · most of the United States has labeled as new Prussia von papen and boy ed city
29:40 · the two diplomats that Wilson had expelled get cities named for them out in the West New Berlin is right there
29:47 · Krupps burg slaughterhouse Florida is turqu onea the west coast is japonica
29:55 · Baja California is Austria Anna my personal favorite I'll explain this in
30:03 · just a minute I don't think this is a reference to Canadians I don't think this is a reference to Canadians they're
30:08 · generally lovely people I don't think that's what this is the province of Mexico with Bill Helms Berg as its
30:14 · capital okay this is a fear that is running through American culture in
30:19 · early 1916 and here's what it is by doing nothing the United States can put
30:26 · itself in an absolutely untenable strategic position let's say in 1916 the
30:32 · Germans put enough pressure on the British and French that it looks like they can win the war one way Britain and France can get out
30:39 · of that dilemma is by doing what the Europeans have always done with the Americas they can trade parts of their
30:46 · American empire for gains in Europe that's how this part of the world went from being French to being English
30:53 · here's the fear it is not that the barbarians are that the Canadians are barbarians the fear is that the British
31:01 · might give to the Germans in order to get out of the war the base in Esquimalt
31:06 · out here Halifax out here maybe Toronto right there the French have two bases two islands up
31:14 · here sent Pierre and Miquelon they also have possessions in the Caribbean as do the British the Panama Canal opened in
31:20 · 1914 the fear that Americans have is one that the British and French might
31:26 · sacrifice all of this stuff in order to give it give them a way out of the war
31:31 · in in the East and then Europe excuse me that's one fear it's for this reason that in 1916 the United States bought
31:39 · the Danish Virgin Islands from Denmark and renamed them the United States Virgin Islands the fear was that Germany
31:45 · would invade Denmark or blackmail Denmark and take the Virgin Islands and create a base right there from his
31:52 · retirement William Jennings Bryan proposed buying Canada from the British the British need money we don't want
31:59 · them to give Canada to the Germans give them a hundred million dollars for Canada it's a safe secure investment
32:05 · it'll protect our northern flank this is the fear that's running around you can see here my favorite there's a little
32:12 · American reservation right there with goose-step as its capital right there are also fears in the
32:19 · American body politic that what Germany might do is try to ally with Japan and Mexico in an anti-american alliance and
32:27 · all of this could happen because the United States did not prepare on my bookshelf at home is a
32:35 · wonderful teen fiction book it's the Red Dawn of 1916 called the defense of Pittsburg it's one of three books the
32:41 · defence of Washington defense of Pittsburgh defense of Cincinnati aimed at a teenaged audience and at the end of
32:47 · the book when they're holding down the line in Cincinnati one teenager says to the other at least we know that we
32:54 · didn't start this war and the other teenager says yes we did because we weren't prepared right their
33:01 · preparedness arguments right again I don't think most Americans were afraid that the Germans were going to come
33:06 · marching down st. Louis but this kind of a scenario where Halifax Esquimalt
33:11 · Martinique with Mexico joining the Germans doesn't look quite so far-fetched Ryan's here from New Zealand
33:18 · New Zealand sends the highest proportion of people to the Western Front with no conscription something like seventeen
33:24 · percent of eligible men the new theory in New Zealand is the reason that is is not
33:29 · because New Zealanders really cared so much about England they knew that if Germany won the war New Zealand could
33:35 · become a German colony they're not fighting for London which is thousands of miles away they're fighting for their
33:41 · own communities now you could quite reasonably in America look at somebody who believed
33:48 · this stuff and say you're out of your mind you could reasonably do that then things
33:53 · like this start happening Pancho Villa raids New Mexico he brought along with
33:58 · him an American woman named Maude Hawkes who he then released Maude Fox when she
34:04 · was interviewed by American newspapers said quote via bragged about his plans to kill everybody in the United States
34:11 · and said that he would be helped by the Germans and the Japanese James Gerard the American ambassador in Germany
34:17 · reported back to the United States quote most Germans think that America's Mexico troubles are to their advantage I am
34:24 · sure that Pancho Villa's attacks are made in Germany every night fifty million Germans cry themselves to sleep
34:29 · because Mexico has not risen against us a belief that all of these things are
34:35 · linked together right and the Americans know for sure for a fact that those
34:40 · German spies who committed this a Batoche act in New Jersey who committed the sabotage act in New Brunswick they
34:47 · on they end up in Mexico right Mexico is then what we would today call a failed state going through a revolution the
34:53 · Germans have picked a different side than the United States has picked right it's starting to look like this stuff isn't quite so far-fetched then things
35:01 · start to accelerate in late February of 1917 Great Britain intercepted this
35:08 · document the so-called Zimmermann telegram it's a very famous story there's a great story behind it the
35:14 · technical details of it it's a wonderful story what's important about it it's what it says it says we intend we the
35:22 · Germans intend to begin on the 1st of February unrestricted submarine warfare we shall endeavour in spite of this to
35:28 · keep the United States of America neutral in the event of this not succeeding we make Mexico a proposal of
35:34 · Alliance on the following basis make war together make peace together generous financial
35:40 · support and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to read conquer the lost territories of Texas New Mexico and
35:47 · Arizona you will inform the president of Mexico of the above as soon as the outbreak of
35:53 · war with the United States is certain and add the suggestion that he should on his own initiative invite Japan to
36:00 · immediate adherence and at the same time mediate between Japan and Germany now
36:05 · that document seems quite clearly to prove this right very famously
36:13 · zimmerman's at a press conference in Berlin hey the Americans in British claim they have this telegram that says
36:19 · that you're gonna do an alliance with Mexico and Japan aimed at the United States and that you're gonna take away three states from the United States and
36:25 · give it to Mexico you didn't write that did you and simmerman says yeah I did I
36:30 · did they got me there's no point denying it they have it right three events that
36:36 · happen back to back to back Germans announced on restricted submarine warfare which leads the United States to break diplomatic relations the
36:43 · revelation of the Zimmermann telegram which is by far the most important of the three events and then the revolution
36:49 · in Russia which occurred the first revolution in Russia which occurs at roughly the same time late February early March which takes the tsar out it
36:56 · doesn't yet put the Communists in it puts in place a government by name mminton by a man named alexander
37:01 · kerensky this allows Wilson and most Americans most Americans to argue that maybe this
37:09 · war will destroy autocratic governments and leave Europe a society only of democracies and if that happens then
37:17 · maybe this war actually is worth fighting maybe something positive will come out even many German Americans make this
37:23 · argument they're all non prescience or mostly non Prussians they're Bavarians they're vertibirds they're Hanoverians
37:29 · their argument is if this is a war that will take the Prussian government out and give Germany a representative
37:36 · democracy then there's no conflict between America's goals and Germany's goals these are men like John Pershing
37:43 · Dwight Eisenhower Eddie Rickenbacker all of whom are German Americans all the former German Americans
37:49 · all right why do I think this matters I think it matters for a couple of reasons one we have misunderstood why the United
37:55 · States went to war in 1917 I would argue I did argue the American people believe
38:01 · that they're going to war to prevent that Life magazine map that I showed you earlier they're going to war to prevent
38:07 · this this war is for the United States not about Belgium it is not about the
38:15 · security of France although those are nice to haves it is about protecting the threat they're fighting against the
38:21 · threat that is made to the United States it is about the threat to America's borders this is why when President
38:29 · Wilson entered the first world war he was careful to say that we are not a member of the Alliance we are an
38:34 · Associated power to that alliance because our goals are not their goals it
38:39 · is also why as I'll show you in just a bit when the war ends they would want
38:45 · the American people think that the war ends much earlier than do the Europeans much differently and then do the
38:52 · Europeans what the Americans want is an end to the threat what the Americans want is an end to the possibility that
39:00 · by having done nothing they can find themselves in a much worse position than when they went in last slide moreover
39:07 · with that great German with his hands up what I'd like you to note and I know you can't see it from back there is the date
39:13 · on this this is the New York Evening world November 7th 1918 November 7th 1918 nothing's been
39:21 · signed yet all that happened on November 7th is that the news broke in the West
39:26 · that the Germans had asked for an armistice that's it to the Americans
39:32 · that means the war is over and if the war is over that means the United States should start demobilizing its army and start
39:39 · bringing our boys back home our sons our husbands our lovers our brothers whatever and bring them back home this
39:46 · is why we commemorate the end of the first world war on November 11th 1918 the date that the Armistice gets signed
39:53 · but the Armistice didn't end anything the war doesn't end until the peace
39:58 · conference the Paris Peace Conference produces the Treaty of Versailles On June 28 1919
40:03 · five treaties that it produces right for my view the way I think of this the
40:09 · image that I've been using when the first world war broke out it's like an hourglass there's a lot of diversity of
40:15 · opinion in the United States in 1914 about what the United States ought to do by the spring of 1917 all of those
40:21 · options have gone away except for litzler belligerence that doesn't mean the American people were enthusiastic about going to war it means that they
40:28 · understood that they had just one choice remaining then starting on November 7th
40:34 · four days before the Armistice in 1911 now they start diverging again about what they ought to do in the post-war
40:40 · period that's why the fight over the Treaty of Versailles is as bitter as it is in the United States and as most of
40:46 · you know that's a treaty that the United States never did sign the United States Senate never did ratify right what the
40:52 · Americans agree on is ending this nightmare what they do not agree on is
40:58 · what ought to come next thank you for your attention I'll be happy to take any questions I think we're about ten
41:04 · minutes or so for questions don't we Scott yeah if you please you microphone
41:14 · yeah you said previously that almost exclusively the investment and American
41:20 · money will go into the allies what percentage of investment from us was going to support Germany so we think
41:26 · it's a little hard to tell we think it's less than ten we think it's about eight and the reason I say that it's hard to
41:31 · tell is that what the Germans were doing is using the neutral States on their border Holland Norway Denmark to try to
41:37 · disguise some of that trade that's coming through so what the British did in the United States kind of followed its lead the British Board of Trade did
41:44 · they actually had these very sophisticated economic models if Holland took in 10,000 tons of coal in 1905 and
41:52 · now they're taking in 12,000 tons of coal the presumption is those extra two thousand are actually intended for
41:58 · Germany right so the British blockade of Holland of a neutral state blockades anything above what the
42:03 · British estimate they had in the last line of data extrapolated out we think the numbers around 8 percent what that
42:10 · tells me is that America's money and its sympathies are actually headed in the same direction
42:17 · any other questions sir all the way in the back well that's Jim that's not sir hey Mike Jim to Krakow yeah hey question
42:23 · I've got about this maps very very interesting and you mentioned Californians the west coast's
42:30 · essentially being according to Life magazine being occupied by Japan now I
42:35 · know that Japan was an ally in World War one so why why would they have this they're not an ally of the United States
42:42 · they're an ally of Great Britain which is a very important distinction when this map is being done the United States
42:47 · is neutral the United States has no relationship with Japan what I think is happening here it is a reflection of
42:53 · course of the West Coast's own anti-asian racism this is the era of the Chinese Exclusion Act when Chinese
42:58 · weren't allowed to come to the US or buy property this is the era of the so-called gentleman's agreement which is negotiated renegotiated by the American
43:05 · Secretary of State in 1915 by which the Japanese will prevent Japanese from leaving Japan to come to the United
43:11 · States so the US doesn't have to exclude them the way they excluded the Chinese so I would be careful with the
43:17 · distributive property that the US has allied to Britain Britain is allowed to Japan therefore the US is allied to
43:22 · Japan that's not the case right and many Americans are already talking in 1915
43:27 · 1916 about a post-war world in which Japan emerges as the greatest threat to the United States Billy Mitchell
43:34 · believed this that that's what's going to come out of this Japan will be the problem so be careful what else is on
43:41 · your mind yes sir hey sir Brian Kirk so along the lines that you just spoke about was feelings toward Japan tied to
43:49 · this sort of the domestic terrorism he started off with and the leadership that remain in power elite going into World
43:55 · War two was that sort of what led to some of the internment of japanese-americans and things did we
44:00 · learn a lot wrong lesson from the domestic terrorism you know in World War one were those things connected so
44:05 · there's never any allegation against Japanese living in the United States of domestic terrorism there's never any allegation the interesting point you're
44:12 · raising of course in my view and anybody that's had me in class for five seconds probably heard me say this to me it's
44:17 · the same war it's a thirty years war right with anti Asian racism being a
44:22 · dimension of American policy not the only one certainly but a dimension so you may know japanese-americans in
44:29 · Hawaii are never put during tournament right where you would think the threat would be greatest they're put under internment in Oregon
44:36 · chip in Washington California places where there's an economic incentive to inter them and where the anti Asian bias
44:43 · is deepest so I don't know that you can draw a direct line between the specific events of World War one though there are
44:49 · some specific tensions between the u.s. and Japan at the end of World War one but you can see a consistent thread of
44:55 · anti Asian policy that's running through that is accumulating here we talked at least in a couple of the tws seminars
45:01 · about enabling factors right that Wars enable certain conditions to happen that don't happen in others this is an
45:06 · enabling condition World War two is an enabling condition how would you how
45:16 · would you classify the German escalation of the submarine warfare effect on
45:21 · Wilson entering the war so it goes in kind of waves so the German decision in February 1917 to resume unrestricted
45:28 · submarine warfare Wilson gives a very gives a speech in Philadelphia which he gets blasted for in which he says look I
45:34 · know what the Germans have said but I'm gonna await their overt act in other words I don't believe they're actually
45:40 · gonna sink anything and then the Germans keep sinking ships and Wilson has to say it's like the Obama red line comment in
45:46 · a way right he gets criticized well you said this now what are you gonna do right there's a very famous American reporter named Floyd Gibbons who's
45:53 · actually on one of the ships that gets torpedoed the Laconia and he's in a lifeboat and a British guy rose up to
45:58 · him knows who he is rose up to him and says hey is this your presidents bleeding over and act or not like what
46:03 · are you guys doing about this right and Gibbons looks at him Gibbons fully wants the United States involved in this war
46:09 · now and Gibbons says I don't have any idea what the president will do he's a weak character and I don't know what
46:14 · he'll do Theodore Roosevelt's daughter Alice says the same thing like how many overt acts is he gonna wait for so in my view Wilson is hoping
46:21 · beyond hope for some deus ex machina he's hoping for some solution that will fall down from the skies and solve this
46:27 · problem for him I don't think he's pushing the United States into this war at all I think he's looking for whatever he can find his own son-in-law and
46:34 · another member of the American cabinet come to him and say if you don't go before Congress and ask for a declaration of war they're gonna ask
46:40 · they're gonna pass one without you and if that happens you're presidency is done you have to do this
46:45 · so he's still hoping that there's a way out of this what that's gonna be nobody knows Hank you showed your head
46:53 · that's get the British perspective in here that's very kind I'm just curious actually about the impact socially back in in the u.s.
47:01 · given the number of European immigrants that were in the u.s. at that time and given the fact that the u.s. entered the
47:07 · war not long after the uprising the Easter uprising in Ireland and Irish
47:13 · sympathies what sort of impact it did the did that dynamic in the US have on decisions to enter the war yeah thank
47:19 · you for that question it's a big topic so I didn't want to put it into this lecture there's a whole chapter in the book if anybody's really interested I look at three groups in particular
47:25 · German Americans Jewish Americans and Irish Americans all of whom are at strongly neutral or even pro central
47:32 · powers when the war begins what I argue is four reasons both because they're Americans and because of their ethnic
47:38 · identity that view changes to a pro allied one so let me take the Irish one since you mentioned it Easter Rising is
47:44 · when the Germans encouraged the Easter Revels to rise up against the British government the British come in and put
47:49 · it down with incredible viciousness so that even American Anglo files are opposed to British policy what happens
47:56 · in the Irish American community is that they they actually come to the the logical flow this way Germany is not
48:01 · gonna help Ireland become independent they showed that by their ham-fisted nature in the rising the only way that
48:08 · Ireland gets something out of this the only way is if the United States wins
48:14 · Britain wins the war with the United States having a dominating voice in the post-war peace if Wilson really believes
48:20 · what he says about national self-determination then if the Allies win with the Americans having a dominant seat at the
48:27 · peace table Wilson can enforce national self-determination over the British which will then be okay for Ireland so
48:34 · what I argue in the book the same thing happens for Jews i arguing Italians to sand stefanos hear that right what happens is Italian Americans Irish
48:40 · Americans Jewish Americans their identities both as ethnics quote-unquote and as Americans come into alignment
48:46 · now what Irish American leaders didn't know is that Woodrow Wilson has decided that the Irish aren't a nation since
48:52 · they're represented through a democratic Great Britain right but they don't know that yet so something similar happens Italy
48:58 · enters World War one at almost the same time as the Lusitania sinking right so that there's no contradiction now
49:03 · between Italian American identity and a pro war or Pro intervention standpoint so I actually looked into the papers
49:10 · Philadelphia used to have these in Philadelphia New York Boston they all used to have these enormous fraternal
49:16 · orders where you know Italians arriving from Ischia a Capri they could find food and networks in America when Italy
49:24 · enters World War one they all changed their mission so that the hundred and fifty thousand italians living in the united states with military papers can
49:30 · get back to fight for italy right there's no contradiction in those two things anymore right which there had
49:36 · been at the beginning so I could talk much more about this you probably don't want me to it's in the book but what I
49:41 · argue is again that all of those things are coming into alignment in the same direction yeah right what were the
49:49 · Mexicans saying with respect to diplomacy around that the telegram and and the revelation and from that so
49:55 · officially the Mexican government comes out and says we renounce this telegram we don't want anything to do with it we
50:00 · didn't write this we didn't even mean to get it it's like we don't we don't want anything to do with this at all in
50:07 · reality what they're hoping is that the United States will be tied down by a war in Europe though they don't want to do
50:12 · anything to actually cause that because there's been this civil war in Mexico as I hope you all know the United States
50:18 · sent troops in several occasions Veracruz a lot of the Marines who win medals of Honor at Bella Wood had also
50:24 · won medals of Honor in Mexico so they are kind of hoping that this will take Wilson's mind away from Mexico which it
50:31 · does but they don't want to be an active agent in that Wilson's the guy who famously said I'm gonna teach the
50:36 · Mexicans to elect good men and the Mexicans would just assume that he stay away it's about this same time Porfirio
50:43 · Diaz the Mexican president one of my favorite quotations from history he said Mexico was a poor Mexico so far from God
50:50 · so close to the United States so technically they're trying to stay out of it maybe it's time for maybe one or two and
50:57 · then I'm happy to stick around a little bit yes sir great presentation as far as a hundred
51:04 · years or 100 years past this are there any inferences lessons that we
51:10 · can apply from a hundred years ago to our national security posture to yes so I don't want to draw these soo tight
51:16 · because every historical time period is its is distinct but it seems to me pretty clear that the American people
51:21 · will rally and support a war if they understand the way it affects their national interests if they understand
51:28 · the way that it affects their home communities it seems to me it's much more difficult to ask Americans to
51:33 · engage in broad global reform projects that are disconnected from those
51:39 · interests I think this helps to explain the difference in reaction to the 2001 operations in Afghanistan and the 2003
51:45 · invasion in Iraq just to cite one example or Korea Vietnam if you want to draw that analogy I think that's one and
51:52 · I personally believe as an historian this is a deeply held belief of mine as an historian if you try to understand
51:58 · these periods of war in periods of conflict by going top down by starting with the elites and then trying to
52:04 · figure out the rest you're gonna completely miss the point the way to understand what's happening in American society and the way to
52:10 · predict what will happen next on the basis of the thesis is in fact to look bottom-up and look at what's happening
52:16 · inside American communities as they're beginning to influence their leaders so I would I would go with those two
52:22 · takeaways you could do geopolitically to the danger of alliances the dangers of over commitment to alliances the dangers
52:28 · of imbalances all of that stuff but I think for the American case these are the two that I would that I'd been
52:34 · telling people when people ask me that question that's been my answer one last
52:39 · one maybe anybody else ma'am there could you further develop the two camps that
52:45 · were at the Treaty of Versailles for the American perspective quickly they are two and they are still well alive in
52:51 · America there is a group that believes that America will operate best as part
52:57 · of international organizations that America will have a large voice in if we don't necessarily dominate them so
53:03 · that's something like the World Trade Organization what becomes of course the United Nations these are in America's
53:08 · best interest because it allows America to interact with the world on terms favorable to the United States there's
53:14 · another group in 1919 they called themselves isolationist though the term is a little bit misleading who argued
53:20 · that American interests are best served since we are a great power by operating as independently as
53:25 · possible so the isolationists arguments against the League of Nations are in part because under the League of Nations
53:33 · the US and say Ecuador no offense to Ecuador get the same vote that's one
53:39 · reason that the League of Nations is so controversial the UN is not controversial because the u.s. gets a veto power in it so the debate
53:45 · ideologically is really those people who believe that America should encourage the growth of international multilateral
53:52 · institutions and those people who believe that America functions best when
53:57 · it's left alone that's essentially the the core of the debate Wilson obviously
54:02 · wants more international organizations with u.s. participation the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
54:07 · Henry Cabot Lodge actually believes that most of those organizations are unconstitutional because it gives powers
54:14 · that belong to the US Congress to an international body therefore they're unconstitutional therefore he won't even
54:21 · take the Treaty of Versailles forward to be voted on in my own view that debate is one of course that we're still having
54:26 · right how should the United States interact with international organizations should we interact with
54:32 · the one international organizations and what's the best way to guarantee American Security and Prosperity and that's a debate that really begins in
54:37 · earnest in 1918-1919 so once again welcome to Carlyle I'll be
54:42 · around for a little bit if anybody's any other questions but I know you're due back up in seminar so thanks a lot

The First World War

This lecture re-examines how the First World War ended. Why did Germany request a ceasefire and why did the Allies and America grant one?

A lecture by David Stevenson, Professor of International History at LSE 7 November 2018

This lecture will re-examine how the First World War ended, anticipating the centenary commemorations in 2018. It will discuss both why Germany requested a ceasefire, and why the Allies and America granted one. It will argue that the German army was near collapse, and that Germany was not defeated by a 'stab in the back' at home. None the less, the Allies had good reasons not to press on to Berlin.

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds.
The Ending of World War I: The Road to 11 November | 49:41
Gresham College | 219K subscribers | 98,957 views | November 21, 2018

Transcript
· Intro
0:00 · what I thought I would do is look really at the background to the events of 11th of November 1918 and try to give some
0:07 · explanation to something that in many ways is even more mysterious I think how how the war ended is more puzzling and
0:13 · strange set of events really than than its beginning which is already complex and difficult and enigmatic enough so I
0:20 · want to get behind the story of the Armistice and one thing to bear in mind is that it was a surprise and a mystery
0:27 · in many ways to people at the time we talk about 1914 the war beginning in the
0:32 · first place because of a so-called short war delusion that governments and the public in July and August 1914 when
0:39 · crucial decisions were taking we're expecting a war that would last perhaps a matter of months certainly not a war
0:45 · that would last four and a half years by the time we get to 1918 the fourth year
0:51 · fifth year of the war we're looking much more to a long war illusion British cabinets as late as November 1917 is
0:58 · discussing the need to build battleships and battle cruisers that will become available for a war continuing into 1920
1:05 · Sarah Eric Geddes who had taken over as First Lord of the Admiralty tells the House of Commons in the autumn of 1917
1:12 · that the country must prepare itself for quote a long war you know that's in November 1917 so the expectation was
1:19 · that it was going to go on for a very much longer period of time than in fact it turned out to do now I want to look I
1:26 · suppose I'll start with a flashbulb moments we don't have many pictures of the Armistice but here is the celebrated
1:34 · scene this is often reproduced from the railway carriage wagon - for 190 from the company international company avec
· Wagon 2419D
1:41 · only it was a sleeper carriage built shortly before the war the Armistice as you probably know the signature took
1:47 · place with the German delegation in one railway carriage and the ally delegation in the other drawing up on parallel
1:53 · clearings in the forest of ritand in northeastern France clearing from which the German heavy artillery had pounded
2:00 · the Allied lines and behind them while the war was going on so this is the seeing then and it was a Monday morning
2:06 · the 11th of November 1918 the Armistice was signed at 5:00
2:11 · it was raining the leaves are falling so it was a mood moody atmospheric kind of
2:16 · event and what the picture shows you of the French led by Marshall Foss well had
2:22 · more to say about and the British led my Admiral Vince who was the First Sea Lord so the top official of the Admiralty so
2:29 · this is an anglo-french event the Germans are not in the picture but interesting you may ask where are the Italians where are the Americans more
2:36 · particularly who also played a major part on the Western Front in the last months of 1918 well I'll try to explain
2:43 · a bit about that mystery about why there are people who are not in this picture as well as there are people who are but
2:48 · that's my starting point then this is the Armistice the ceasefire agreement for the Western Front signed at 5:00
2:54 · a.m. on the 11th of November taking effect immediately as far as the naval war was concerned but it would take
3:01 · longer to reach the armies so the time when the Armistice actually took effect was of course 11:00 a.m. the eleventh
3:07 · day of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918 up
3:12 · until 11:00 a.m. so during those six hours the fighting continued and hundreds more soldiers lost their lives
3:20 · now asking why the war ended when it did in some ways is putting the question the
3:25 · wrong way around the real puzzle of course is why the First World War continued for so long as it did even
3:32 · when it turned out to be something wholly different if you like in many ways far far worse going beyond the
3:37 · worst nightmares of those who have begun it four and a half years before and the conventional answer to this is that it
3:44 · became a stalemate which is which is true but I think we need to dig a bit deeper behind this impression of the
3:50 · First World War as being a classic stalemated war it's actually a stalemate in three distinct and overlapping forms
3:57 · first of all it's a military stalemate and this is immediately I guess what most people think about that it's a
· Why The War Did Not End Earlier
4:02 · trench warfare particularly on the Western Front they're actually less so by 1918 it's a situation where defenders
4:09 · are backed up by railways by enormous industrial bases in their home countries by armies millions strong and protected
4:17 · by machine guns barbed wire field guns the panoply of weapons which make it
4:23 · very difficult not impossible for defenders to break through without completely unacceptable cost this being true not only on the
4:30 · Western Front but on many of the other fighting fronts so the first thing if you like then for a variety of reasons
4:36 · of which technology is one and a major part of it it is not possible for either side to achieve a decisive military
4:41 · breakthrough but secondly governments that organize and maintain this war
4:48 · effort are supported by a high degree of consensus at home even so less by 1917-1918 but still fundamentally except
4:55 · in Russia which I will mention the consensus in favor of fighting on stays in place so there is a domestic
5:01 · political stalemate the war can't be ended by military break through but nor can it be ended by revolution at least
5:07 · in the big powers Britain France Germany austria-hungary Italy later on the United States Russia is the exception
5:14 · and thirdly it's a diplomatic stalemate this in some ways is the most puzzling
5:19 · thing of all why is it not possible for governments and their representatives simply to organize a conference in
5:25 · Switzerland meet round a table and say this is stupid none of us expected this we need to
5:30 · liquidate this war and the short answer to that is that the two sides are politically too far apart and the more
5:38 · they go on with the war in many ways the deeper they get into it the deeper the divisions between them become and the greater the sense of insecurity and
5:44 · distrust which had already been growing up of course for a decade or more before 1914 but it comes far far greater once
5:51 · both sides have suffered enormous casualties and there is a kind of trap which closes on the European
5:57 · belligerence by 1917 by 1916-17 by the middle years of the war they have had
6:02 · such heavy casualties that in many ways it becomes much easier to sacrifice the next 50,000 lives and a second when
6:09 · you've already sacrificed fifty a hundred thousand half a million and on the assumption all the time the other
6:14 · thing to bear in mind about all of this is that people did not know at the time how long the war was going to go on so
6:19 · for much of it until about the last year or so there's a series of decisions to
6:24 · carry on for six months a series of incremental decisions to carry on and see see what would happen so these are
6:30 · the underlying factors which make for the stalemate military domestic political and diplomatic the war
6:36 · not be ended by military breakthrough it cannot be ended by revolution it cannot be ended by negotiated compromise so why
6:42 · does it ever end at the end of 1917 that question is still very much pertinent
6:48 · and I've already mentioned the British government's assumptions at the end of that year that it was still in for a very long haul a long haul is made
6:55 · possible of course by America coming into the war in April 1917 and I'll say more about the Americans as I go along
7:02 · because I would say that fundamentally without American entry the best that the
7:07 · Allied side could have extracted from this war would have been a compromise and a compromise that was probably unfavorable so the fact that the Allies
7:14 · achieve a victory even if it's a limited victory in 1918 American contribution is
7:20 · vital to that but the American contribution is very slow to take full effect and during 1917 America's entry
7:27 · into the war is counteracted by a series of other things Russian Revolution mutiny in the French army Britain near
7:36 · to bankruptcy and many of these submarine warfare devastating allies supplies of shipping now all of these
7:43 · things would have happened anyways if you want to run a counterfactual as some historians do I think the most plausible
7:48 · scenario if the Americans had not come into the war would it be offended with some kind of compromise towards the end
7:54 · of 1917 and one that was deeply unfavorable to the Allied side the
7:59 · military stalemate and this is why I've shown you the Passchendaele battlefield probably of October 1917 this taken less
· Passchendaele, 1917
8:06 · as a Canadian picture was of course the Canadians who captured the village of Passchendaele but this shows you the
8:11 · nature of the Western Front fighting at the end of 1917 and at that stage it was
8:17 · still no longer no not apparent at all how the Allies were ever going to break
8:22 · beyond that battle of third Battle of Ypres Tushar army fighting it in 1917
8:28 · with much heavier weapons more sophisticated tactics and previously but these are matched by the German
8:33 · defensive tactics since the result is much the same the British Army ends up by advancing about six miles so what was
8:40 · reminded here of Churchill's comment in May 1940 after the Battle of Dunkirk
8:46 · and retreat from the continent Churchill saying there to the House of Commons looking back to the first world war the
8:52 · question they asked after three years of disaster and disappointment as he puts it was how were we going to win how are
9:00 · we going to win without a totally unacceptable sacrifice that were destroyed Britain as a great power and
9:05 · that question at the end of 1917 just a year before the armistice had still not
9:10 · been answered now I need to mention Eastern Europe
9:16 · remember I've said the triple stalemate a military political diplomatic drunked keep that as a thread running through
9:22 · the presentation in the east of course that the element in the stalemate that breaks is the political stalemate
9:28 · November 1917 or October by the old Russian calendar Lenin Trotsky and the
· Lenin and Trotsky
9:34 · Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd here they are in Red Square I think I think it's Red Square she doesn't look
9:40 · very like Red Square but anyway this is a scene ISM haranguing the crowds or Lenin harangue the crowds and Trotsky
9:45 · looking suspicious as well he might you know but this is this is I think of a shot from 1918 now the point here is
9:51 · that a regime has seized power in a key country at the end of 1917 for which the
9:58 · priority is to end the war really at any cost to begin with what they hope was that the revolution would spread
10:04 · westwards when it doesn't then they're unable to turn the civil international
10:11 · political war into internet international civil war between proletariat and bourgeoisie so they'd
10:17 · have to settle for Plan B which is a separate piece the Russians break away from Britain and America and France and
10:22 · sign a separate treaty with the Germans and Austrians and it's worth remembering it is Treaty of brest-litovsk March 1918
10:29 · and this is what the territorial transfers look like worth remembering
· Brest-Litovsk Map
10:34 · this actually when we look at the map of Eastern Europe today yeah but the whole of the orange area here which have been
10:41 · under Czarist sovereignty in 1914 Russia loses control of that doesn't mean its
10:46 · annexed by Germany and austria-hungary but it is turned into central power into buffer States under the Central Powers
10:51 · control including Ukraine where there is a nominally autonomous government by 19:18 that doesn't actually end the
10:58 · hostilities in east that's the other thing to say about it yeah you see the blue line here this is as far as the
11:04 · Germans and Austrians advance by the summer of 1918 so even after the peace supposed peace have hundreds of
11:12 · thousands of Central Powers troops are kept in the East not their best troops but troops that could well have been
11:17 · used elsewhere so this is an one of the reasons for saying that one of the ways were explanations for why the war ends
11:24 · at the time and in the way it does is the mistakes of the Central Powers as well as the strengths of the Allies so
11:30 · there's the brest-litovsk treaty and remembering my triple stalemate it's the political element in the stalemate that
11:36 · fails first in the East once the Bolshevik comes to government comes to power much of the Russian army
11:41 · deserts and goes home and the Russian government therefore cannot put up further military resistance and is
11:47 · obliged to accept the Central Powers term so once you break the political stalemate then the breach in the
11:52 · military stalemate and the diplomatic stalemate follows there is an attempt to
11:58 · prevent this from happening and the attempt is the first thing on the timeline here the president American
12:04 · president here he is addressing Congress on the 8th of January 1918 and unveiling his 14 points George Tomaso the cynical
· Fourteen Points
12:13 · French premier said that the good Lord had only had 10 points to make but President Wilson has 14 the 14th of
12:20 · which is the League of Nations and that gives you an indication that this is meant to be an idealistic peace program
12:26 · idealistic and relatively moderate it's meant to stand out in deliberate distinction to the imperialist war aims
12:33 · that the Allied powers had developed between 1914 and 1917 and which the Bolshevik government had just published
12:40 · a huge propaganda disaster for the Allies even if the German war aims were in practice just as imperialist as the
12:46 · Treaty of brest-litovsk demonstrated now the story of 1918 at one level one
· Timeline, 1918
12:52 · thread running through it is the president announces the 14 points these fail to keep the Bolsheviks in the war
12:58 · because they signed the separate peace in march they are also unacceptable to the Germans in the spring but at the end
13:05 · of the year when Germany asks for a ceasefire it appeals to the American president and
13:11 · asks for a piece based on the American program so at the beginning of the year the Germans reject this moderate and
13:17 · idealistic American program at the end of the year they accepted and it becomes the basis on which everybody signs up to
13:24 · the ceasefire they were very conflicting views about what the significance of the 14 points is so what happens between
13:31 · these two dates yeah it's really a tremendously important series of military events and very very dramatic
13:38 · first of all there is a series of German and Austrian offensives between March and July and secondly there is a series
13:45 · of Allied counter-offensives which is probably easiest to show by looking at a map but they're basically the pick the
13:51 · pattern is the Germans and Austrians are on the attack I'll show you the map later on between March and July and from
13:57 · July to November the Allies of counter-attacking so the situation by the autumn in 19th of slide 17 is the Germans have tried an
14:04 · all-out offensive that has failed but they have also lost the ability to stop
14:10 · the Allies advancing defensively and that's the real novelty by comparison with the middle years of the First World
14:16 · War now I'm going to say a bit about Germany in Germany is in a way where we have to concentrate this story just as in the
14:22 · story of 1914 it's the Germans who are making the running but it is crucial to
14:27 · understand that for the war to end both sides need to be willing to stop it just as for the war to start both sides
14:34 · needed to be willing to fight rather than back down in 1918 you need to look at the decisions both on the German side
14:41 · and also on the Allied and American side the two go together the kind of symbiotic relationship between them if
14:47 · you're trying to explain what happens but it is the Germans who take the initiative in 1914 and in 1918 who do we
14:54 · mean by the Germans as always a key question in looking at the First World War one of the questions as the Austrian
14:59 · foreign minister put it in 1914 is who rules in Berlin and the people surrounding Germany found that difficult
15:05 · to answer it's a confused system of government a dominant role is played by 1918 by the
15:10 · military which does not mean that Germany is a military dictatorship it's not a totalitarian stage like the Third
15:16 · Reich in the Second World War but these two men here do have a veto power the key decisions on foreign policy
15:22 · that's Palvin DuPont Hindenburg on the left ooh his chief of the General Staff and Erich Ludendorff on the right to his
15:29 · first quartermaster general who is the dynamic element really the intelligence and the willpower in this combination
15:36 · though Hindenburg is not to be underestimated he's not just a cipher these people have been brought to power
15:42 · to deal with the military emergency in the summer of 1916 they have enormous prior prestige because they defeated or
15:49 · been thought to have played a major part in defeating a Russian invasion of Germany in 1914 fill home the second is
15:56 · afraid of them they have greater popular prestige and heha than he has this shows you I feel like a picture of vilhelm
· Wilhelm and his Generals
16:03 · with his generals in 1918 this is not the characteristic picture of vilhelm this is Vil him on the left here then
16:09 · looking older by 1918 he's losing energy losing day-to-day involvement in
16:16 · government which had never been very strong on anyway not a details man a man who's rather remote from governmental
16:22 · processes but if it comes to a confrontation between the military and the civilians in Berlin Vilhelm will
16:27 · knock back the civilians civilians will be forced to resign as key members of the government had been rather than
16:34 · Vilhelm accepting an aggrieved to hindenburg and ludendorff resigning and
16:39 · stepping down so in other words to cut a long story short for a major foreign
16:45 · policy initiative to happen such as requesting a cease-fire hindenburg and
16:51 · ludendorff the OHL the army High Command have to be behind it and have to agree
16:57 · with it which means our starting point for this story is really Saturday 28th
17:03 · the September 1918 and this is the day on which Erich Ludendorff has a nervous
17:08 · breakdown now there is a personal tragedy lying behind this Hindenburg
17:14 · Ludendorff had been under growing strain since the summer since the campaign had been going wrong his a psychologist had
17:22 · been brought in dr. ho Chi Minh I was like this bit Horkheimer recommended that he wouldn't offer should have roses
17:27 · in his study it should go for evening walks in the woods the headquarters of spar in his
17:33 · Beltran he should in the evening after finishing work he should sing hearty German folk songs with his staff
17:39 · officers all of which things he did but none of them really helped very much and he was a science of personality
17:46 · deterioration and Ludendorff was a complex difficult personality moody anyway taken to the drink quarreling
17:52 · with into the Berg so that the personal story is part of it but there are of course much more fundamental reasons why
17:58 · the decision to seek ceasefire is taken and I'm quit if you might like to think of it as in layers there's an issue in
18:04 · the Balkans there's an issue on the Western Front there's a deeper problem of the condition of the German army and
18:09 · of course the condition the domestic situation within Germany just look at them in turn this is a bit could be from
18:16 · the Crimean War almost except for the red cross mark are probably as an aircraft landing strip but this is a
18:22 · member there were British forces fighting in Salonika they landed in Salonika in northern Greece and Garrison
· Salonika Field Hospital, 1918
18:29 · the area Macedonia really if I show you a map this may make it to be clear where we're talking about the Salonika front
18:35 · lies across this area here and allied troops have been there since 1915
18:40 · including British ones there'd been heavy fighting the British war artist
18:46 · and poet Standish and poet Stanley Spencer serves in the sphere but in many ways it's forgotten front until 1918 and
18:55 · then on the 15th of September French and Serbian troops attack here in the area
19:01 · that's now really possible this is a rather blurred map but it shows dab it better and they advance within a couple
· Balkan Breakthrough
19:07 · of weeks they push the Bulgarians back that far and the thing that immediately
19:13 · precipitates student or snake nervous breakdown is a decision by the Bulgarian government to sue for a ceasefire so the
19:21 · track that leads to the end of the war as the track that led to the beginning of the war actually begins in the
19:27 · Balkans Bulgaria is the weakest of the four central powers but it nonetheless matters it matters because when the
19:34 · Bulgarians signed the ceasefire they allow the Allied the right to occupy the whole of the country this means that a
19:40 · wedge is driven between austria-hungary and here and Ottoman Turkey here the Central
19:45 · Powers potentially will be split apart not only that but the Central Powers had
19:51 · occupied southern Romania in 1916 including the oil fields here in blue St if the Allies are able to move up from
19:58 · through Bulgaria and to liberate southern Romania then the Central Powers will be deprived of the main source of
20:04 · oil and Ludendorff's advice to the German government is that within two months much of the German u-boat fleet
20:10 · many of its tanks its lorries will be as a standstill so Bulgaria matters as its for its
20:17 · geographical position and for its connection to Balkan mineral resources
20:22 · nonetheless it past events as in 1916 the Elat the Germans have been able to
20:29 · move troops from the Western Front down to the Balkans to do kind of firefighting in 1918 they can't do that
20:36 · or at least they can't do it quickly enough because they're simultaneously a crisis on the western front so layer one
20:42 · is the Balkans layer two is the Western Front this was just to remind you of how the Western Front is much more mobile in
20:48 · 1918 than it had been between 1915 and 1917 in the middle years of the war the
20:54 · British troops describe the Western Front as the sausage machine yeah in other words it generates hundreds of
21:00 · thousands of casualties but stays stubbornly in place that's more or less the line that were to occupy between
21:06 · 1915 and 1917 in between March and July 1918 the Germans who by the way do not
21:13 · have tanks are very few are able to advance twice more than 50 miles towards the channel ports and towards Paris so
21:20 · these are the so-called Ludendorff offensives of March to July 1918 and these are the Allied counter-offensive
21:27 · so beginning from July this is the dotted line here from July the 18th the Allied forces are driving backwards this
21:33 · is this is where they are at the end of September and at the end of September a concerted series of attacks is launched
21:40 · the Americans starting in the south the British in the middle the Belgians and French from British in the north that's
21:46 · beginning on the 26th of September so the crisis in the Balkans happens at the same time as the biggest battle ever
21:52 · fought on the Western Front is in progress and the Germans being driven back remember what I said
21:57 · before the Germans are in a situation where they are still occupying French and Belgian and Russian territory their
22:04 · present situation isn't hopeless but their future situation is they cannot win the war by an all-out offensive and
22:11 · nor can they win the war by holding the Allies back because between July and
22:16 · November this shows to the November armistice line the Allies advance about a hundred miles and the advance unlike
22:23 · the German one in the spring the Allied advance is sustained and even accelerating as the war approaches its
22:29 · conclusion it's not dramatic by World War two standards but by World War one standards it is that gives you some of
· Allied Offensives
22:37 · the key benchmark dates in the series of allied attacks between the fifth between
22:43 · the 18th of July which is when it starts and the Armistice on the 11th of November this shows you the Battle of
· Australian War Memorial
22:49 · amia which was there was a substantial commemoration for this on the 8th of August of this year rather a Manta sized
22:56 · picture from the Australian War Memorial but it shows you Australian infantry moving forward with their artillery behind tanks and I'll come back to tanks
23:03 · in a moment this shows you allied troops after breaking the Hindenburg Line which was done by troops from stoke-on-trent
23:10 · actually from North Midland division on the 29th of September the strongest German prepared defensive position is
23:17 · smashed through by British troops if they can take that they can break through any German position now what's
23:27 · the reason for this shift in the military balance in the Allies favor partly technology this shows you a mark
23:32 · for British tank there are a number of things to say about it of course it protects you if you're an infantryman
23:38 · walking behind it towards machine-gun posts it's reassuring it saves infantry lives the Allies have hundreds of them
23:43 · the Germans only have a few dozen most many of the German tanks are actually captured from the Allies and have iron
23:48 · crosses painted on them but this moves at walking pace moves at about two-and-a-half miles an hour it is a
23:55 · terrible thing for the strewing crew inside to try to steer it is a sitting target for the German artillery on the
24:02 · first day of the battle of amnion a ball the smaller than 400 British tanks go into action by the third day less than a quarter of
24:10 · them are still operational very vulnerable to mechanical breakdown very vulnerable to enemy artillery fire it's
24:16 · a useful supplement it's not a war winning weapon this is much more important heavy artillery by which we
· Heavy Artillery
24:21 · mean guns of six-inch caliber or war this is a British MC heavy a heavy gun in action I think the picture is from
24:28 · 1918 by 1918 there were far more of these the British and French and Lee and
24:33 · even the Americans have very much larger numbers of heavy artillery than previously they have huge numbers of
24:39 · shells before the British break through the Hindenburg Line they fire 750,000 shells in 24 hours against the German
24:46 · defenses and they have skilled crews who are able to operate these things and too far them accurately unlike before the
24:53 · Battle of the Somme also unlike before the Battle of the Somme what they're firing is not just high explosive but
24:59 · also gas I shown you this extraordinary picture of German troops and dogs and gas masks just to remind you the war on
25:05 · the Western Front by 1918 is a chemical war on a massive scale nothing like this to be seen again until the 1980s in the
25:13 · iran-iraq conflict both sides firing shells phosgene which is much more
25:18 · lethal than they'd used the beginning of the war in 1915 and mace mainly delivered in the form of artillery
25:24 · shells and very effective in silencing enemy artillery if you could identify where the artillery was which you need
25:30 · air superiority Sopwith Camel the most famous British fighter of the war
25:35 · aircraft don't do much ground attack though they do more by 1918 than previously but what they are vital for
25:41 · is aerial reconnaissance and taking tens of thousands of pictures of enemy trenches and disclosing where the enemy
· Aerial Photography
25:47 · gun positions are so that the Allied guns can open fire without ranging shots
25:52 · so this is a key thing which enables both sides to regain surprise this is one of the reasons why the war becomes
25:59 · more mobile another reason is logistics which is often underestimated in the story of
26:05 · 1918 why is the Western Front where it is the German it's the Germans of course
26:11 · designed the Western Front when they dug in in 1914 and they did so with the trunk railway shown in green here lying
26:17 · behind them the Allies also have a trunk railway system running down from the Channel ports to Paris and then out to
26:22 · Eastern France and Lorraine so the Western Front battles take place between two massive railway thoroughfares by
26:30 · 1918 the Allies are using lorries as well as railways on a very intensive scale the Germans can't they lack Goong
26:37 · they lack enough oil they lack enough petrol they have a much smaller lorry fleet they are much more dependent on
26:43 · their railway system and on the 28th the certain weather day of the arms disappear the German railway system here
26:49 · seizes up they are being attacked at so many points simultaneously that they're unable to move the rail with the
26:54 · reinforcements quickly enough along the railway system behind the lines that's a deliberate strategy and the strategist
· Ferdinand Foch
27:01 · who saw the importance of railways is the Allied commander in chief on the Western Front the French marshal
27:06 · Ferdinand 4 who all say more about in a moment so underlying factors then that the
27:13 · Allied triumph is partly technological part is strategic behind it lies of course tremendous by 1918 tremendous
27:21 · industrial power primarily in Britain and in France here is a shell production
27:27 · of course there are many pictures of the Venetians effort those 750,000 shells that were fired at the Hindenburg Line
27:33 · were replaced quite quickly British Army is not short of shells nor is the French one of the reasons for this production
27:39 · miracle is that Britain and France particularly are more successful in the Germans in incorporating very large
27:45 · numbers of women probably about 2 million in the British case in the ministries workforce this means that
27:51 · more men can be left at the front whereas the German army is releasing hundreds of thousands of men from its army in 1917 18 to go and serve in the
27:58 · munitions factories German army for that reason doesn't run out of shells in 1918 it runs out of men another reason for
28:07 · the munitions miracle in the back behind the scenes the underlying reasons for the Allied triumphs of course is the war
28:12 · at sea which is often neglected but this shows you have to pay it's a war painting of a British convoy in the
28:19 · North Sea in 1918 by which stage you can see the ships zigzagging as is normal to protect themselves against u-boat attack
28:25 · there over flood they have a destroyer escort and they also hand KACE have actually airships over flying
28:32 · them this combination of things makes convoys virtually invulnerable to German submarine attack and shipping losses in
28:38 · convoy or about 1% been far far higher before convoy was introduced it's not
28:43 · the only reason for the Allied victory at sea but it's a crucial reason and control of the Seas means of course that
28:49 · supplies can be funneled across from North America and so can troops here we have a rare picture of an American troop
28:55 · convoy coming in to abreast in western France in 1918 and these are the people
29:00 · they were bringing now I said that the American war effort is slow the the
29:06 · doughboys as they were called at the time the American infantry was slow to arrive March of 1918 they're about
29:12 · quarter of a million of them in France but by November 1918 there are two million they're coming across the
29:19 · Atlantic at the rate of 250,000 a month in the summer of 1918 and not a single
29:25 · outgoing troop ship American troop ship is sunk so is a tremendous expansion in
29:30 · Ally numbers at the same time as the German army is enormous ly diminishing in numbers and I want to stress before I
29:37 · come to the Germans of course don't forget the French though note the contrast if you like between the appearance of these American troops you
29:43 · know wearing British steel helmets of course and by the way most of their equipment came from France
29:49 · machine guns they're there an aircraft their artillery came from France but here the French koala often written
29:57 · out of the picture after the mutinous of 1917 but the French arm is still very much there and it's still playing a
30:02 · major part in the fighting so one thing I want to stress actually is that this victory that the Allies win on the
30:08 · Western Front and it is a victory it's a victory to which the British and Americans and the French all make
30:13 · indispensable contributions and therefore all have a claim to having key
30:19 · influence on the terms on which the war comes to an end that's very important to remember now the corollary of this is in the
30:26 · German army disintegrates it's that numbered it loses about a million men in the Ludendorff offensives
· Amiens - Germans
30:32 · a million casualties between March and July almost another million between July and October it cannot replenish those losses and
30:39 · from 8 August of 1980 very large numbers of German troops are beginning to surrender here they are
30:46 · surrendering at the Battle of ano here's a shot I think taken in the last weeks of the war and here is a celebrated
· German Prisoners, 1918
30:53 · chart put together in neon Ferguson's provocative book but important book called the pity of war which shows the
· German Surrenders
30:59 · numbers of Germans surrendering each month to the British on the Western Front and you can see her in nineteen seventeen eighteen the numbers are low
31:05 · but from August 1918 onwards they're very high the German army is not just
31:12 · outnumbered and outclassed in equipment its morale is going and Hindenburg and
31:18 · Ludendorff know that and this is another key reason why they feel it's necessary to bring the war to an end yeah as
31:25 · Ludendorff puts it their troops can no longer be relied on if the consequence
31:30 · of defeat is revolutionary unrest within Germany the troops may no longer be able
31:35 · to be dependent on for oppression you need to keep the army intact for domestic political reasons now this
31:43 · leads us into the domestic political route and I said that there are four layers to the German decision to seek an armistice first of all the Balkans
31:50 · secondly the Western Front thirdly the German army is disintegrating fourth of the conditions at home now it's not true
31:57 · that Germany faces at a revolutionary situation in November 1918 though a revolution does in fact break out after
32:03 · the approach is made for an armistice and one thing I do want to stress it's that way round it is not as Hitler and
32:11 · the Nazis later alleged a stab in the back to treason on the home front that
32:16 · causes the defeat the revolution does happen at home but the revolution happens after it has become quite clear
32:22 · that Germany has lost the war because it has appealed for a ceasefire and the High Command have taken the initiative
32:28 · in asking for a ceasefire so why do the High Command do this yeah the situation
32:33 · at home is yes food is short but Germany has faced worse food crises burner in
32:39 · the warned particularly in the winter of 1916 seventeen and it's not an imminent danger of revolution to the left and the
32:45 · progressive forces in Germany are becoming more active what hindenburg and ludendorff intend is
32:51 · a kind of damage limitation strategy to get out of the war before it becomes a complete and utter disaster and the
32:58 · German army is turned into what Ludendorff fears will be a militia and the leads are made so the plan is put
33:04 · together by the Foreign Minister Admiral von hint sir who you can see on the right here an essential part of the plan
· Hertling and Hintze
33:10 · is to remove the existing Chancellor and the font heartily who you can see on the left and a place in by a liberal max of
33:17 · Barden who will head a government that represents the socialists the Catholics and the progressives and the majority
33:22 · parties of the century on the left in the Reichstag part of the intention behind this is to saddle the left with
33:28 · responsibility for the defeat as Ludendorff puts it the socialists will now sup the broth that they have cooked
33:35 · up for us but it is also meant to appeal to the American president if you carry
33:40 · through a kind of modest regime change within Germany what in circles a revolution from above you will head off
33:47 · the danger of revolution from below if you begin to democratize the government this is important because there's
33:53 · another part of the strategy is to appeal to and the American President Woodrow Wilson when the Germans asked
33:58 · for a ceasefire they send a message via Switzerland not to the Allies in general
34:03 · but to the American president asking him to arrange a ceasefire and to arrange beyond that a peace based on the 14
34:10 · points and Wilson's subsequent speeches so the Germans see in other words the Americans is the weak link in the enemy
34:17 · chain they can do a deal with Washington then they can get to see safar on favourable terms and perhaps even a
34:23 · breathing space after which they'll renew hostilities again that's the initial German thinking what happens
34:29 · from then on of course is that the German plan goes wrong now I've talked a lot about the German side because the
34:35 · Germans do take the initiative and if the Germans hadn't taken the initiative the war would not have ended when it did but it is also vital the British and
34:42 · Americans and Italians and French grant an armistice and in a way this is the real puzzle why do they do this at a
34:48 · point when at last after months and years of terrible desert disappointment and casualties the war is at last turning in
34:55 · their favor well the key answer to that is you have to go behind the military situation to the politics again and to
35:03 · the fact that the German Americans and the European allies distrust each other almost as much as they distrust the
35:08 · Germans in the first instance Woodrow Wilson of course is the person the American president is the person who the
35:14 · Germans approached Wilson had always harbored the desire that America should
35:21 · have a key role at the peace conference table that's one of the reasons why he taken America into the war in April 1917
· Woodrow Wilson
35:27 · they're not the only one that's a key factor for him and he saw America's role
35:33 · as being a kind of arbiter that can distance itself from the British and French as well as from the Germans he
35:38 · distrusts all of these European countries as imperialists all of them were responsible for what he viewed as
35:43 · an evil balance of power arms race military system that had produced the war in the first place he wants to go
35:49 · beyond all of that so he's attractive to him when the Germans approached him and as long as the terms are right he's
35:56 · actually surprisingly willing to end the war in November of 1918 part of the
36:02 · reason for this is money William McAdoo who is the American Treasury secretary and Wilson son-in-law has warned Wilson that even for the
· William G. McAdoo
36:09 · United States if the war carries on for much longer it become prohibitively expensive Congress is not raising taxes
36:16 · enough doesn't this sound familiar therefore the government is having to borrow and the war is costing four or
36:21 · five times as much per month as what had originally been expected and there's now a huge American army in France which has
36:27 · to be paid for in French francs under d-dip span sterling because for the ones who are in the UK so it's a drain on the
36:33 · American balance of payments so Finance is a factor and this is discussed in the American deliberations but more
36:39 · important is politics Wilson is worried about the extreme
36:45 · xenophobia and patriotism in the United States which is moving towards nationalists more enthusiasm as the
36:51 · British and French are becoming war weary Wilson tells his advisor Colonel house that did not realized how war mad
36:56 · our people have become if the war goes on into 1919 he fears that his Republican opponents will gain control
37:03 · of Congress in the November midterm elections ya know yes as I sort
37:08 · of sound familiar November yeah this is a midterm election year and the Republicans did in fact get control of
37:14 · course of Congress in November 1918 that II will rightly fears will undermine his
37:19 · ability to broker a moderate peace abroad still more if Germany is so badly beaten that Britain and France are no
37:25 · longer dependent on American help so all of these factors if you like point in
37:31 · Wilson's view in favor of settling the war now rather than going on for much longer if the terms are right and if
37:38 · everybody is willing to accept his peace program the fourteen points so this so
37:44 · what happens is that Wilson does public negotiation with the Germans while the war is still going on between the German
37:51 · Armistice Appeal and the actual signing of the cease fires about another half a million casualties so the fighting is
37:56 · going on at full pace during October and November of 1918 so the problem for the
38:03 · European allies is whether they're going to sign up to a peace based on the fourteen points given that it becomes clear that Wilson the Germans both are
38:10 · they've never been consulted about this program there's a lot of behind the scenes a lot of them muttering as you
38:17 · can well imagine in the British Cabinet in the French among the French and Italian leaders about the fourteen points because the fourteen points are
38:23 · much more moderate if you like than the scale of ambitions that the European allies have Italy's often neglected
38:29 · there's the Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando while the Allies are attacking in the Western Front Italy is
· Vittorio Orlando
38:35 · attacking in the Alps this is the Battle of Vittorio Veneto when they essentially destroy the austro-hungarian army and
38:41 · four hundred thousand a Habsburg troops of surrender so it's not just in France where the Allies are gaining decisive
38:48 · victories is also in Italy and indeed in the Middle East but the Italian government I think would have preferred
38:53 · to carry on into 1919 but it won't do it if the British and French decide to stop the war now and the British and French
38:59 · do Georges Clemenceau French Prime Minister here since November 1917 the
· Georges Clemenceau
39:04 · tiger as he's known in France the key thing for the French is that the seats
39:09 · the military terms of the ceasefire give them control of the territories that they want the armistice emerges from a
39:15 · deal the deal on the political as the Allies accept the American 14 points as the political basis of the
39:22 · program with various reservations but basically they accept 12 and a half of the 14 points but the military and
39:29 · technical terms are decided by the Allies and Wilson deliberately leaves that to them so the British Admiralty
39:34 · decides the naval terms Germany will give up all its u-boats and hand over control of his most modern battleships
39:39 · the French marshal Fache who picked his picture I showed you earlier on in conjunction with premier Tim also
39:46 · decides the land terms of the armistice which is that the Germans have to pull back very quickly to the River Rhine so
39:53 · the whole of this area here comes under Allied occupation Alsace Lorraine which of course the French provinces lost in
39:59 · 1870 come under French occupation the Allies gain bridgeheads east of the river the Germans also have to pull back
40:05 · out of Russia and out of Belgium Belgium is a key concern for the British the Rhineland and eastern France is a key
40:11 · concern for the French Russia is a key concern for the Allies as a whole the Germans have to pull back so fast that
40:18 · they have to leave behind much of their heavy equipment and in fact the German army is no longer under the terms of the
40:24 · armistice in a position to renew hostilities so the political terms of the Armistice point in one direction and
40:31 · moderate direction but the military and technical and naval terms point at different direction there is something
40:37 · here to satisfy the European allies as well as the Americans especially from the viewpoint of the European allies its
40:43 · right to stop the war now because if it goes on into 1919 the Americans will dominate it this is Marshall this is
· Jan Christian Smuts
40:50 · general Smuts who's South African Defense Minister and British Cabinet who says in the British cabinet that if the
40:56 · war goes on into 1917 as he puts it the Americans will dictate to the world by
41:02 · 1919 the Americans may have four million troops in France they will dwarf the British and French armies so for
41:08 · different reasons Wilson from one perspective the British and French and the other come to the view that actually
41:13 · politically it makes sense to stop the war now they have conflicting expectations how this will all pan out
41:20 · of course will depend on what happens at the Peace Conference in 1919 now the
41:25 · final question before I stop is why the Germans end up by accepting a much tougher set of terms than
41:30 · initially expected and member hindenburg and ludendorff had started the ball rolling in late September early October
41:37 · thinking they could extricate Germany from the war on pretty favorable and moderate terms we're going to Woodrow Wilson what they are actually presented
41:44 · with on the 4th of November is a much tougher set of conditions which nonetheless they basically accept and
41:50 · this is because German is bargaining position collapses early November and this is where the German revolution does
41:56 · become important though it's not the only thing that comes into play Ludendorff himself is sacked rather
42:03 · cunningly Doong actually by vilhelm wilhelm ii asserts himself and sacks
42:09 · Ludendorff but orders Hindenburg to stay Hindenburg is a good pressure general accepts the order they walk out after
42:15 · they leave the room Ludendorff and Hindenburg never speak to each other again so the link between the two is
42:21 · broken Wilhelm Groener is brought in as Ludendorff's replacement as you can see just looking at the pictures this is a
42:27 · different kind of man this is a realist he knows about logistics he knows that the German Army's is near the point of
42:33 · collapse for lack of supply and his advice very soon to the German government is that it must make peace
42:38 · makes them stop the war at all costs as soon as possible on any terms available so the military veto of a foreign policy
42:44 · is lifted secondly the collapse of German is a lies I could show you many pictures but the key thing here is the
42:50 · breakup of austria-hungary Germany's main ally in the war here's the revolution in Prague but in late October
· Revolution in Prague
42:56 · early November there are revolutions also in in the South Slav lands in Poland the Romanians break away the
43:05 · Italians were occupied by Italy all of the subject nationalities of the Austrian and Hungarian halves of the
43:10 · empire break away leaving austria-hungary with under separate governments so austria-hungary
43:16 · essentially disintegrates also at the end of October Ottoman Turkey the
43:21 · remaining central power also signs a ceasefire in many ways that's the direct consequence of the Bulgarian ceasefire
43:27 · which makes it possible for the Allies to attack Istanbul through the Balkans so if Germany fights dawn now it will
43:33 · fight alone and it's at this point that the German revolution comes into play here's the scene on the 9th of
43:40 · in front of the Reichstag this is the day when Phil held the second fleet into exile in the Netherlands and a new
· German Revolution
43:46 · provisional government of moderate socialists is formed to govern Germany which soon carry strapped the reforms
43:52 · that establish what becomes the Verma Republic in the 1920s and 30s and the Revolution I could peps talk more in
43:58 · questions about the exact origins of the revolution but it is triggered by the German Navy planning a suicidal action
44:05 · naval action against London and the Thames Estuary the sailors mutiny rather than go along with that as well they
44:10 · might do when they come ashore they joined forces with arms with munitions workers in Kiel set of a Soviet and the
44:18 · red revolution spreads across northern Germany though this is a moderate revolution and a largely bloodless revolution it's not like the revolution
44:24 · the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia more like the earlier Russian Revolution when tsar nicholas ii had been overthrown
44:31 · anyway the combination of all of this then is the german government has to sign the cease-fire now to finish some
44:38 · snapshots brainerd is in minnesota this is the viewpoint from the heartland of america
44:44 · i always put like to put newspapers up just to remind you they know this is not
44:49 · stuff that historians make up this really happened people were reading about this on their breakfast tables in
44:55 · Minnesota and in London and in New York and in Berlin London Paris Armistice
45:01 · signed Germany surrenders Kaiser bill flees to Holland President Wilson says America gains all
45:07 · she fought for perhaps almost from the beginning there were doubts on the
· John J. Pershing
45:13 · Allied side about whether the Armistice have not been premature the person who most eloquently expresses this during
45:19 · the Armistice negotiations as the American commander in chief John Pershing who remembered how the American
45:24 · Civil War had ended in 1865 and the influence of the American Civil War on the conduct of their first world war
45:30 · effort is very important Woodrow Wilson himself remembered the General Sherman's
45:36 · march into Georgia in 1864 and the disruption in the southern states but
45:42 · Pershing who was also from the south and actually also a Republican writes memorandum in late October where he
45:48 · argues that victors or the lesson of histories that victors always underestimate the extent of their triumph and Pershing
45:55 · was not persuaded that the ally should suspicion was the ally should have gone further and demonstrated a more complete
46:01 · success move deeper into Germany or at least insisted on much heart returns quite soon after the Armistice when the
46:08 · Allies realized that the stent of the German Revolution many political leaders such as Lord Milner in this country
46:13 · agree with him but that was not the view taken by the armed allies when they actually took the decision much more
46:20 · influential was for sure I show again here who argues that a war his he puts it of what you fight a war for its
46:26 · results when it's given you the political advantage you need then it's time to stop carrying on into March 1919
46:34 · spring 1919 he said yes we can win we will defeat the Germans but it will mean
46:39 · another fifty thousand French lives being lost for political purposes that are extras extremely obscure and
46:45 · nebulous and that's the first few which in a largely actually and perhaps surprisingly echoed by Sir Douglas Haig
46:51 · British commander in chief who was also pessimistic about the prospects of a quick and easy victory over the Germans
· Douglas Haig
46:57 · thought they still had considerable fighting power so essentially the French and British take the view that if the
47:02 · terms are right and the Armistice does seem to be offer them the right terms and off of them enough then it's time to
47:07 · bring the war to an end and once they no longer see a political purpose in continuing they all start to talk about
47:13 · casualties it's interesting I've just quoted for sure Ludendorff says how in the war he'd lost
47:18 · two stepsons who he dearly loved once they no longer see a political purpose in continuing then at last they think
47:25 · about the human cost which had been an remained enormous now basically I think
47:30 · that Fache was right in that argument there is enough in the Armistice to make Germany helpless and to enable the
47:36 · Allies to impose the peace treaty on Germany in June 1919 that was a harsh priest treaty but the one thing that can
47:43 · be said in its favor is that if the treaty had been kept enforced it would have been impossible for Germany to start another major war in Europe let's
47:50 · look at the disarmament clauses yeah reducing the German army to a hundred thousand men no air force no poison gas
47:56 · no tanks no submarines no General Staff the problem with the Treaty of Versailles and the way in which the war
48:02 · ended of course is that it looks as if it's a kind of fake it's kind of bogus and this encourages German nationalists
48:08 · among them the Nazis they're not only the Nazis to propagate the myth that the German army had not really been defeated
48:14 · that in fact the heroes of the front have been stabbed in the back by Jews and by communists at home this is the
48:21 · origin of the stab-in-the-back legend the Dahl cross legenda which is highlighted in this German picture of 1924 so I leave you with a picture of
· London, Armistice Day, 1919
48:29 · London on Armistice Day 1919 this is Whitehall on the 11th of November 1919
48:36 · an enormous and hushed crowd British government wasn't sure how to commemorate the sinter did the first
48:42 · anniversary of the Armistice but there was a British government decision that there would be a two-minute silence
48:47 · observed throughout the country and the British government the leaders are stunned by the extent of the popular
48:53 · response and what quickly emerges in the early 1920s is a complex of rituals which are still with us today on the
49:00 · 11th of November 1920 the burial of the Unknown Warrior the unveiling of the Cenotaph on November the 11th 1921 the
49:09 · beginning where the British Legion the sale of poppies but always at the heart of that was asylums
49:20 · [Applause]
49:27 · you [Applause]
49:36 · you

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