Week 5
Total War
Flanders, Germans fleeing during a gas attack
The Spark: The July Crisis
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28 June: Archduke Franz Ferdinand
and wife Sophie assassinated at
Sarajevo.
5 July: Kaiser Wilhelm II offers
Germany’s unconditional support (the
‘blank cheque’) to Austria-Hungary.
23 July: Austria issues her ultimatum
to Serbia.
28 July: Austria-Hungary declares war
on Serbia. Russia orders ‘partial
mobilisation’ of her armed forces.
30 July: Russia orders general
mobilisation. Austria orders general
mobilisation.
1 August: Germany declares war on
Russia. France orders mobilisation.
2 August: Germany issues an
ultimatum to Belgium, demanding to
be allowed to move troops through
Belgian territory.
3 August: Germany declares war on
France. Italy proclaims her neutrality.
4 August: German troops cross the
Belgian frontier. Britain declares war
on Germany.
Prewar Conditions
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Balance of Power
Weltpolitik
Arms Race
Nationalism/War Euphoria
Domestic Pressures
The Diplomatic Revolution,
1900-1907
Cartoon depicting Britain walking off with
France, while Germany feigns disinterest.
The Agadir Crisis (1911)
The Balkan Wars (1912-13)
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First Balkan War (1912): Serbia,
Greece, Bulgaria and Montenegro
wrest control of Macedonia from
Turkey.
Second Balkan War (1913):
Bulgaria attacks Serbia and is
decisively defeated by the Greeks
and Serbs.
Anglo-German co-operation
secures a settlement in the
Balkans at the London Conference.
Germany initially restrains Austria,
but after 1913 she agrees to back
her ally in any future confrontation
with Serbia (and by extension
Russia).
Rearmament
Source: Farmer & Stiles, The Unification of Germany
1815-1919
Burgfrieden /
Civil Truce
”Ich kenne keine Parteien
mehr, kenne nur noch
Deutsche”
I no longer know parties, I
know only Germans.
Map of Schlieffen Plan
German troops charging into battle (above) and digging
in to defensive positions (below) in the west, 1914
Paul von Hindenburg (18471934)
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1847: Born at Poznan in Prussian
Poland, the son of an East
Prussian landowner.
Educated at cadet schools in
Wahlstadt and Berlin.
Fought at Königgrätz (1866) and
in the Franco-Prussian War.
1878: Joined the General Staff.
1905: Promoted to the rank of
General.
1911: Retired from active service.
22 August 1914: Brought out of
retirement to command the
German Eighth Army in East
Prussia.
Victory at Tannenberg and the
Masurian Lakes made him a
national hero.
In many ways the archetypal
Prussian Junker.
The ‘Easterners’:
Hindenburg, Ludendorff, Hoffmann and Mackensen by Oskar
Bruch
Trench Warfare
The Battlefield in the Argonne
Forest (1916)
Postcard: Resting in the Trenches,
c. 1914
Trench Warfare
German troops attacking, July 1916 (Top Left), posed
photograph of a ‘Storm Trooper’ (Bottom Left), German
soldier wearing First World War trench armour (Above)
Ernst Jünger
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“In battle, the animal ascends
as the secret horror at the soul’s
base, shooting high as a
consuming flame, an irresistible
rapture that intoxicates the
masses, a godhead enthroned
above the hosts...”
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“We’ve been harnessed and
chiselled, but we are also such
as swing the hammer and guide
the chisel, we are at once the
smith and the flashing steel.”
In Stahlgewitten (‘Storm of Steel’, 1920)
Erich Maria Remarque
“A man cannot realize that
above such shattered bodies
there are still human faces in
which life goes its daily round.”
“I am young, I am twenty
years old; yet I know nothing
of life but despair, death, fear,
and fatuous superficiality case
over an abyss of sorrow.”
(Nichts neues am Westen / All
Quiet on the Western Front,
1928)
Verdun (1916)
Total War
State Intervention
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Walter Rathenau (1867-1922),
industrialist
and founder of the
Kreigsrohstoffabteilung
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1915: Kreigsrohstoffabteilung
(Raw Materials Department, KRA)
– ensures the acquisition, storage
and distribution of materials vital
to the war effort.
1915: Bread rationing introduced.
1916: Zentral-EinkaufsGesellschaft (Central Purchasing
Company) – acquisition of goods
from neutral countries.
1916: Reichsgetreidstelle
(Imperial Gain Office) – controlled
food supplies and issued ration
cards .
Hindenburg Programme (1916) –
Intended to concentrate industry
on the production of munitions.
Auxiliary Service Law (1916):
Government
could
conscript
workers and decide where they
should work.
“Krieg und Küche”
Designer Käte Spanier
Food Shortage
Above Left: The first mobile kitchen (Gulaschkanone) in Berlin,
c. 1916. Below Left: Queuing for food, 1917.
Total War
Agriculture lost more than 1/2
prewar manpower
Industry lost approx. 1/3 by
end of 1914
No-strike promises & higher
wages attracted labor to
war industries
By end of war, women made
up 1/3-1/2 of war industry
labor force. Women faced
double burden & postwar
backlash.
Mobilisation for ‘total war’
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War Raw Materials Office: coordination of industrial products.
Food rationing in 1915.
War Food Office 1916.
Substitutes – cloth with paper fibres.
Gaps in the labour force filled by women (emancipation – double
burden).
• Auxiliary Labour Law (1916): Government could conscript workers and
decide where they should work.
• ‘Dictatorship’ of Oberste Heeresleitung (OHL) – Hindenburg and
Ludendorff – loss of influence for civil government and strengthening of
army influence.
Inadequacies in the
Mobilisation for ‘total war’
• Scarcity of food, clothing, soap, and other basic goods.
• Agricultural production fell, meat consumption only 12% of pre-war level.
• Malnutrition and starvation – ‘turnip winter’ 1916/17 (consequence: up to
750,000 dead).
• Polarisation: pro ‘Siegfrieden’ (victorious peace) with far reaching war
aims, pro peace without contributions and annexations.
• Middle Classes: pauperisation, living conditions closer to working class –
but many now more nationalist, angst (loss of status) .
• Working Class: spontaneous strikes in 1916 and 1917.
What Victory Could Have
Looked Like?
Treaty of Brest Litovsk
(March 1918)
Russia lost most of its oil
and cotton production
3/4 of coal & iron
production
1/3 of railways and
agriculture
1/3 of population including
Ukraine, Finland, and
Baltic States
Treaty of Bucharest (May
1918)
Romania returned or gave
control of territories to
Bulgaria (joined Central
Allies) & AustriaHungary
Also, gave control of its oil
wells to Germany for 90
years.
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
(1918)
Source: G. Layton, From Bismarck to Hitler: Germany, 1890-1933
Final Military Gamble:
The Spring Offensive 1918
March 1918: early successes quickly
checked by fresh American troops-approx. 1 million Americans sent to
Europe
By July, the Entente counterattacked
August: Entente forces broke through
German lines
In the Face of Failure…
Supreme Command placed the burden of
defeat onto a civilian govt. headed by
Prince Max von Baden.
Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann
became first SPD minister of newly
formed cabinet.
3 October: Max von Baden sued for
peace and set in motion October
reforms
Dolchstoßlegende
Stab in the Back Legend
Philipp Scheidemann and Matthias Erzberger
betray the troops.
October Reforms
• Brought together coalition of SPD,
Center Party, and liberals
• Abolition of Prussian three-class
electoral system
• Army brought under parliamentary
control
• Max von Baden’s cabinet still reliant on
army’s cooperation. Hohenzollern
empire remains in place…
CASUALTIES OF THE WORLD WAR
Known dead
Russia
Seriously
wounded
Otherwise
wounded
Prisoners or
missing
2,762,064
1,000,000
3,950,000
2,500,000
1,611,104
1,600,000
2,183,143
772,522
1,427,800
700,000
2,344,000
453,500
AustriaHungary
911,000
850,000
2,150,000
443,000
Great Britain
807,451
617,714
1,441,394
64,907
Serbia
707,343
322,000
28,000
100,000
Italy
507,160
500,000
462,196
1,359,000
Turkey
436,924
107,772
300,000
103,731
Rumania
339,117
200,000
......
116,000
Belgium
267,000
40,000
100,000
10,000
United
States
107,284
43,000
148,000
4,912
Bulgaria
101,224
300,000
852,339
10,825
15,000
10,000
30,000
45,000
4,000
5,000
12,000
200
Japan
300
........
907
3
Total
9,998,771
6,295,512
14,002,039
5,983,600
Germany
France
Greece
Portugal