The Super Summary of World History - Alan Dale Daniel [155]
As Germany starved and scraped the bottom of the manpower barrel it also stumbled in the technological war. The Allies produced tanks (a lot of them), better tactics (combined arms assaults), better aircraft (a lot more of these too), better technology for warfare at sea, more equipment, more spare parts, and better code-breaking methods—just to name a few Allied advantages.
After the last German assault bled to a halt, the Allies took the offensive all along the Western Front. For years, the Germans successfully moved troops from one location to another as each Allied campaign began. [182] Now the Allies attacked everywhere at once, and Germany’s dwindling reserves could not plug every hole. As the German Army retreated, Ludendorff lost his nerve abruptly announcing to the Kaiser that Germany must surrender at once. At the same time, mutinies were taking place in the German Navy and spreading to the populace. The news stunned the Kaiser and German civilian leadership, remembering that only a few weeks ago they were told Germany was opening a war winning offensive. Violent questioning changed nothing, as German military leadership continued to insist on capitulation. The public knew nothing of these behind the scene military and political maneuvers. As the mutinies spread, Wilhelm II abdicated and the armistice was signed; nonetheless, the English blockade continued for months, starving women and children from Germany to Syria for reasons unclear to this day. With each innocent’s death, German hatred grew because of the shortsighted English policy.
The German Army forced the nation’s capitulation, but the Allies failed to enter Germany proper. Later, the myth arose that the German Army was “stabbed in the back” by enemies at home rather than suffering defeat in the field. This myth ballooned to a widespread belief and helped Adolph Hitler rise to power in Germany. Hitler, the man who started World War II, fought bravely in the Great War winning the Iron Cross—very hard for an enlisted man in the Kaiser’s army. His hatred of the French, his condemnation of Germany’s defeat, and the armistice terms of Versailles drove him to start a war to salvage German honor. Some Allied generals, Pershing among them, predicted that unless the Allies marched into Berlin the Germans would not admit defeat and the war would renew itself after a few years. The war did renew itself after a few years, and the new war proved worse than the old; however, the origins of WWII go far beyond an Allied failure to march on Berlin. While the myth dovetailed into post war evils, far greater issues pivoted on an international economic collapse, German economic problems, poor leadership in the West, and poor leadership in Germany that allowed Adolf Hitler to worm his way into power.
Aftermath
(And you thought the war was bad . . .)
The Germans cringed when they received the peace terms, but the Allies ripped at their throat. Germany must sign or be utterly destroyed. Germany was not allowed to enter the peace conference until told, as only the winning nations were allowed to attend. There were no negotiations. Over German protest, especially the clause saying Germany started the war (the War Guilt clause), the French and English battered Germany into signing the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. The negotiations between the winning parties over the contents of the treaty were probably the most important in history. Many modern worldwide problems started with the Treaty of Versailles. World War II grew from this document, as well as numerous civil wars. World War I was a grave error for the West, but the Treaty of Versailles compounded and extended the error to future generations. The American Senate, to President Wilson’s dismay, decided against the treaty and the US later signed a separate peace treaty