Re: Hitler's Mentor: Dietrich Eckart, His Life, Times, & Mil
Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2018 8:28 pm6: The war to End All wars
On August 1, 1914 General Helmuth von Moltke the Younger began executing the Schlieffen Plan, which had been devised by General Alfred Graf von Schlieffen in 1905. This strategy sought to administer a fatal blow to France in the west before Russia could fully mobilize in the east. It called for the German army's right wing to advance westward through Belgium, turn south along the Channel coast, then head southeast below Paris in pursuit of the French army. Germany offered Belgium indemnities and a guarantee of independence in exchange for free passage through her territory. She refused and appealed to France and England for military aid. The German army marched through anyway, in violation of Belgian neutrality. This drew Britain into the conflict. On August 5th British ships cut Germany's trans-Atlantic cables to prevent pro-German news releases from reaching America.
As events unfolded the Tsar's inadequately provisioned "mob of serfs" foundered, whereas the combined armies of France and Britain acquitted themselves very capably. Entente forces on the Western Front proved to be a much more formidable adversary than Napoleon III's army in 1870.
320,000 German troops under generals Karl von Bulow and Erich Ludendorff attacked the 12-ringed fortress of Liege on August 5th, defended by 70,000 Belgian soldiers. After an eleven day siege in which they utilized bombing Zeppelins, Big Bertha howitzers, and successive infantry charges, the Germans captured Liege. They went on to score a string of victories at Metz on August 20th, Namur (August 23rd), Mons (August 23rd), and Antwerp (September 10th.) Advance guard units of Germany's cavalry saw the Eiffel Tower in mid-September, but Moltke chose to bypass Paris and attack French forces in the field, as his uncle had done during the Franco-Prussian War.
Because Russia mobilized faster than expected, General Max von Prittwitz on the Eastern Front urgently requested reinforcements from Moltke, who dispatched two army corps (180,000 men) by train. However, generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich von Ludendorff effectively dealt with the "Tartar invaders" before these additional troops disembarked. Due to a spat going back to 1904, Russian generals Alexander Samsonov and Pavel Rennenkampf were not on speaking terms. By intercepting unencrypted radio transmissions German intelligence closely monitored their positions and movements. By September 2, after two weeks of fighting, the Germans trounced a numerically superior Russian force by rapidly transporting soldiers by rail from one front to another. Artillery barrages and flank attacks had the Tsar's army reeling by September 2nd. Germany incurred 12,500 casualties, while killing or wounding 30,000 Russians, and taking 95,000 prisoners. General Paul von Hindenburg followed up by defeating the remainder of Rennenkampf's 1st Army at Masurian Lakes on August 30th, and driving them out of East Prussia. That action resulted in another 60,000 Russian casualties.
Moltke's detachment of two army corps from the Western Front soon brought adverse consequences. On September 10th the 120,000-man strong British Expeditionary Force blindly marched south from Paris, directly into a gap near the German army's rear. To avoid a calamity generals Alexandre von Kluck and Karl von Bulow fell back and regrouped. Meanwhile, General Franchot d'Esperey launched a night invasion at Marchais-en-Brie which forced the Germans to withdraw. General Joseph Joffre of France used this time to array his army in defensive positions along the Marne River. The French 10th Army attacked the Germans at Arras on October 1st, forcing them to retreat. Three days later Reichswehr units counterattacked and drove the French back to Lens. The battles of September, 1914 caused 250,000 Allied, and 300,000 German casualties.
A massive invasion by the Germans at Ypres in November failed to break through Joffre's defenses along the Marne. Military historians generally agree that if Germany could have utilized the two reserve corps Moltke sent to Prussia, they would have breached French and British lines. After Ypres the opposing sides became deadlocked in four years of grisly trench warfare. By December 1914, with no victory in sight, Germany lost 650,000 dead, wounded, or captured, France 850,000 men, England 85,000. The British Army, so scornfully dismissed by Prussian generals, simply would not yield, despite appalling miscues committed by its high command. German officers described English Tommies as "lions led by donkeys." [1]
After The First Battle of Ypres General von Moltke realized that the war could not be won. Kaiser Wilhelm and Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg appointed Field Marshal Erich von Falkenhayn in his place. At first von Falkenhayn shrewdly remained on the defensive, allowing French and British regiments to spend thousands of troops in futile attempts to capture scorched stretches of wasteland at Champagne, Artois, 2nd Ypres, and Loos. At 2nd Ypres on April 22, 1915 German artillery fired 5,000 chlorine gas canisters at British and French troops for the first time. The furious fighting in the spring of 1915 necessitated a "time out" during June and July because both sides had used up most of their ammunition.
By October, 1915 a large "draftee army" replaced General John French's decimated British Expeditionary Force. Combatants invented different slang terms for the battle zone. To Germans it was "the sausage machine." French poilus named it "the meat grinder," British soldiers "no man's land." Machine gunners likened enemy charges to "turkey shoots," except that the targets they mowed down were waves of 17-to-22 year old boys.
Civilians did not escape the mayhem. Using the "collective guilt" doctrine, Germans shot thousands of Belgians without trial for acts of sabotage. They conducted several Zeppelin bombing raids against London. Fifty-nine people were killed during the air attack of October 12, 1915.
Falkenhayn's defensive strategy displeased fire-eaters on the German general staff such as Ludendorff who longed to deliver a knock-out punch to their Entente adversaries. On February 21, 1916 von Falkenhayn mounted an invasion against the fortress of Verdun, but French units commanded by General Phillipe Petain would not capitulate. 250,000 men were killed and 500,000 wounded in this lengthy siege by rifle and machine gun fire, heavy artillery, flamethrowers, and aerial bombardment. This battle did not wind down until July 1st when the British and French launched a diversionary assault against German positions along the Somme River. Even Adolf Hitler considered the Verdun offensive "lunacy." (Cf. Hitler's Secret Conversations, October 13, 1941, p. 80.)
The bloody Battle of the Somme commenced at 7:30 A.M. on July 1, 1916. British artillery batteries opened up with a preparatory bombardment near La Boisselle. Then battalion leaders blew their whistles signaling troops to go "over the top" and run toward enemy lines. Entrenched Germans, supported by artillery, inflicted 57,470 casualties on the attackers, including 19,240 dead. At Beaumont-Hamel Canada's 1st Newfoundland Regiment lost 733 of the 801 men sent into action.
Between July 3 and July 13 forty-six skirmishes were fought, costing another 25,000 men on each side. British and Commonwealth soldiers sustained 23,000 casualties while capturing Bazentine Ridge on July 14.
The Germans set up pillboxes and dugouts at Poziers and Fromelles which were designed to catch approaching infantry in cross-fires. Nevertheless, British High Command once again threw troops into German enfilades, which resulted in 23,000 casualties between July 19 and July 22. The Germans withdrew to Ginchy on July 23 and formed a defensive line there. In a bid for decisive victory, British General Douglas Haig ordered continual assaults against this heavily fortified position. In August the British sacrificed another 82,000 men to capture 1,000 yards of ground.
Haig achieved greater success at Flers-Courcelette on September 15th by deploying tanks for the first time. Although slow, mechanically unreliable, and vulnerable to artillery, early Mark IV tanks could withstand small arms fire, roll over barbed wire, and traverse trenches when equipped with small "folding metal bridges." The tanks knocked out several German machine gun nests. Following a 4,500 yard advance at Flers-Courcelotte, the British bogged down at Le Transloy until November. Their last gasp occurred along the Acre River between November 13th and 18th when they finally took Beaumont-Hamel. In the inconclusive Battle of the Somme English and Commonwealth soldiers gained five miles of territory in four months, while sustaining 623,000 casualties. One historian calculated the loss rate as "two men per centimeter." Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, an able military commander, urged the Kaiser to sue for peace after this battle, which cost the Reichswehr 465,000 troops. Rupprecht pointed out the Entente powers industrial might and low quality of raw draftees in comparison to the well-trained soldiers of Germany's 1914 army. The prince opposed Germany's "scorched earth" policy and proposed a strategic withdrawal to fortified positions across the Rhine. If his advice had been taken there would have been no abdication, Versailles Treaty, Third Reich, or World War II.
By December, 1916 Germany losses tallied up to 964,000 dead, wounded, and missing, France 876,000, and Britain 621,000. In most German towns there were food and fuel shortages. Every day newspapers published long lists of war dead. Morale on the home front plummeted. People grumbled that this idiotic war, brought on by the Kaiser's irresponsibility, was not only destroying their lives, but the heart of Europe. Food riots erupted in February and March, 1917. In April an estimated 500,000 workers went on strike and marched through Berlin's streets. On July 19th a peace resolution submitted by Reichstag deputy Matthias Erzberger passed by a margin of 212 to 126. Emperor Karl of Austria, who succeeded Franz Josef, confessed to Kaiser Wilhelm that his country had been beaten. Peace negotiations must commence forthwith, or the civilized world would perish. He promised to cede Galicia to Germany if she lost Alsace-Lorraine to France. Although willing to continue the struggle against Russia, Karl sent his March 24, 1917 "Sixtus Letter" to England and France, requesting a separate peace with them.
Kaiser Wilhelm authorized Chancellor Bethmann-Holweg to request a negotiated peace in November, 1916. France and Britain rejected this offer on December 30th. Prime Minister Lloyd George explained:
On January 6, 1917 U.S. President Woodrow Wilson offered to hold a peace conference. However, he bowed out when Germany refused to cease submarine warfare as a pre-condition for his mediation. The American President could live with the capture of ships on the high seas, but sinking them with loss of lives and goods was quite another matter. The Germans claimed that they had to deploy subs to counter Britain's blockade of their ports. America almost entered the fray against Germany after a German U-boat sunk the Lusitania off Ireland's coast on May 7, 1915 with the loss of 1,198 lives.
Sir Edward Grey wrote that the dependency of Britain and France on American supplies would have forced them to be parties to President Wilson's peace talks, whether they liked it or not.
With respect to this missed opportunity Virginia Cowles commented:
Kaiser Wilhelm and his coterie deemed the give-and-take of compromise beneath their dignity.
The Emperor occasionally performed his duty by visiting front line troops and the wounded. To repair his tattered nerves he also spent long periods at Spa and his Rominten hunting lodge. Subjects complained that he remained in Cloud Cuckoo Land, while the war paralyzed trade and reduced huge tracts of productive land to rubble. While fighting on the Western Front heated up between June and August, 1917, "Warlord" Wilhelm toured Rumania, Bulgaria, and Turkey. In 1916, through Queen Charlotte of Sweden, he sent happy anniversary wishes to his cousin, Princess Helena of Britain, who had lost her son in the war. By that time English noble families had dropped all their German titles. The Battenberg clan anglicized their surname to Mountbatten.
German officers had always been in a breed apart, who didn't feel accountable to civilian society. Regular tribunals still could not try them for crimes. All legal proceedings had to go through a military "Court of Honor." In 1917 Germany's officer corps still wanted victory, not peace. Moreover, they consistently refused to cooperate with Bethmann-Holweg's government, and never coordinated effectively with industry, finance, or the media.
By 1917 Germany had defeated Russia, enabling her to transfer more than 500,000 men to Belgium and France. Fortified by this infusion of troop strength Hindenburg and Ludendorff unleashed the Rheims Offensive on March 21st with the objective of capturing the channel ports of Calais, Boulogne, and Dunkirk, which supplied British and Commonwealth troops. After a "creeping" artillery bombardment short enough to preserve the element of surprise, elite German commandos attacked and broke through at several places near Amiens. The German infantry employed "storm trooper" tactics developed by Brigadier General Oskar von Hutier. Their mission was to "chop a hole" so the rest could follow. They penetrated quickly and deeply into enemy territory, passing by heavily defended positions, but flanking or encircling them so that reserve units could later "mop them up." After initial success, this victory fizzled because German reserves could not consolidate gains by bringing up additional men and materiel. Germany sustained 239,000 casualties in this operation -- most of them irreplaceable crack troops. Allied forces lost 255,000 killed, wounded, missing, and taken prisoner.
During the Rheims Offensive French morale completely deteriorated. On April 29, 1917 troops refused to move out when General Robert Georges Nivelle ordered an attack near Aisne. General Philippe Petain quietly put down this mutiny during the next few weeks. The government used press censorship to keep this crisis out of the newspapers.
General Douglas Haig wished to cut German supply lines in Belgium. The gory Battle of Passchendaele was fought in West Flanders' marshlands between July 31 and November 6, 1917. To protect this vital area the Germans had constructed a network of emplacements on the Lys River's Messines Ridge overlooking Passchendaele. The clay and sandy loam soil of this region rendered it unsuitable for tank deployment. Prior to attack, British sappers dug tunnels right up to German defenses and planted underground mines. At zero hour on the morning of July 31, 1917 they detonated these explosives, instantly killing 10,000 German soldiers. However, an English delay enabled German units held in reserve to close ranks in time to mete out 32,000 casualties on British and Commonwealth troops who belatedly assaulted the heights. Germany used mustard gas against Allied troops, which caused burns, severe lung damage, as well as partial or total blindness. Torrential rains from mid-August to September turned Passchendaele's poorly drained terrain into a quagmire. German shelling of canals resulted in additional flooding, which transformed the battlefield into a "sea of mud" pocked with water-filled shell craters. Scores of advancing British soldiers drowned in liquid mud. High command continued to forfeit thousands of men for valueless objectives. Between September 20th and 25th English and Commonwealth forces advanced 1,500 yards at Menin Road and lost 21,000 men. At Polygon Wood from September 26th to October 3rd they suffered 30,000 casualties while acquiring 2,000 yards of blasted moonscape. Two Canadian divisions charged uphill to take Vimy Ridge on October 26th. For the next six days they repelled German counterattacks, losing 12,000 men to seize 400 yards. Believing that the British Army had used his troops as "cannon fodder" at Somme and Passchendaele, Canadian General Arthur Currie insisted upon retaining his own autonomy of command for the war's duration. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand subsequently passed laws specifying that their own general staffs would function independently of Britain's High Command. The British Commonwealth lost 448,000 men at Passchendaele. Medical and mortuary personnel could not identify more than 90,000 bodies. Another 42,000 young men were literally blown to bits, and not recovered at all. The German army lost 260,000 troops in this inconclusive battle.
In October, 1917 General Douglas Haig approved Colonel J.F.C. Fuller's innovative plan to use tanks and infantry to attack the German supply depot at Cambrai. At 6 A.M. on November 20, 1917 the British 3rd and 4th corps, supported by 350 tanks, moved out toward enemy lines. They succeeded in dislodging German defenders at Flesquires and Havincourt before pausing to dig in and lay barbed wire. On November 28, German units counterattacked and drove the English back to Le Quentin. In this battle both sides lost 45,000 men.
On April 9, 1918 the Germans rushed toward Armentieres, overwhelmed a Portuguese army regiment defending Messines Ridge, and advanced far into Allied territory. However, they ran short of ammunition, food, and medical supplies, and had to withdraw when British reserves counterattacked. Each side lost another 110,000 men.
Determined to achieve victory, the Reichswehr launched an offensive between Soisson and Rheims on May 27th, which routed the French 6th Army. German forces pushed forward to Paris along the Marne River before being halted by U.S. and Senegalese units at Cantigny and Chateau-Thierry. By the time this operation wound down on June 6th, Germany had sacrificed another 130,000 men for negligible gains.
The French stopped a German movement toward Compiegne on June 9th, then caught them off guard with a surprise attack two days later. U.S. Marine Corps shock troops pounded the Germans at Belleau Wood (June 1st through 26th), and Chateau Thierry (July 18th), incurring a 55% casualty rate (9,500 killed or wounded.) The Marines earned the sobriquet "Teufelhunden," or "Devil Dogs" because they braved it through huge expanses of no man's land amid withering artillery and machine gun fire to swamp German infantry.
Reichswehr officers had long chuckled at Bismarck's apothegm: "God has special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States." [5] Most viewed America as a racial hodge-podge consisting of hillbillies, Negroes, and the dregs of Europe. How could such a ragtag herd now beat them in the field? Certainly attrition played a role. 50% of the motivated German soldiers who took Liege, Metz, Namur, and Mons in 1914 were now dead, wounded, shell-shocked, or mustered out. Troop strength decreased from 5.1 to 4.2 million. That year's crop of 18 year olds only produced another 300,000. America had shipped 313,000 troops to France in one month, July, 1918. A prolonged fight against the combined might of France, Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Africa, and America would not be sustainable.
Marshal Ferdinand Foch now initiated his One Hundred Day Offensive. On August 8, 1918 the Australians and Canadians defeated German troops at Amiens, and took 100,000 prisoners. The U.S. Army rolled over German defenders at St. Mihiel (September 12th), and Meuse-Argonne (September 26th-30th.) This final onslaught, which included bomber aircraft, tanks, artillery, and the 896,000 man U. S. Rainbow Division, plunged Hindenburg into despair. On September 29th he regretfully informed the Kaiser of the German army's defeat and advised him to request an armistice immediately. Wilhelm ordered his cousin, Prince Max von Baden, to form a new government. Baden contacted President Woodrow Wilson and requested an armistice based on his Fourteen Points. Prince Max soon discovered that his fellow German noblemen had no desire to participate in the surrender process. Therefore, he turned to centrist and leftist politicians for assistance. On November 6, 1918 Reichstag member Matthias Erzberger and his delegation walked through enemy lines under a white flag to open up peace discussions with Marshal Foch. All parties agreed to an armistice on November 11th.
Approximately 8,281,000 servicemen were killed in World War I, another 21,241,000 wounded. 1,718,000 German soldiers lost their lives, along with 1,700,000 Russians, 1,385,000 Frenchmen, 1,200,000 Austrians, 703,000 Englishmen, 460,000 Italians, 336,000 Turks, 200,000 Romanians, 128,000 Serbians, 117,000 Americans, 67,000 Canadians, 59,000 Australians, 18,000 New Zealanders, 13,000 Belgians, and thousands more from Africa, Portugal, the Caribbean, and Japan. Shocked Europeans felt there must be a day of reckoning for those behind this catastrophe.
Exile in the Netherlands
On November 8, 1918 a huge mob stormed the Ministry of War in Berlin. Rioters killed dozens of military officers and policemen. Communist leader Wilhelm Liebknecht leapt onto the Berlin Palace's balcony and declared a new Soviet Republic.
The Entente powers and German public both perceived the Kaiser as an impediment to peace discussions. Even dyed-in-the-wool monarchists like General Paul von Hindenburg realized that he had to go. On November 9th he ruefully told Wilhelm:
Segments of the Kaiser's naval flotilla had already mutinied. Hindenburg warned that groups of demobilized German soldiers would soon "stream back home like a horde of marauding bandits." [7] Communists among them wanted to drag him to the nearest scaffold.
The Kaiser fretted and raged, then calmed down and ordered his equerry to pack. He and the Empress boarded their private train to the Netherlands. After a series of communications with his cousin, Queen Wilhelmina, the Kaiser and his party were admitted to Holland as refugees on condition that he refrain from political activity. Wilhelm handed his sword to a baffled border guard, then rode into Holland.
At the request of Queen Wilhelmina, Count Godard Bentinck put up the Kaiser, Kaiserin, and their retinue at his 17th Century country estate in Doorn. A few months later fifty freight cars full of household contents arrived, along with a car and boat. From his safe haven Wilhelm watched the Versailles peace negotiations with dismay. He expected his beloved naval fleet to be scuttled, and Alsace-Lorraine ceded back to France. Premier Georges Clemenceau and his ministers now elevated vengeance to a policy, popularly known as Revanchism. The huge war indemnity foisted on Germany by France and Germany elicited a grim witticism from Wilhelm.
The Versailles Treaty's criminal clause alarmed the ex-Emperor. Clemenceau and Lloyd George, over Woodrow Wilson's objections, insisted on prosecuting "Hun warmongers," including "Kaiser Bill." Hindenburg and Bethmann-Holweg gallantly offered themselves in his place. In the end, a show trial never occurred because Queen Wilhelmina stubbornly defied Allied demands for her guest's extradition.
Wilhelm moved out of Count Bentinck's chateau in 1919 and into capacious Huis Doorn, where he lived the life of a country gentleman -- shooting, riding, frolicking with his dachshunds, gardening, chopping wood, tending his collection of watches and snuffboxes, writing memoirs. He grew a beard and became something of an Anglophile. Count Bentinck reported that his first request upon reaching Doorn was for "a cup of real good English tea." [9] The former Emperor read P.G. Wodehouse stories and stocked his cupboard with scones, lemon curd, toffee, chutney, Yorkshire pudding, curry, and other British specialties. The English actually warmed up to him by 1933. He was Queen Victoria's grandson after all, and certainly looked good compared to Hitler. In 1940, when the Nazis invaded Holland, Winston Churchill offered Wilhelm asylum in Britain.
Depressed by Germany's defeat, his failed marriage, and gambling debts, the Kaiser's youngest son, Prince Joachim, committed suicide at age 30 in June, 1920. Empress Augusta, who suffered from a heart condition, took a turn for the worse after his death, and died in April, 1921. Disconsolate Wilhelm converted her bedroom into a shrine and visited it daily for silent prayer. In May, 1922 he received a moving letter of support from young Prince Schoenaich-Carolath, whose father had been killed in the war. Wilhelm invited the boy and his mother to Doorn for a visit. He fell in love with 34 year old Princess Hermine Reuss-Schoenaich-Carolath, and married her on November 9, 1922. She and her five children immediately moved into Huis Doorn. Although Wilhelm viewed his new bride through rose-tinted goggles, most of his friends and servants could not stand her.
In 1928 Sir Frederick Ponsonby published Dowager Empress Victoria's correspondence under the title, Letters of the Empress Frederick, which rarely showed her son Wilhelm in a good light. He attempted to sue the publisher. Meanwhile, his sisters Sophie and Margaret wrote glowing letters of appreciation to Ponsonby for preserving their mother's legacy, and letting the truth come out.
Wilhelm's views about Nazism shifted over the years. He lauded Hitler's condemnation of the Versailles Diktat and admired his gumption during the November, 1923 Putsch and resultant trial. On his son August Wilhelm's recommendation ex-Kaiser Wilhelm read The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In a letter to General August von Mackensen dated December 2, 1919 he condemned his involuntary abdication as an abomination committed by dumb Germans, "egged on and misled by the tribe of Juda." [11] He went on to write that Jews were a "nuisance to humanity," (deserving of) "pogroms ... or gas." [12]
True to form, Wilhelm reversed himself after this outburst. He became disillusioned with Hitler in the late '20's, and considered his measures to exclude Jews from Germany's economic life "downright childish." [13]
The assassination of General Kurt von Schleicher and his wife on June 30, 1934 disgusted him. He declared that German citizens had
Wilhelm deplored Kristallnacht (November 10 and 11, 1938) as a national disgrace, and reproved his sons Oskar and August Wilhelm for joining the Nazi Party.
The former Emperor stipulated in his will that he did not want any Nazi ceremony to take place at his funeral, nor was the swastika symbol to be exhibited. Hitler disregarded these instructions, sending an honor guard with swastika armbands to his burial service in early June, 1941.
After World War II Chancellor Heinrich Bruning accused the Kaiser and President Paul von Hindenburg of torpedoing his attempt to effect a restoration in 1930 under Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria's Wittelsbach Dynasty.
If Wilhelm had relinquished the throne and directed President von Hindenburg to accept another royal as a substitute, he would have complied. Unwilling to accept the fact that he was politically radioactive, the ex-Kaiser still clung to vain hopes of being restored as Germany's emperor. These fantasies denied his sons and cousin Rupprecht a chance to slow down the Nazi juggernaut.
Kaiser Wilhelm cannot be blamed for starting World War I. Due to negligence, however, he failed to prevent it. Wilhlem was not mad, evil, or mentally dense, but he had the vices of an aristocrat: shallowness, narcissism, recklessness, and indolence. Winston Churchill summed him up as:
Regal insouciance no longer played well in the wake of World War I. Dozens of European nations abandoned monarchy as "rule by strutting peacocks."
______________
Endnotes:
1 Virginia Cowles, The Kaiser, Harper & Row, New York, 1963. p. 390.
2 Ibid., p. 375.
3 Ibid., p. 376.
4 Ibid., p. 380.
5 http://www.wikiquote, Bismarck quotations, p. 3.
6 Cowles, p. 404.
7 Ibid., p. 398.
8 Ibid., p. 414.
9 Ibid., p. 406.
10 Ibid., p. 417.
11 http://www.wikipedia.org., Emperor Wilhelm II. p. 13.
12 Ibid.
13 Saul Friedlaender, Nazi Germany and the Jews. Harper Collins, New York, 1997, p. 77.
14 http://www.wikipedia.org. p. 14.
15 Ibid.
16 Cowles, p. 423.
17 Ibid., pp. 419-420. op. cit. Winston S. Churchill, Contemporary Portraits. New York, 1920.
"The Balkans (are) far from being an object of adequate importance for which to plunge Europe into a war whose issue no man can foresee."
-- Otto von Bismarck
On August 1, 1914 General Helmuth von Moltke the Younger began executing the Schlieffen Plan, which had been devised by General Alfred Graf von Schlieffen in 1905. This strategy sought to administer a fatal blow to France in the west before Russia could fully mobilize in the east. It called for the German army's right wing to advance westward through Belgium, turn south along the Channel coast, then head southeast below Paris in pursuit of the French army. Germany offered Belgium indemnities and a guarantee of independence in exchange for free passage through her territory. She refused and appealed to France and England for military aid. The German army marched through anyway, in violation of Belgian neutrality. This drew Britain into the conflict. On August 5th British ships cut Germany's trans-Atlantic cables to prevent pro-German news releases from reaching America.
As events unfolded the Tsar's inadequately provisioned "mob of serfs" foundered, whereas the combined armies of France and Britain acquitted themselves very capably. Entente forces on the Western Front proved to be a much more formidable adversary than Napoleon III's army in 1870.
320,000 German troops under generals Karl von Bulow and Erich Ludendorff attacked the 12-ringed fortress of Liege on August 5th, defended by 70,000 Belgian soldiers. After an eleven day siege in which they utilized bombing Zeppelins, Big Bertha howitzers, and successive infantry charges, the Germans captured Liege. They went on to score a string of victories at Metz on August 20th, Namur (August 23rd), Mons (August 23rd), and Antwerp (September 10th.) Advance guard units of Germany's cavalry saw the Eiffel Tower in mid-September, but Moltke chose to bypass Paris and attack French forces in the field, as his uncle had done during the Franco-Prussian War.
Because Russia mobilized faster than expected, General Max von Prittwitz on the Eastern Front urgently requested reinforcements from Moltke, who dispatched two army corps (180,000 men) by train. However, generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich von Ludendorff effectively dealt with the "Tartar invaders" before these additional troops disembarked. Due to a spat going back to 1904, Russian generals Alexander Samsonov and Pavel Rennenkampf were not on speaking terms. By intercepting unencrypted radio transmissions German intelligence closely monitored their positions and movements. By September 2, after two weeks of fighting, the Germans trounced a numerically superior Russian force by rapidly transporting soldiers by rail from one front to another. Artillery barrages and flank attacks had the Tsar's army reeling by September 2nd. Germany incurred 12,500 casualties, while killing or wounding 30,000 Russians, and taking 95,000 prisoners. General Paul von Hindenburg followed up by defeating the remainder of Rennenkampf's 1st Army at Masurian Lakes on August 30th, and driving them out of East Prussia. That action resulted in another 60,000 Russian casualties.
Moltke's detachment of two army corps from the Western Front soon brought adverse consequences. On September 10th the 120,000-man strong British Expeditionary Force blindly marched south from Paris, directly into a gap near the German army's rear. To avoid a calamity generals Alexandre von Kluck and Karl von Bulow fell back and regrouped. Meanwhile, General Franchot d'Esperey launched a night invasion at Marchais-en-Brie which forced the Germans to withdraw. General Joseph Joffre of France used this time to array his army in defensive positions along the Marne River. The French 10th Army attacked the Germans at Arras on October 1st, forcing them to retreat. Three days later Reichswehr units counterattacked and drove the French back to Lens. The battles of September, 1914 caused 250,000 Allied, and 300,000 German casualties.
A massive invasion by the Germans at Ypres in November failed to break through Joffre's defenses along the Marne. Military historians generally agree that if Germany could have utilized the two reserve corps Moltke sent to Prussia, they would have breached French and British lines. After Ypres the opposing sides became deadlocked in four years of grisly trench warfare. By December 1914, with no victory in sight, Germany lost 650,000 dead, wounded, or captured, France 850,000 men, England 85,000. The British Army, so scornfully dismissed by Prussian generals, simply would not yield, despite appalling miscues committed by its high command. German officers described English Tommies as "lions led by donkeys." [1]
After The First Battle of Ypres General von Moltke realized that the war could not be won. Kaiser Wilhelm and Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg appointed Field Marshal Erich von Falkenhayn in his place. At first von Falkenhayn shrewdly remained on the defensive, allowing French and British regiments to spend thousands of troops in futile attempts to capture scorched stretches of wasteland at Champagne, Artois, 2nd Ypres, and Loos. At 2nd Ypres on April 22, 1915 German artillery fired 5,000 chlorine gas canisters at British and French troops for the first time. The furious fighting in the spring of 1915 necessitated a "time out" during June and July because both sides had used up most of their ammunition.
By October, 1915 a large "draftee army" replaced General John French's decimated British Expeditionary Force. Combatants invented different slang terms for the battle zone. To Germans it was "the sausage machine." French poilus named it "the meat grinder," British soldiers "no man's land." Machine gunners likened enemy charges to "turkey shoots," except that the targets they mowed down were waves of 17-to-22 year old boys.
Civilians did not escape the mayhem. Using the "collective guilt" doctrine, Germans shot thousands of Belgians without trial for acts of sabotage. They conducted several Zeppelin bombing raids against London. Fifty-nine people were killed during the air attack of October 12, 1915.
Falkenhayn's defensive strategy displeased fire-eaters on the German general staff such as Ludendorff who longed to deliver a knock-out punch to their Entente adversaries. On February 21, 1916 von Falkenhayn mounted an invasion against the fortress of Verdun, but French units commanded by General Phillipe Petain would not capitulate. 250,000 men were killed and 500,000 wounded in this lengthy siege by rifle and machine gun fire, heavy artillery, flamethrowers, and aerial bombardment. This battle did not wind down until July 1st when the British and French launched a diversionary assault against German positions along the Somme River. Even Adolf Hitler considered the Verdun offensive "lunacy." (Cf. Hitler's Secret Conversations, October 13, 1941, p. 80.)
The bloody Battle of the Somme commenced at 7:30 A.M. on July 1, 1916. British artillery batteries opened up with a preparatory bombardment near La Boisselle. Then battalion leaders blew their whistles signaling troops to go "over the top" and run toward enemy lines. Entrenched Germans, supported by artillery, inflicted 57,470 casualties on the attackers, including 19,240 dead. At Beaumont-Hamel Canada's 1st Newfoundland Regiment lost 733 of the 801 men sent into action.
Between July 3 and July 13 forty-six skirmishes were fought, costing another 25,000 men on each side. British and Commonwealth soldiers sustained 23,000 casualties while capturing Bazentine Ridge on July 14.
The Germans set up pillboxes and dugouts at Poziers and Fromelles which were designed to catch approaching infantry in cross-fires. Nevertheless, British High Command once again threw troops into German enfilades, which resulted in 23,000 casualties between July 19 and July 22. The Germans withdrew to Ginchy on July 23 and formed a defensive line there. In a bid for decisive victory, British General Douglas Haig ordered continual assaults against this heavily fortified position. In August the British sacrificed another 82,000 men to capture 1,000 yards of ground.
Haig achieved greater success at Flers-Courcelette on September 15th by deploying tanks for the first time. Although slow, mechanically unreliable, and vulnerable to artillery, early Mark IV tanks could withstand small arms fire, roll over barbed wire, and traverse trenches when equipped with small "folding metal bridges." The tanks knocked out several German machine gun nests. Following a 4,500 yard advance at Flers-Courcelotte, the British bogged down at Le Transloy until November. Their last gasp occurred along the Acre River between November 13th and 18th when they finally took Beaumont-Hamel. In the inconclusive Battle of the Somme English and Commonwealth soldiers gained five miles of territory in four months, while sustaining 623,000 casualties. One historian calculated the loss rate as "two men per centimeter." Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, an able military commander, urged the Kaiser to sue for peace after this battle, which cost the Reichswehr 465,000 troops. Rupprecht pointed out the Entente powers industrial might and low quality of raw draftees in comparison to the well-trained soldiers of Germany's 1914 army. The prince opposed Germany's "scorched earth" policy and proposed a strategic withdrawal to fortified positions across the Rhine. If his advice had been taken there would have been no abdication, Versailles Treaty, Third Reich, or World War II.
By December, 1916 Germany losses tallied up to 964,000 dead, wounded, and missing, France 876,000, and Britain 621,000. In most German towns there were food and fuel shortages. Every day newspapers published long lists of war dead. Morale on the home front plummeted. People grumbled that this idiotic war, brought on by the Kaiser's irresponsibility, was not only destroying their lives, but the heart of Europe. Food riots erupted in February and March, 1917. In April an estimated 500,000 workers went on strike and marched through Berlin's streets. On July 19th a peace resolution submitted by Reichstag deputy Matthias Erzberger passed by a margin of 212 to 126. Emperor Karl of Austria, who succeeded Franz Josef, confessed to Kaiser Wilhelm that his country had been beaten. Peace negotiations must commence forthwith, or the civilized world would perish. He promised to cede Galicia to Germany if she lost Alsace-Lorraine to France. Although willing to continue the struggle against Russia, Karl sent his March 24, 1917 "Sixtus Letter" to England and France, requesting a separate peace with them.
Kaiser Wilhelm authorized Chancellor Bethmann-Holweg to request a negotiated peace in November, 1916. France and Britain rejected this offer on December 30th. Prime Minister Lloyd George explained:
"to enter into a conference on the invitation of Germany, proclaiming herself victorious, without any knowledge of the proposals she has to make, is to put our heads in a noose ... The arrogant spirit of the Prussian military caste ... will .. be as dominant as ever if we patch up peace now " [2]
On January 6, 1917 U.S. President Woodrow Wilson offered to hold a peace conference. However, he bowed out when Germany refused to cease submarine warfare as a pre-condition for his mediation. The American President could live with the capture of ships on the high seas, but sinking them with loss of lives and goods was quite another matter. The Germans claimed that they had to deploy subs to counter Britain's blockade of their ports. America almost entered the fray against Germany after a German U-boat sunk the Lusitania off Ireland's coast on May 7, 1915 with the loss of 1,198 lives.
Sir Edward Grey wrote that the dependency of Britain and France on American supplies would have forced them to be parties to President Wilson's peace talks, whether they liked it or not.
"If Germany had accepted the Wilson (proposal) ... The Allies could not have refused ... They could not have risked the ill will of the United States." [3]
With respect to this missed opportunity Virginia Cowles commented:
"It was Germany's tragedy that she never knew when to strike a bargain." [4]
Kaiser Wilhelm and his coterie deemed the give-and-take of compromise beneath their dignity.
The Emperor occasionally performed his duty by visiting front line troops and the wounded. To repair his tattered nerves he also spent long periods at Spa and his Rominten hunting lodge. Subjects complained that he remained in Cloud Cuckoo Land, while the war paralyzed trade and reduced huge tracts of productive land to rubble. While fighting on the Western Front heated up between June and August, 1917, "Warlord" Wilhelm toured Rumania, Bulgaria, and Turkey. In 1916, through Queen Charlotte of Sweden, he sent happy anniversary wishes to his cousin, Princess Helena of Britain, who had lost her son in the war. By that time English noble families had dropped all their German titles. The Battenberg clan anglicized their surname to Mountbatten.
German officers had always been in a breed apart, who didn't feel accountable to civilian society. Regular tribunals still could not try them for crimes. All legal proceedings had to go through a military "Court of Honor." In 1917 Germany's officer corps still wanted victory, not peace. Moreover, they consistently refused to cooperate with Bethmann-Holweg's government, and never coordinated effectively with industry, finance, or the media.
By 1917 Germany had defeated Russia, enabling her to transfer more than 500,000 men to Belgium and France. Fortified by this infusion of troop strength Hindenburg and Ludendorff unleashed the Rheims Offensive on March 21st with the objective of capturing the channel ports of Calais, Boulogne, and Dunkirk, which supplied British and Commonwealth troops. After a "creeping" artillery bombardment short enough to preserve the element of surprise, elite German commandos attacked and broke through at several places near Amiens. The German infantry employed "storm trooper" tactics developed by Brigadier General Oskar von Hutier. Their mission was to "chop a hole" so the rest could follow. They penetrated quickly and deeply into enemy territory, passing by heavily defended positions, but flanking or encircling them so that reserve units could later "mop them up." After initial success, this victory fizzled because German reserves could not consolidate gains by bringing up additional men and materiel. Germany sustained 239,000 casualties in this operation -- most of them irreplaceable crack troops. Allied forces lost 255,000 killed, wounded, missing, and taken prisoner.
During the Rheims Offensive French morale completely deteriorated. On April 29, 1917 troops refused to move out when General Robert Georges Nivelle ordered an attack near Aisne. General Philippe Petain quietly put down this mutiny during the next few weeks. The government used press censorship to keep this crisis out of the newspapers.
General Douglas Haig wished to cut German supply lines in Belgium. The gory Battle of Passchendaele was fought in West Flanders' marshlands between July 31 and November 6, 1917. To protect this vital area the Germans had constructed a network of emplacements on the Lys River's Messines Ridge overlooking Passchendaele. The clay and sandy loam soil of this region rendered it unsuitable for tank deployment. Prior to attack, British sappers dug tunnels right up to German defenses and planted underground mines. At zero hour on the morning of July 31, 1917 they detonated these explosives, instantly killing 10,000 German soldiers. However, an English delay enabled German units held in reserve to close ranks in time to mete out 32,000 casualties on British and Commonwealth troops who belatedly assaulted the heights. Germany used mustard gas against Allied troops, which caused burns, severe lung damage, as well as partial or total blindness. Torrential rains from mid-August to September turned Passchendaele's poorly drained terrain into a quagmire. German shelling of canals resulted in additional flooding, which transformed the battlefield into a "sea of mud" pocked with water-filled shell craters. Scores of advancing British soldiers drowned in liquid mud. High command continued to forfeit thousands of men for valueless objectives. Between September 20th and 25th English and Commonwealth forces advanced 1,500 yards at Menin Road and lost 21,000 men. At Polygon Wood from September 26th to October 3rd they suffered 30,000 casualties while acquiring 2,000 yards of blasted moonscape. Two Canadian divisions charged uphill to take Vimy Ridge on October 26th. For the next six days they repelled German counterattacks, losing 12,000 men to seize 400 yards. Believing that the British Army had used his troops as "cannon fodder" at Somme and Passchendaele, Canadian General Arthur Currie insisted upon retaining his own autonomy of command for the war's duration. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand subsequently passed laws specifying that their own general staffs would function independently of Britain's High Command. The British Commonwealth lost 448,000 men at Passchendaele. Medical and mortuary personnel could not identify more than 90,000 bodies. Another 42,000 young men were literally blown to bits, and not recovered at all. The German army lost 260,000 troops in this inconclusive battle.
In October, 1917 General Douglas Haig approved Colonel J.F.C. Fuller's innovative plan to use tanks and infantry to attack the German supply depot at Cambrai. At 6 A.M. on November 20, 1917 the British 3rd and 4th corps, supported by 350 tanks, moved out toward enemy lines. They succeeded in dislodging German defenders at Flesquires and Havincourt before pausing to dig in and lay barbed wire. On November 28, German units counterattacked and drove the English back to Le Quentin. In this battle both sides lost 45,000 men.
On April 9, 1918 the Germans rushed toward Armentieres, overwhelmed a Portuguese army regiment defending Messines Ridge, and advanced far into Allied territory. However, they ran short of ammunition, food, and medical supplies, and had to withdraw when British reserves counterattacked. Each side lost another 110,000 men.
Determined to achieve victory, the Reichswehr launched an offensive between Soisson and Rheims on May 27th, which routed the French 6th Army. German forces pushed forward to Paris along the Marne River before being halted by U.S. and Senegalese units at Cantigny and Chateau-Thierry. By the time this operation wound down on June 6th, Germany had sacrificed another 130,000 men for negligible gains.
The French stopped a German movement toward Compiegne on June 9th, then caught them off guard with a surprise attack two days later. U.S. Marine Corps shock troops pounded the Germans at Belleau Wood (June 1st through 26th), and Chateau Thierry (July 18th), incurring a 55% casualty rate (9,500 killed or wounded.) The Marines earned the sobriquet "Teufelhunden," or "Devil Dogs" because they braved it through huge expanses of no man's land amid withering artillery and machine gun fire to swamp German infantry.
Reichswehr officers had long chuckled at Bismarck's apothegm: "God has special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States." [5] Most viewed America as a racial hodge-podge consisting of hillbillies, Negroes, and the dregs of Europe. How could such a ragtag herd now beat them in the field? Certainly attrition played a role. 50% of the motivated German soldiers who took Liege, Metz, Namur, and Mons in 1914 were now dead, wounded, shell-shocked, or mustered out. Troop strength decreased from 5.1 to 4.2 million. That year's crop of 18 year olds only produced another 300,000. America had shipped 313,000 troops to France in one month, July, 1918. A prolonged fight against the combined might of France, Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Africa, and America would not be sustainable.
Marshal Ferdinand Foch now initiated his One Hundred Day Offensive. On August 8, 1918 the Australians and Canadians defeated German troops at Amiens, and took 100,000 prisoners. The U.S. Army rolled over German defenders at St. Mihiel (September 12th), and Meuse-Argonne (September 26th-30th.) This final onslaught, which included bomber aircraft, tanks, artillery, and the 896,000 man U. S. Rainbow Division, plunged Hindenburg into despair. On September 29th he regretfully informed the Kaiser of the German army's defeat and advised him to request an armistice immediately. Wilhelm ordered his cousin, Prince Max von Baden, to form a new government. Baden contacted President Woodrow Wilson and requested an armistice based on his Fourteen Points. Prince Max soon discovered that his fellow German noblemen had no desire to participate in the surrender process. Therefore, he turned to centrist and leftist politicians for assistance. On November 6, 1918 Reichstag member Matthias Erzberger and his delegation walked through enemy lines under a white flag to open up peace discussions with Marshal Foch. All parties agreed to an armistice on November 11th.
Approximately 8,281,000 servicemen were killed in World War I, another 21,241,000 wounded. 1,718,000 German soldiers lost their lives, along with 1,700,000 Russians, 1,385,000 Frenchmen, 1,200,000 Austrians, 703,000 Englishmen, 460,000 Italians, 336,000 Turks, 200,000 Romanians, 128,000 Serbians, 117,000 Americans, 67,000 Canadians, 59,000 Australians, 18,000 New Zealanders, 13,000 Belgians, and thousands more from Africa, Portugal, the Caribbean, and Japan. Shocked Europeans felt there must be a day of reckoning for those behind this catastrophe.
Exile in the Netherlands
On November 8, 1918 a huge mob stormed the Ministry of War in Berlin. Rioters killed dozens of military officers and policemen. Communist leader Wilhelm Liebknecht leapt onto the Berlin Palace's balcony and declared a new Soviet Republic.
The Entente powers and German public both perceived the Kaiser as an impediment to peace discussions. Even dyed-in-the-wool monarchists like General Paul von Hindenburg realized that he had to go. On November 9th he ruefully told Wilhelm:
"I cannot accept responsibility of seeing the Emperor haled to Berlin by insurgent troops and delivered over as a prisoner to the revolutionary government. I must advise Your Majesty to abdicate and proceed to Holland ... the army ... (is) no longer behind (you.) There are no loyal troops left. Would to God, Your Majesty, that it were otherwise." [6]
Segments of the Kaiser's naval flotilla had already mutinied. Hindenburg warned that groups of demobilized German soldiers would soon "stream back home like a horde of marauding bandits." [7] Communists among them wanted to drag him to the nearest scaffold.
The Kaiser fretted and raged, then calmed down and ordered his equerry to pack. He and the Empress boarded their private train to the Netherlands. After a series of communications with his cousin, Queen Wilhelmina, the Kaiser and his party were admitted to Holland as refugees on condition that he refrain from political activity. Wilhelm handed his sword to a baffled border guard, then rode into Holland.
At the request of Queen Wilhelmina, Count Godard Bentinck put up the Kaiser, Kaiserin, and their retinue at his 17th Century country estate in Doorn. A few months later fifty freight cars full of household contents arrived, along with a car and boat. From his safe haven Wilhelm watched the Versailles peace negotiations with dismay. He expected his beloved naval fleet to be scuttled, and Alsace-Lorraine ceded back to France. Premier Georges Clemenceau and his ministers now elevated vengeance to a policy, popularly known as Revanchism. The huge war indemnity foisted on Germany by France and Germany elicited a grim witticism from Wilhelm.
"The war to end all wars has resulted in a peace to end all peace." [8]
The Versailles Treaty's criminal clause alarmed the ex-Emperor. Clemenceau and Lloyd George, over Woodrow Wilson's objections, insisted on prosecuting "Hun warmongers," including "Kaiser Bill." Hindenburg and Bethmann-Holweg gallantly offered themselves in his place. In the end, a show trial never occurred because Queen Wilhelmina stubbornly defied Allied demands for her guest's extradition.
Wilhelm moved out of Count Bentinck's chateau in 1919 and into capacious Huis Doorn, where he lived the life of a country gentleman -- shooting, riding, frolicking with his dachshunds, gardening, chopping wood, tending his collection of watches and snuffboxes, writing memoirs. He grew a beard and became something of an Anglophile. Count Bentinck reported that his first request upon reaching Doorn was for "a cup of real good English tea." [9] The former Emperor read P.G. Wodehouse stories and stocked his cupboard with scones, lemon curd, toffee, chutney, Yorkshire pudding, curry, and other British specialties. The English actually warmed up to him by 1933. He was Queen Victoria's grandson after all, and certainly looked good compared to Hitler. In 1940, when the Nazis invaded Holland, Winston Churchill offered Wilhelm asylum in Britain.
Depressed by Germany's defeat, his failed marriage, and gambling debts, the Kaiser's youngest son, Prince Joachim, committed suicide at age 30 in June, 1920. Empress Augusta, who suffered from a heart condition, took a turn for the worse after his death, and died in April, 1921. Disconsolate Wilhelm converted her bedroom into a shrine and visited it daily for silent prayer. In May, 1922 he received a moving letter of support from young Prince Schoenaich-Carolath, whose father had been killed in the war. Wilhelm invited the boy and his mother to Doorn for a visit. He fell in love with 34 year old Princess Hermine Reuss-Schoenaich-Carolath, and married her on November 9, 1922. She and her five children immediately moved into Huis Doorn. Although Wilhelm viewed his new bride through rose-tinted goggles, most of his friends and servants could not stand her.
"She was argumentative, lively, tactless, and aggressive. No one in the Kaiser's household liked her; they said she was ambitious and troublemaking; that she had prompted her child to write the Kaiser in order to trap him; that she had proposed to the Emperor." [10]
In 1928 Sir Frederick Ponsonby published Dowager Empress Victoria's correspondence under the title, Letters of the Empress Frederick, which rarely showed her son Wilhelm in a good light. He attempted to sue the publisher. Meanwhile, his sisters Sophie and Margaret wrote glowing letters of appreciation to Ponsonby for preserving their mother's legacy, and letting the truth come out.
Wilhelm's views about Nazism shifted over the years. He lauded Hitler's condemnation of the Versailles Diktat and admired his gumption during the November, 1923 Putsch and resultant trial. On his son August Wilhelm's recommendation ex-Kaiser Wilhelm read The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In a letter to General August von Mackensen dated December 2, 1919 he condemned his involuntary abdication as an abomination committed by dumb Germans, "egged on and misled by the tribe of Juda." [11] He went on to write that Jews were a "nuisance to humanity," (deserving of) "pogroms ... or gas." [12]
True to form, Wilhelm reversed himself after this outburst. He became disillusioned with Hitler in the late '20's, and considered his measures to exclude Jews from Germany's economic life "downright childish." [13]
The assassination of General Kurt von Schleicher and his wife on June 30, 1934 disgusted him. He declared that German citizens had
" ... ceased to live under ... rule of law ... Everyone must be prepared for. .. the Nazis pushing their way in and putting them up against the wall." [14]
Wilhelm deplored Kristallnacht (November 10 and 11, 1938) as a national disgrace, and reproved his sons Oskar and August Wilhelm for joining the Nazi Party.
"I have just made my views clear to Auwi (August Wilhelm) in the presence of his brothers. He had the nerve to say he agreed with the Jewish pogrom ... When I told him that any decent man would describe these actions as gangsterisms he appeared totally indifferent. He is completely lost to our family." [15]
The former Emperor stipulated in his will that he did not want any Nazi ceremony to take place at his funeral, nor was the swastika symbol to be exhibited. Hitler disregarded these instructions, sending an honor guard with swastika armbands to his burial service in early June, 1941.
After World War II Chancellor Heinrich Bruning accused the Kaiser and President Paul von Hindenburg of torpedoing his attempt to effect a restoration in 1930 under Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria's Wittelsbach Dynasty.
"A reintroduction of the monarchy in the struggle against the Nazis might well have been possible, but it broke up when Hindenburg declared ... he would champion a restoration .. only if Wilhelm II were to become Kaiser (again)." [16]
If Wilhelm had relinquished the throne and directed President von Hindenburg to accept another royal as a substitute, he would have complied. Unwilling to accept the fact that he was politically radioactive, the ex-Kaiser still clung to vain hopes of being restored as Germany's emperor. These fantasies denied his sons and cousin Rupprecht a chance to slow down the Nazi juggernaut.
Kaiser Wilhelm cannot be blamed for starting World War I. Due to negligence, however, he failed to prevent it. Wilhlem was not mad, evil, or mentally dense, but he had the vices of an aristocrat: shallowness, narcissism, recklessness, and indolence. Winston Churchill summed him up as:
"A careless tourist, who flung down his cigarette in the anteroom of the magazine which Europe had become, then went yachting and returned to find the building impenetrable with smoke .... His undeniable cleverness and versatility, his personal grace and vivacity, only aggravated the danger by concealing his inadequacy ... Underneath all this posing and its trappings was a very ordinary, ... vain, ... but well-meaning man, hoping to pass himself off as Frederick the Great." [17]
Regal insouciance no longer played well in the wake of World War I. Dozens of European nations abandoned monarchy as "rule by strutting peacocks."
______________
Endnotes:
1 Virginia Cowles, The Kaiser, Harper & Row, New York, 1963. p. 390.
2 Ibid., p. 375.
3 Ibid., p. 376.
4 Ibid., p. 380.
5 http://www.wikiquote, Bismarck quotations, p. 3.
6 Cowles, p. 404.
7 Ibid., p. 398.
8 Ibid., p. 414.
9 Ibid., p. 406.
10 Ibid., p. 417.
11 http://www.wikipedia.org., Emperor Wilhelm II. p. 13.
12 Ibid.
13 Saul Friedlaender, Nazi Germany and the Jews. Harper Collins, New York, 1997, p. 77.
14 http://www.wikipedia.org. p. 14.
15 Ibid.
16 Cowles, p. 423.
17 Ibid., pp. 419-420. op. cit. Winston S. Churchill, Contemporary Portraits. New York, 1920.
