It’s 1918.
The war began in 1914.
There is no end in sight, and the men fighting for both the Entente and the Central Powers
are fed up.
And what does that mean?
It means mutiny on both sides.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.
Last week the Finnish Civil War began, and the Ukrainian one continued.
There was naval action in the North Sea and at the Dardanelles, the Germans finally decided
where their Western Front spring offensive would take place, and British Prime Minister
David Lloyd George was trying to maneuver around Army Commander in Chief Sir Douglas
Haig.
Those machinations continued this week.
The Allied Supreme War Council met January 31st at Versailles and ordered Haig to remain
on the defensive in the west until at least the spring.
They then discussed French and British army reserves, a fairly important issue.
Lloyd George proposed an Inter-Allied Reserve created from both French and British armies,
with French General Ferdinand Foch in charge of it.
Haig had a suspicion this was another attempt at creating an overall generalissimo, so once
the politicians had approved the idea, he asked the tricky question of who he should
in that case appeal to for access to his own reserves - his Chief of Staff Wully Robertson
in London?
Or a French general?
It’s a pretty good point; I mean, the Commander in Chief should have access to his own reserves,
so it followed that the only way this proposed system would work would be if the man commanding
the reserves was in fact the overall commander in France.
A committee was set up to deal with this issue; Foch was its president.
Now, last week we saw Henry Wilson appointed Chief of Staff to the new Allied General Staff
in France.
Wilson wanted Robertson’s power from London reduced, so Robertson’s request to be on
this reserve committee was denied.
Robertson actually called the Council’s Executive War Board “the Versailles Soviet”
and said that having TWO Chiefs of staff for one army would destroy confidence among the
troops.
He may be right.
On the second, the council meeting will end, after an enlargement of its powers is announced.
Speaking of actual Soviets, there was a lot going on with the Bolsheviks this week.
On the 27th, they broke off diplomatic relations with Romania.
On the 29th, Bolshevik troops enter Kiev and Odessa in Ukraine, and on the 31st, with large
parts of Ukraine coming under his control, Within two weeks the Red Navy and then the
Red army will officially be formed.
Thing is, on February 1st, the Central Powers officially recognized the Ukrainian Republic.
The Rada - the Ukrainian Parliament - had voted for Ukrainian independence and a separate
peace with the Central Powers, but this would deprive Russia of a big chunk of its economic
base for its claim to great power status if it happened.
This was was part of an interesting German strategy.
Foreign Minister Richard von Kuhlmann, nominally leader of the German delegation for the ongoing
peace talks between Russia and the Central powers, had gone into the negotiations telling
the German Reichstag that he would stick with the July 1917 peace resolution formula of
no annexations or indemnities (from 1914-1918).
The wording around this, though, was really vague, but that didn’t matter at first.
Kuhlmann, and his Austrian counterpart Count Ottokar Czernin, figured that if the Russian
Bolshevik government turned out to be as short lived as everyone expected, then the armistice
would - as it had - detach Petrograd from the Allies and pull the Russian soldiers home.
Saying that they weren’t after annexations and indemnities meant they could make a separate
peace with Russia, but keep a free hand in the lands they’d occupied, none of which
were ethnically Russian, and sort of stage-manage declarations of independence.
So self-determination could be used to push back Russia’s borders and create supposedly
independent buffer states.
Back on Christmas Day, the two had scored a PR victory with their Christmas Declaration,
which offered to negotiate a peace without annexations or indemnities if the Allies would
do likewise.
This was clever, since they knew the Allies would not accept, so there was no risk in
this declaration.
Thing is, though, this plan was now having big repercussions.
In Germany, High Command - the Oberste Heeresleitung or OHL for short - had not been consulted
before the declaration, and Army Chief of Staff Paul von Hindenburg and Quartermaster
General Erich Ludendorff were seriously pissed off.
We’ve already talked about the German military’s territorial demands from the peace conference,
and army representative Max Hoffmann’s unwillingness to surrender territory that Germans had died
to take.
German Chancellor Georg von Hertling backed Kuhlmann, saying that politicians were responsible
for the negotiations, and the Kaiser?
Well, “Wilhelm, for once asserting his rights as an arbiter, endorsed a statement by Hertling
that the Christmas declaration was a legitimate “move in the political game”, that annexations
in the east should be minimized, and that cooperation with Austria-Hungary was of cardinal
importance.”
(1914-1918)
So the German military and the politicians seemed to be standing on opposite sides of
the same side.
There was turmoil within Germany itself this week as well - huge workers’ strikes, first
in Berlin, then Kiel, Munich, and Hamburg.
More than 400,000 workers struck.
Martial law was declared and the strikes soon ended, and I’ll talk more about this in
the coming weeks.
Right now I need to talk about chaos within the actual armed forces.
On February 1st, there was an Austrian naval mutiny at Cattaro.
Led by two Czech socialists, 6,000 sailors raised the red flag and announced their loyalty
to Bolshevism.
They did, however, play the Marseillaise rather than the Internationale and their demands
were more similar to Wilson’s 14 points than Lenin’s decrees: national autonomy
in the empire rather than independence, immediate peace without annexations, demobilization,
and better living conditions.
Three battleships from the port of Pola were dispatched to put down the mutiny, 800 mutineers
were removed from their ships, 40 were tried, and 4 executed.
And to the southeast that same day, there was a mutiny on the other side.
By the Greek Second infantry regiment at Lamia.
Now, this regiment was comprised of men recruited from southern, pro-royalist, Greece, and many
of its soldiers had been influenced by royalist agitators, right?
So drunk soldiers returning from their leave during the early morning hours urged their
trumpeter to play the prohibited Royalist anthem.
After that, around 1000 individuals, soldiers and civilians, shot the electrical cables
of the city, cutting power.
When they ran out of ammunition, some deserted to their villages, while others returned to
the camp.
The next day, the 9th Cretan Regiment arrived to restore order.
Many rioters mutinied again, fearing the repression of the government, and some joined the “Reservists”,
royalist militiamen, in open sedition.
This insurgency will last nearly two weeks, and special military tribunals will follow.
25 men will be executed.
Others receive prison sentences, but soldiers of low rank were punished with suspended sentences
in order to force them to remain at the front.
There was scattered action in the skies of Western Europe this week as well.
On the 26th, the Germans bombed Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne.
The next day the British bombed Treves and the French bombed Metz.
The 28th saw an air raid on London with 67 killed, 166 injured, and one German plane
shot down.
The British bombed Roulers and other aerodromes.
A raid on the outskirts of London the next day left 10 dead and 10 wounded, and on the
30th, 14 tons of bombs - 267 bombs from 31 planes - were dropped on Paris, 49 were killed
and 206 injured.
On the Italian Front in the field this week, the Italians attacked the Austrians the 28th,
capturing Col di Rosso and 1,500 prisoners.
They captured Monte di Valbella the following day, and stopped a strong Austrian counterattack
the 31st.
And that will end the week.
Small actions on the battlefields of Europe, intrigue upon intrigue among the Allied leaders,
and yep, intrigue upon intrigue among the Central Powers’ leaders too.
There were strikes in Germany, and a mutiny on each side.
There was also a notable death away from the front this week.
John McCrae died January 28th in military hospital.
McCrae was a Canadian doctor who had written a book on pathology, volunteered as a gunner
when the war began, and then transferred to the Royal Canadian Medical Corps.
He was also the author of the poem “In Flanders Fields”, which I read a couple years ago,
and which I’ll now read again, as a tribute to Dr. John McCrae.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow, Between the crosses, row on row
That mark out place and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead.
Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow
Loved and were loved, and now we lie in Flanders Fields
Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw
The torch, be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.
If you want to learn more about the situation in Greece during World War 1, you can click
right here for that.
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