Three years ago I said several times that the nations that began this war thought it
would be over by Christmas.
That was Christmas 1914.
They were wrong, for this week comes the fourth Christmas of the war, and it’s still far
from over.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.
Last week Russia signed an armistice with the Central Powers; the next thing is to hammer
out an actual peace treaty.
The German High Command was planning on taking huge chunks of Russian territory, and though
Lenin was basically okay with this, Austria-Hungary wasn’t.
The British, worried by Russia leaving the war, were considering separate peaces with
other Central Powers, Enver Pasha was dreaming of conquest in central Asia, and the Bolsheviks
were fighting the Cossacks on the Black Sea.
Here’s what followed.
Well, those peace negotiations did for one thing.
They began the 22nd at Brest-Litovsk.
The Russian delegates immediately had some suggestions, which included:
1) No forcible annexation of territory taken during the war
2) complete restoration of independence to nationalities who had lost it during the war
3) Nationalities hitherto not enjoying independence could decide by plebiscite if they want to
be part of other states or independent 4) Safeguarding of the rights of minorities
5) no war indemnities
Austro-Hungarian negotiator and Austrian Foreign Minister Count Czernin said he accepted 1,2,
and 4, and refused number three.
Five needed more discussion.
He also wanted for Germany to be returned her overseas colonies.
But as we saw last week, Germany considered itself in a position to make all sorts of
demands, which we’ll see in the New Year.
But what about now?
Last winter was the “Turnip Winter” in Germany, and a good portion of the population
was starving or near to starvation, so how did the situation there look one year later?
Well, Russia leaving the war was certainly a great bonus, but the British naval blockade
was still slowly starving the civilian population, but, and an important but, big land gains
with huge stores of grain from a settlement with Russia could alleviate that.
Austria-Hungary, as we’ve seen, was little more than a shell of its former self, trying
just to hang on.
Bulgaria was isolated, and the Ottomans had troubles of their own, so Germany was pretty
much on its own.
But the situation there was not by any means hopeless.
After another year of heavy casualties and the chronic lack of supplies, the German armies
were certainly not what they’d been a year or two ago, but they weren’t any more beaten
up than the French or British.
Sure, they were way way underequipped with things like rubber for tires or regular supplies
of meat for the men, but they had advantages of their own.
Right up at the top of that list was their defenses in France and Belgium.
(World Undone) “They were massive, sophisticated, ten-mile deep systems of interconnected and
mutually supportive machine gun pillboxes, moatlike traps for infantry and tanks, and
artillery proof bunkers, all of it guarded by shoals of barbed and razor wire.
Hundreds of thousands of laborers, many of them prisoners of war and civilians from captured
territory, had been engaged in building this system since the start of the stalemate.
The result was a barricade that, once reinforced with troops from the east, promised to be
all but impregnable.”
Thing is, the Germans also had new offensive doctrines, as we saw in the Baltic and at
Caporetto.
The “Hutier” storm troop assault tactics might be a way to break the deadlock in the
west.
They’d never been used on such a huge scale before, but there didn’t seem to be any
reason why they wouldn’t work like that, IF Germany launched an offensive.
That’s what the High Command had to consider, after playing defense in the west all of 1917,
and it was really Quartermaster General Erich Ludendorff’s decision.
He was certainly influenced by the success General Herbert Plumer had with the British
at Passchendaele and the French also had at Verdun and La Malmaison with limited scope
attacks, but a huge deciding factor was, as you may guess, the US army and its impending
arrival in Europe.
There were already tens of thousands of men coming per month, and that number was growing
and growing.
Ludendorff figured that they wouldn’t be a big problem until mid-1918 but after that
they could tip the scales of the war the wrong way, so if Germany was going to win in the
west, they had the first half of the year in which to do it.
Now, I mentioned last month that German Army Chief of Staff Paul von Hindenburg had decided
he wanted a game winning offensive for the spring.
Ludendorff now had a plan to create 42 elite mobile divisions from the best of the best
soldiers Germany had.
The booklet “The Attack in Trench Warfare” about Hutier tactics was given out among the
armies, officers were taken out of the line for four weeks of re-training, and the cream
of the soldiers became experts in light machine guns, trench mortars, flamethrowers, and grenades,
the hallmarks of the new system.
But where to attack?
And equally, whom to attack, the British or the French?
Well, last month, Ludendorff had met with some generals who had ideas on those points.
One, Friedrich von der Schulenburg, proposed an attack on both sides of the Verdun salient,
since the French had dramatically weakened their defenses there.
This would shorten the German line and drive the French back toward Paris.
One, Hermann von Kuhl, proposed Flanders, where the British would have their backs to
the sea and might be forced off the continent, if not destroyed.
Ludendorff said that wherever it was, he had three conditions before there would be any
offensive at all; neither Russia nor Italy could pose any active threat, the attack had
to come as early as possible, like February or March, and whoever was attacked, the ultimate
end objective was to defeat the British.
If that could happen by mid 1918, the French couldn’t continue alone and the Americans
wouldn’t matter.
That was his thinking anyhow.
So now on December 27th, Ludendorff met with Schulenburg and Kuhl again.
They still pushed for their ideas, so Ludendorff then had his army groups all along the front
make plans for possible offensives, at Verdun, Flanders, Arras, Champagne, St. Quentin, and
the Vosges.
And that is what the German command structure on the Western Front found itself doing over
Christmas and the New Year.
They were all making competing plans for the mother of all offensives that would end the
war within the next six months.
But their allies were trying to win the war in the field right now.
The Austrians were determined to defeat the Italians before the heavy snows came, which
were over a month late this year.
General and former Chief of Staff Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf told his men they’d celebrate
Christmas mass in Venice.
They attacked the 23rd and advanced about three kilometers, taking the Col di Rosso
and 9,000 prisoners, but an Italian counterattack the 24th took it back and the first heavy
snow fell that night, stopping the Austrians and allowing the Italians to celebrate Christmas
mass in Venice as usual as the Monte Grappa/Piave River front grows quiet.
And in the Middle East, the British held Christmas mass in newly taken Jerusalem and Bethlehem,
which was a total PR coup for them.
But at the end of the week, the Ottomans, with German assistance, made a big try to
retake Jerusalem.
Their attacks lasted for 26 hours, but British commander Edmund Allenby counter attacked
the Turkish right flank and by 29th, the British had carried the day and inflicted heavy losses.
Armored cars and aircraft were used to secure the Holy City to a distance of 16 kilometers.
And the brand new secular Soviet state saw some events of its own.
Russian women win the right to divorce.
Three years in the future they’ll also gain the right to four months of maternity leave,
and other rights to try to establish true gender equality.
As far as I’m aware, that was the first divorce law that actually put men and women
on equal footing.
Also, the Bolsheviks created the Cheka to fight counter-revolution and sabotage.
Felix Dzerzhinsky is its first chairman and its first charter is to track the economic
activity of wealthy people.
There was plenty of activity in former Russian territory.
Well, maybe I should say territory that wanted to be former Russian territory.
On the 23rd, a Moldavian Republic, including Bessarabia, was proclaimed, and on the 27th,
Latvia declared independence.
Fighting also broke out this week between Bolshevik and Ukrainian forces.
And we come to the end of the week, with fighting in Italy and the Middle East, and peace negotiations
between Russia and the Central Powers.
Oh, and Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss became Britain’s First Sea Lord.
(CONCLUSION) And Christmas came and went.
Good will on earth and peace to all men.
Well, peace talks were finally underway for at least some of those men fighting this endless
war.
But even as they proceed, those same men begin fighting among their own former compatriots.
I suppose in these conclusions I talk about bloodshed and modern war and no end in sight
to the point where it might become almost monotonous, so I won’t do that today.
Today I’ll just say that whatever what was going on 100 years ago, we wish peace on earth
and goodwill to all mankind.
Happy holidays from all of us; see you in 1918.
If you want to see our episode about the Battle of Lake Tanganyika, you can click right here
for that.
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Yes, everyone who supported us this year and before.
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See you next year.