(Sequel to “War Begins in 1914”)

After the Battle of the Marne ended on September 9, 1914, the Allied and German armies attempted to outflank each other. Failing this, they entrenched and faced off over a no-mans land. The trenches stretched from the Swiss alps to the English Channel. From time to time each side attempted to break the other’s line, but all attempts ended in bloody failure.

In the meanwhile, in the east, a war of movement was taking place. The Russians invaded eastern Prussia in late August 1914, but by September 15 the invaders had been defeated and thrown back into Russia with heavy losses. Over the next two years the Germans and Austro-Hungarians fought the Russians back and forth on the Eastern Front. The Germans constantly shifted troops from west to east and back in response to changing situations. Austro-Hungarian armies were hard pressed and often defeated. On the other hand, German armies, well equipped and brilliantly led, continually outmatched their Russian opponents and drove them slowly eastward. During this time, Bulgaria and Turkey entered the war on Germany’ s side. Italy and Romania joined the Allies.

In early 1917, in the third year of the Great War, fighting on the western front was at a stalemate.  Two things then occurred to change the course of history.  First, on February 1 Germany decided to resume unrestricted submarine warfare in hope of knocking the United Kingdom out of the war.  That decision caused the United States to declare war on Germany on April 4.  Second, revolution erupted in St. Petersburg on March 8, and Russian armies were no longer a serious threat.  Over the next eight months Russia gradually exited the conflict, and Germany began shifting its eastern units to the west.

The Germans had realized that resuming unrestricted submarine warfare might bring the United States into the war, but the American army was small and inexperienced, totally unprepared for European warfare. The Germans believed that the war would be over long before the United States could make any impact. 

The following months saw a desperate race between Germany and the Allies.  The German army, bolstered by arrival of its eastern divisions, sought to deliver a knock-out blow in France. Gerneral Erich Ludendorff, a brilliant tactician, was now the German field commander. Beginning in March 1918, and employing new and effective tactics, he unleashed a series of offensives that gradually pushed the Allies back to the old Marne battleground. Meanwhile, America was training and equipping troops to succor the Allies.  By June and July of 1918 these new arrivals were beginning to make a difference.  The Allies also benefitted from a recently established unified command under the direction of the highly capable French Marshal Ferdinand Foch. The Germans were defeated in the Second Battle of the Marne in July. That ended the last major German offensive operation of the war. Beginning in August, Foch coordinated a series of attacks that drove the Germans steadily eastward. 

Meanwhile, there was increasing pressure on other fronts. Greece had entered the war on the Allied side, and in September 1918 a multinational army under the command of French General Franchet d’Esperey struck north from Macedonia. Germany’s ally Bulgaria was soon out of the war, and by late October Allied troops were penetrating deep into Hungary. The Austro-Hungarian Empire sued for peace on November 3. A few days earlier, Turkey, another German ally, had also dropped out of the fight. Germany now stood alone.

In late September the German high command advised the civilian government that the situation was hopeless.  Germany extended peace feelers, but there was haggling over details. In the meantime, the German situation continued to deteriorate. Parts of the country were suffering severe food shortages because of the British naval blockade, and in early November riots broke out in Kiel and other cities. Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated on November 9, after which Germany agreed to an armistice on Allied terms. The guns stopped firing on November 11, 1918.

Western civilization had been badly shaken. More than twenty million soldiers and civilians lay dead from the war, and maimed victims could be seen everywhere. It seemed as though an entire generation of young men had been sacrificed to the god of war. And now Europe and America were experiencing the effects of a virulent influenza pandemic that killed millions more. In many Europeans faith and optimism were replaced by cynicism and despair.

The collapse of the German army in late 1918, following so soon after high hopes of victory, was a profound shock to the German people.  The Versailles Treaty was a humiliation.  Germany was blamed for the war, forced to pay heavy reparations, returned Alsace-Lorraine to France, forfeited its colonies, and lost significant territory to a reestablished Polish state. Agitators propagated the false narrative that the army was not defeated but had been stabbed in the back by the civil government.  There were cries for revenge and the recovery of lost German territory.  The Polish corridor separating East Prussia from the rest of Germany was a particular sore point.

As the Great War ended, many French military leaders were convinced that Germany simply wished to resume the war under more favorable circumstances.  They wanted to march all the way to Berlin to make the German people taste the totality of defeat.  Instead, the German Rhineland area was only temporarily occupied, and, except for limited forays by French troops into Alsace-Lorraine, Germany had not experienced any Allied incursions during the hostilities.  

France emerged from the conflict shaken to its core.  Some of the richest areas in the land had been devastated, and roughly half of French males of military age had been killed or wounded.  Germany had also suffered grievous casualties, but the German homeland and infrastructure remained mostly untouched. Germany had a strong industrial base and a young, growing population. The French population was older and relatively static, and France could never reverse its growing manpower deficit. 

The war had destroyed the British professional army and inflicted heavy losses on its levies of conscripts, a new experience for the island kingdom. The casualty rate among men of the British upper class, provider of its officer corps, was especially severe.  The nation was sickened by the carnage and firmly set against involvement in any future continental conflict.

Regardless of strong anti-war sentiments, the French did not trust the Germans and continued to remain armed and vigilant.  A considerable part of France’s national budget continued to be dedicated to defense.  France spent more on the military than any other country until Germany itself began rearming in 1933, and this huge investment continued despite onset of the economic depression. The army was maintained at a high level, and a large portion of the defense budget was spent on the Maginot Line.  Unfortunately, the French air arm did not receive equal attention.

During the financial and political turmoil that swept the world in the 1920s and 1930s, vicious, godless men clawed their way into positions of power.  Benito Mussolini gradually assumed leadership in Italy, Josef Stalin rose to the top in the Soviet Union, and militarists seized the government in Japan.  Lastly, in Germany, there appeared the worst of them all – Adolf Hitler.  These evil men were consumed with a thirst for power and conquest.

Following the 1918 Armistice and the Treaty of Versailles, the League of Nations had been established to help maintain world peace.  Although the United States refused to join, it was hoped that the other great powers, acting in concert, could settle future disputes between nations equitably and peaceably.  Unfortunately, the plan did not work.  The first real test came in 1931, when the Japanese invaded Manchuria. After much delay, the League demanded that the Japanese leave Manchuria.  Instead, the Japanese left the League of Nations.  No one was willing to go to war over the issue, so nothing was done.  This pattern was repeated when the Italians invaded Ethiopia in 1935. The League again proved itself to be totally ineffective. The German Fuhrer took note.

Immediately upon taking the reins of power in 1933, Hitler set his face toward war and began rebuilding Germany’s military arsenal.  Alarmed by the Nazi leader’s bellicose fulminations and Germany’s growing military strength, the French realized that conflict was probably inevitable and might be coming relatively soon.

Though supporting large military expenditures, French leaders abhorred the thought of another European war, and they were determined to do all in their power to avert conflict.   If war should come, however, French strategic thinking gravitated around defense. The French high command was acutely aware of the devastating casualties caused by their predecessors’ offensive tactics in 1914, and they were predisposed to rely primarily on defensive strategy and tactics in any future conflict. The “attaque a outrance” spirit that had motivated French officers and men in 1914 had almost entirely dissipated.  One might say, with some truth, that the Great War had taken the starch out of the French. This was also true of the British.  Only the German military, motivated by a thirst for revenge and mesmerized by the flaming rhetoric of Hitler, was primed for aggressive, risk-taking warfare.

The first concern of French leaders was to ensure that the British entered any coming war on their side.  The French knew that it would be almost impossible to stand up to Germany alone. The Great War had caused a sharp dip in the French birth rate, and German males of military age now numbered twice those of the French.  Also, German industrial production was second only to that of the United States, far more than that of France.  The threat to France was formidable. At the same time, the French government was weakened by deep political divisions, and these fissures affected both civil and military efficiency.  Political parties rotated in and out of office frequently. Most of the Great War heroes were now dead, and there was no strong civilian leader nor outstanding military commander in whom the people had confidence. Many civil and military officials were pessimistic about the overall situation.

Tensions between France and Germany rose steadily through the 1930s as Germany violated terms of the Versailles Peace Treaty and began a full-scale rearmament program.  In March 1936 the Germans marched into the demilitarized Rhineland in clear violation of the Versailles Treaty.  France and Britain did not respond.  Later in 1936 both Germany and Italy inserted themselves into the Spanish Civil War, supporting General Franco as he led a rebellion against the socialist led republican government. The Soviet Union aided the republicans. Britain and France decided not to become involved. The new German military, especially its air force, received valuable experience.

In early 1938 Germany annexed Austria, making it part of the Greater German Reich. Hitler then made obvious his desire for further German territorial expansion, and the newly established states of Czechoslovakia and Poland (created in part out of Germany and the old Austro-Hungarian Empire following the Great War) were particularly vulnerable because of the large numbers of ethnic Germans in each country.  Hitler began pressing for the annexation of certain areas of both these nations.

In October 1938, the crisis came to a boiling point when Hitler indicated that he was prepared to take German speaking areas of Czechoslovakia (the Sudetenland) by force.   He threatened war unless the Czechs gave in.  France had a mutual defense pact with the Czechs, and the two nations appeared ready to face up to the German threat.  The British feared that they would be drawn into the possible conflict. Europe was on the brink of another explosion. A hurried conference was called, and the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, and Italy met in Munich to seek a solution.

As the heads of state met in Munich, Hitler appeared ready to march into Czechoslovakia; but many German army commanders believed that they were not yet prepared for war.  Some of them were plotting to overthrow Hitler should he order them to attack.  They feared that a combination of French, British, and Czech arms would be impossible to overcome; also, the Soviet Union might become involved.  Unfortunately, the Allies were not aware of dissension in the German ranks. Even so, Daladier, the French Premier, wished to confront Hitler at this moment; but Prime Minister Chamberlain of Britain was horrified by the prospect of another war. Also, his military advisors insisted that Britain was not ready for conflict. They feared the possibility of an all-out German aerial assault and insisted on more time to build British air defenses. Chamberlain therefore chose to accept Hitler’s assurances of peace if he got the Sudetenland.  Hitler also promised that he would make no more territorial demands.  Daladier was not willing to fight without British support, so he gave in. Czechoslovakia was forced to surrender critical areas of the country to the Germans, and Chamberlain returned home to London proclaiming, “Peace in our time!” Daladier had no such illusions.

Hitler’s leadership position was now unassailable.  In a few short years he had reoccupied the Rhineland, absorbed Austria into the greater German Reich, and taken significant areas of Czechoslovakia, rendering that nation virtually defenseless. All this had been accomplished without firing a shot.  It seemed that the Fuhrer could do no wrong.  The German populace and the military were now fully behind him.

Less than six months after the Czechoslovakian accords of October 1938, Hitler violated the Munich agreements and occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia.  Even Chamberlain the peacemaker was now convinced that war was inevitable.  There would be no more concessions. When Hitler began pressuring Poland for territory, Britain and France signed guarantees of mutual protection with that nation.

Unfortunately for the Allies, their earlier abandonment of Czechoslovakia had a profound effect on the attitude of the Soviet Union.  Prior to that time the Soviets had been inclined to support France and Britain against Germany, especially if it threatened Poland.  A German occupied Poland would become the Soviet’s neighbor, and Hitler had made no secret of his hatred for the communist state and his desire for German lebensraum (living space) in Belorussia and the Ukraine. Following the Allies’ pusillanimous betrayal of Czechoslovakia, however, the Soviets changed their approach.  They now decided to stand aside in the hope that Germany and the western democracies would destroy each other, leaving the Soviet Union “cock of the walk” in Europe. In accordance with this new thinking, Stalin and Hitler signed a mutual non-aggression treaty in late August 1939 that included a secret clause calling for a division of Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union.  With Soviet neutrality assured, Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939, and World War II began.