home | 1901-World War II | Germany and Revolution, 1918-19

General Ludendorff
By insisting on victory he created failure. And rather than recognize that his gamble had failed, he stayed the course and blamed others.

Ludendorff's farthest advance

Manfred von Richtofen, the Red Baron

U.S. Marines at Belleau Wood

The Hindenburg Line at Bullecourt
(between Arras and Cambrai)

The year began with Pope Benedict XV's call for peace, which was ignored by the belligerent powers. So too were calls for a peace without reparations by socialists in Britain and France. In France, defeatism and pacifism was on the rise, but the new prime minister, Clemenceau, and his government were in fighting spirit and determined to hold on defensively against the Germans while waiting for the arrival of the Americans. Britain's David Lloyd-George also favored a defensive strategy on the Western Front. For 1918 he was looking forward to a major effort against the Turks, who had just been driven northward from Jerusalem.

After President Wilson had taken the United States into war in Europe he had switched from favoring a compromise settlement to favoring victory. In response to Lenin's call for peace without annexations or indemnities, Wilson was calling for a victory based on the warring nations accepting what became known as his Fourteen Points. These points included troops withdrawing from other people's territory, European boundaries drawn "along recognizable lines of nationality," the abolition of secret diplomacy, freedom of the seas during peace and war, equality of trade and a reduction of armaments.

Meanwhile in Germany, the year 1918 began with General Erich Ludendorff  having plans for a great offensive, a gamble he hoped would turn the tide and win the war. He recognized Germany's desperation. The winter of 17-18 was as miserable for the Germans as the previous "turnip" winter. People were without coal. They worked in cold factories. Prices were still rising, and inflation was reducing the wealth of the middle class. Recently blue collar workers had demonstrated against the war. In December, strikes had erupted in a number of big factories, and in January over 400,000 workers stopped work in Berlin's metal industry. Some traditionally moderate leaders of the Social Democrat party, who had been supporting the war and opposed to strikes, changed course and gave their support to the strikers. A split developed among the Social Democrats, and a minority who opposed the war established a new party, the Independent Social Democratic Party. In response to the unrest on the home front, Germany's High Command, led by Hindenburg as figurehead and Ludendorff as the working commander-in chief, demanded that the home front maintain its discipline and allow the military to bring the victory that most Germans wanted.

For Ludendorff and some other Germans anything other than a military victory was unthinkable. They did not want to consider letting their armies remain in defensive positions while offering to negotiate an end to the war. This for Ludendorff was a program for defeatists and traitors. Ludendorff was encouraged by Lenin's declaration that as far as the Soviet regime was concerned the war was over, and he planned to knock France out of the war before the Americans arrived. He believed in himself and in his prayers, and Kaiser Wilhelm was allowing him to run the war, while he too was drawing from his faith that God was on Germany's side and would not let Germany down.

Plan Michael

At this stage in the war, the strength of the offensive was gaining over the strength of defensive warfare - the offensive benefiting from airplanes and tanks. But Germany was not yet producing tanks in significant numbers. Ludendorff had failed to see the importance of tanks and tanks had not been put into production in Germany early enough for significant use in 1918.

Ludendorff had what is common among those in high command: some tricks, a supply of strategic reasoning and what was to prove to be wishful thinking. He was counting on Germany's temporary superior numbers and on what he believed was the superior fighting ability of his forces. His trucks and transport trains hauled a huge force of German men and material to the Western Front, bringing the number German divisions there to 182 - sixty-three of them opposite the British, outnumbering the British three to one. Ludendorff planned to drive the British back against the channel coast, forcing them to withdraw from France. He planned a diversionary attack against the French and hoped to be able to drive a wedge between the French and British armies, a gap through which his armies could advance unimpeded. He planned to use an element of surprise and to use smoke and poison gas.

On March 21, at 4:30 a.m., some 6,000 German artillery pieces bombarded the British along a forty-mile front. German foot soldiers began their assault at 9:40 a.m. under the cover of forward creeping artillery fire and low flying aircraft. Ludendorff was aiming at a British strong point near Arras, but his assault had little success. Ludendorff was surprised to learn that his offensive's greatest success was where he employed fewer men and where the British line was weakest: on the southern portion of the British line. There his troops broke through British defenses and at one point, after six days, the Germans advanced forty miles.

Ludendorff held back those of his forces that had advanced the farthest so that they would not run too far ahead of the rest of his offensive. The rest of his offensive foundered as a result of Ludendorff having failed to deploy reserves with sufficient effectiveness. Nevertheless, the offensive caused great fright among the leaders of Britain and France - while Ludendorff's artillery lobbed shells into Paris from a gun with a barrel that was 112 feet (34 meters) long and many Persians were evacuating their city.

A gap developed between the French and British armies, and the French and British were anxious about having it filled. The British agreed to France's General Foch becoming supreme command of all forces. The United States troops were already arriving in significant numbers, and their commander, General Pershing, volunteered Americans to fill the gap. The French were pleased, especially France's premier, Clemenceau and General Foch. Britain's press was ecstatic, while the British commander-in-chief in France, Douglas Haig, dismissed the Americans, claiming they were a lot of untrained rabble and would be of little help.

The German nation was cheered by newspaper portrayals of their nation's offensive as a success. Flags were put out and church bells rang. King Wilhelm was among the celebrants, believing again that he was seeing evidence that God was with the Germans. The newspaper Deutsche Zeitung wrote that a "cry of victory rages through Germany with a renewed passion." An editorial in the paper called for an end to all the "petty whining" and "the miserable whimpering" of those opposed to "righteous German hatred of England and sound German vengeance."

Ludendorff's Plan Michael ended on April 5, Ludendorff calling it "a brilliant feat." The Germans had taken almost 90,000 British prisoners and had inflicted 164,000 casualties on the British and 70,000 casualties on the French. The Germans had captured an enormous amount of men and material. But Ludendorff's offensive had spent much in men and material. Ludendorff had lost 70,000 as prisoners and had suffered 160,000 casualties of his own. Seventy German divisions were exhausted and their morale was low. At points they had advanced forty miles but they had not broken the British and French line as they had hoped, and they were disappointed.

More Offensives

The bulges the Germans had made in their front line made that line much longer, requiring more troops - the opposite of what Ludendorff had done in 1917. Ludendorff was laying plans for another major push, while wishing to strike harassing blows against the Allies. With reduced strength he struck against the British on April 9, and the attack was so successful that he decided to turn it into a major drive. His forces sent the British reeling back, creating another bulge, with an alarmed Douglas Haig describing his forces as fighting with their backs to the wall.

By mid-month, Crown Prince Wilhelm - the Kaiser's son - wrote from the front that the German troops he viewed were "utterly exhausted and burned out." Ludendorff feared a counterattack on his flanks, and on April 19 he brought his new drive to an end.

Two days later, the British shot down the great German combat pilot, von Richthofen (the Red Baron), who was engaging in some combat adventure. The British press eulogized the glamour of military daring still alive, and they buried Richthofen with full military honors. The Germans mourned his death, and Richthofen was replaced as commander of his flying unit by a pilot named Hermann Goering (Göring).

British conscripts returning to the front had been showing signs of unrest. Twenty-five of Britain's fifty-nine divisions in France had been engaged in battles several times, and the British judged ten of their divisions were exhausted, and they disbanded five of them.

By May, United States forces in France had reached nearly 670,000, but Ludendorff and his inactive superior, Hindenburg, showed no sign of concern regarding the Americans. Of concern to Ludendorff was the attitude of his fellow Germans. By now some Germans believed that Ludendorff's goal of total victory was impossible. They included Germany's chancellor, Hertling, Prince Max of Baden (Wilhelm's cousin), Crown Prince Rupprecht, and Germany's foreign minister, Richard von Kühlmann - a force that Ludendorff could not ignore. He put them off by agreeing with them that Germany should negotiate an end to the war. But he was for negotiating from strength while remaining in France. And frustrated over the failure of his offensive, he lashed out at his frontline commanders for allowing discipline to decline, and in private he labeled all who doubted Germany's victory as weaklings.

Still doubting the strength of American involvement, Ludendorff began his next offensive, Plan Hagen, on May 27. Each of his divisions was down more than 300 three hundred men from the 1,000 per division that each had been in March. His first move was a diversionary assault on a more southern portion of the front line, across the area called Chamin des Dames, against both British and French troops, Ludendorff hoping to draw British troops southward from near the channel coast, where he planned to launch his main assault.

The assault at Chamin des Dames caught the British and French by surprise, and, after the first day, Ludendorff and Hindenburg were astounded by its success. Ludendorff thought maybe he could turn the diversionary assault into the major drive to victory, and he began transferring some divisions south. By May 30, the Germans had advanced thirty miles to the Marne River. They were now within 56 miles of Paris. Across the Marne River, the Germans established a small bridgehead, and vanguard German divisions advanced to within 39 miles of Paris. But by then Ludendorff's drive had spent itself. Ludendorff called for a pause in the offensive, and the British and French had a few days to recuperate and to bring up reinforcements.

In their extended positions, the Germans were more vulnerable than they had been in their well-established defensive positions. Their supply lines were stretched, as were their communications: carrier pigeons, messenger dogs and motorcycle riders. Food supplies for the troops were low. German troops were underfed and hungry. And German soldiers were being attacked by the flu.

On June 9, the Americans entered the war in force - well nourished, lively and eager to show the world what they could do. They attacked the Germans at the tip of the German advance, in the Marne Valley at Belleau Wood, near Chateau-Thierry. According to the Germans, the Americans at Belleau Wood fought "with bravery and dash." France's General Foch had been planning a counteroffensive since May, waiting for a pause in the German offensives, and following the American assault the French counterattacked at one point in the line, sending Germans into retreat. The frontline stabilized temporarily. The German line still bulged toward Paris, but the morale of the German soldiers had dropped further. And the new reversal sent King Wilhelm into a fit of depression.

Ludendorff was not a good gambler: good gambler's do not hold on to unrealistic hopes. He rested and reorganized his forces and on July 12 renewed his offensive, defying those he called pessimists. He employed a two-pronged attack, with 49 divisions and 60 air groups with new Fokker airplanes. On July 18, French and American infantry and a new weapon - tanks - counterattacked against a German flank, which stalled the German drive. Germany's High Command was perplexed, and Hindenburg came forward to discuss tactics. Hindenburg suggested transferring all reserve units to the area of attack, which Ludendorff said was nonsense. One army commander, Friedrich von Lossberg, suggested to a nervous and agitated Ludendorff that they give up all the advances made since March and withdraw to defensive positions. Ludendorff said this would encourage the enemy and have a negative effect on German troops and people on the home front. Lossberg was opposed to letting the enemy govern what Germany did and spoke of a withdrawal helping army morale. And Ludendorff, dispirited, spoke of resigning.

For a couple of weeks the opposing armies battled on, the Germans holding onto their positions and the Allied forces gaining in places, with Ludendorff continuing to insist that he could decisively defeat the enemy. On August 8 the British with French support began a minor offensive along ten miles of frontline, against a thinner line than the Germans had maintained in previous years. The assault caught the Germans off guard. With 430 tanks, the British advanced nine miles by evening on the first day, and they captured 16,000 German prisoners, including division staffs, and 161 big guns. By August 10, the British and French had suffered 20,000 casualties, and only 67 of the 430 tanks remained in service, but by then they had inflicted 70,000 casualties on the Germans and had taken 50,000 prisoners.

Ludendorff was upset at a report of German troops surrendering to a single soldier or isolated squadron. He called August 8 a "black day" for the German army. Suddenly he saw the war as hopeless. In the presence of King Wilhelm he blamed the defeat on lack of discipline. Wilhelm countered with the complaint that too much had been asked of the troops. A telegram from Emperor Charles of Austria was handed to Wilhelm, the telegram stating that the war must be ended in 1918 otherwise he, Karl, would "conclude a separate peace." Wilhelm then told Hindenburg and Ludendorff that "the war must be ended."

A New German Government and Armistice

Slowly, the Allies continued their advance, with Ludendorff blaming everyone for failures but himself. He denounced what he called "tank panics" - fear by Germans troops facing the onslaught of tanks. Retreating German troops had lost or were losing faith in their generals, and they were shouting derisions at reserve units being brought up from the rear.

In early September, the British smashed through the German line and sent most of Germany's 17th Army and all of its 2nd and 18th Armies and the right wing of Germany's 9th Army back to the defensive trenches in Northeastern France called the Hindenburg Line. Ludendorff responded by ordering evacuation of the hard-won bulge in the line in the north, around the river Lys, just south of Ypres.

Ludendorff had been warned that suffering on the home front might cause a revolutionary uprising. The meat ration for civilians had been reduced to 4 1/2 ounces per week. Households had been allowed only two or three ounces of fat each week, and another cut had been made in the bread allowance. On the home front illness was rampant from years of undernourishment. A flu epidemic was claiming thousands of lives daily.

General Ludendorff was drinking alcohol, suffering from crying spells and temper tantrums. He admitted that he was ill and needed a rest, and he went for a four-week stay at a villa in Spa for deep breathing exercises, folk singing upon awakening in the morning. He contemplated the beauty of the villa's rose garden. At Spa, Ludendorff was advised that to end the suffering and the continuing slaughter of men the war should be brought to an immediate end. In late September, Ludendorff fantasized that a miracle could save Germany just as a miracle had saved Frederick the Great in 1763. The miracle in 1763 was the death of Catherine the Great. Now it was a deadly flu epidemic that Ludendorff believed would decimate the French army. His Surgeon General denied that this would happen, but Ludendorff continued believing that it would.

On the Southern Front, British troops, reinforced by troops from India and Mesopotamia, were driving the Turks northward toward Turkey, with the Turks falling back in a rout. On September 28 - the same day that British and Belgian divisions began pushing into Belgium - Ludendorff learned that Bulgaria would seek a separate peace with the Allies, and foreseeing a collapse of the Southern Front, Ludendorff is said to have collapsed on his office floor. He recovered and called Hindenburg, demanding an immediate armistice before the German army suffered total defeat. Hindenburg agreed, apparently concerned, like Ludendorff, that defeat would be too humiliating.

On September 29, Ludendorff gave Wilhelm and the new German foreign minister, Paul von Hintze, details of weakness that had developed in the German army on the Western Front, Ludendorff stating that an armistice would allow his armies to fall back to the German border where they could rest and reorganize while Germany avoided a shameful peace. Hindenburg was present and demonstrated his uselessness and lack of understanding that generals sometimes have. Any peace treaty with the enemy, he claimed, should respect Germany's claim to the rich areas of Longwy and Briey in France.

Foreign Minister Hintze wished for a peace based on President Wilson's Fourteen Points, hoping this would prevent revolution in Germany. He suggested the creation of a new parliamentary government and making Wilhelm a constitutional monarch. Wilhelm accepted, believing this might help save his throne, and he signed a decree granting new powers to Germany's parliament.

On October 1, Ludendorff spoke to assembled military officers, telling them that Bulgaria had collapsed, that Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire were at the end of their strength and that the German army was infested with "the poison of socialist anarchy." He announced that the troops could no longer be relied upon and that the only way to prevent German forces from being pushed back to the Rhine River was to negotiate an immediate armistice based on Wilson's Fourteen Points. Hindenburg, celebrating his seventy-first birthday, expressed his doubts, saying that he was not totally convinced that Germany, with God's help, could not "come through this difficult period."

New Government in Germany and an Armistice

On October 3, Prince Max of Baden (Wilhelm's cousin) was sworn in as the chancellor of a new parliamentary government. The chancellor was now responsible to parliament rather than to Wilhelm. The question of war and peace was the responsibility of parliament - representatives of the German people. Two members of the Majority Socialist Party were included in the new government, in minor cabinet positions, despite the Socialist Party being the largest party in parliament.

On October 4, the new government sent its request for an armistice to the Allies. Feeling no sense of urgency, Germany's parliament then went into recess until October 22, while the necessary legislation for new government powers was being drafted. The British broke through the Hindenburg Line on October 5, but the Germans merely pulled back a little and halted the British drive. This cheered Ludendorff. And Ludendorff was encouraged by reports of diminishing strength in the force of Allied attacks.

Wilson's reply to the German request for an armistice arrived in Berlin on October 9. Wilson asked whether the new government spoke for the German Empire and if so whether it was prepared to accept his Fourteen Points unconditionally. A German submarine sank a mail and passenger ferry, the RMS Leinster, off the coast of Ireland. killing 564 passengers and crew, including U.S. servicemen and 130 women and children. An angered Wilson sent another note, dated October 14, demanding that Germany immediately evacuate occupied lands, end its submarine warfare, guarantee constitutional reforms and transform Germany into a democracy - a polite way of demanding that Wilhelm abdicate. Wilhelm responded to the note by calling it "unmitigated frivolous nonsense." And he called on his cousin, the chancellor, to "arouse the entire people to rally round their emperor in defense of their sacred heritage."

In the United States, labor leaders agreed that the United States should settle with Germany rather than fight for "the imperialist aims" of Britain, France and Italy. Against this was the Senate Majority Leader, Henry Cabot Lodge, who had recently introduced a resolution in the Senate calling for no further communication with the Germans except a demand for unconditional surrender. Senator Hiram Johnson of California joined Lodge in favoring a German surrender, and he joined others, including Theodore Roosevelt, in repudiating Wilson's Fourteen Points. Another Senator, Miles Poindexter, labeled Wilson's position on ending the war a "crime against humanity." And President Wilson, feeling the pressure of public opinion and believing that Germany was still in the hands of its "military masters," was close to demanding unconditional surrender by Germany.

By mid-October Ludendorff and Hindenburg wanted to distance themselves from a negotiated settlement or surrender to Allied demands. Now politically powerless, Ludendorff favored what he could have done better had he not gambled on his offensive and ruined the moral and fighting strength of his troops: he was for fighting on the defensive - through 1919. He and the German admiralty insisted that submarine warfare continue. And on October 20, Hindenburg told Prince Max that his government should keep Germany fighting "for our honor to the very last man," and if this resulted in Germany breaking off negotiations with Wilson, claimed Hindenburg, so be it.

A third note arrived in Germany from Wilson on October 23, with Wilson demanding that if Germany's military masters, including Wilhelm, were still in power, they had to step aside, that the United States would negotiate only with representatives of the German people. On October 26, during a shouting match between Wilhelm and Ludendorff, Ludendorff resigned, complaining later that Hindenburg, who was present, had made no attempt to defend him and was therefore guilty of treachery.

Germany's parliament, in session as scheduled since the October 22, adjourned again until November 9. Meanwhile, on October 30, the Allied powers signed an armistice with the Ottoman Empire. That same day, Germany's admiralty launched a plan that had been known outside the admiralty only by Ludendorff. The plan called for the German fleet to make a great assault against the British Navy - for the sake of German honor. Germany's enlisted sailors were ready to fight to defend the homeland but not for a mere gesture. Risking the punishment of death for mutiny and treason, sailors with the fleet harbored at Wilhelmshaven (20 miles west of Bremerhaven) rebelled. In the following four days the revolt spread to the fleet harbored at Kiel. From there it spread to troops stationed at Kiel and to the civilians there. Then it spread throughout the coastal towns of northern Germany. By November 8 it had spread to all major German cities.

Councils of workers and enlisted military men arose - as had happened when Russia's tsar was overthrown. A rebel group of socialists took power in Munich and proclaimed Bavaria a democratic republic, its success the result not of its popularity but of confusion and no one else organized to take power. In some areas, councils of military men arrested their officers and sought the army to recognize committees of enlisted men. In city streets, pent-up resentment against military officers was released in attacks on officers in uniform. People who had felt obliged to step off sidewalks to let German officers pass now spat on them.

Regimental commanders were summoned to Spa to report on the attitude of their troops. Hindenburg was there, and as a sentimental supporter of the German monarchy he was unable to tell Wilhelm that he, Wilhelm, had no support. So Hindenburg had his adjutant, General Groener, tell Wilhelm for him. In Berlin, the chancellor, Prince Max, acted on his own and announced the abdication of Wilhelm and his sons. Then Max resigned as chancellor, handing the government to the leader of the Social Democrats, Friedrich Ebert. That same day, November 9, the socialist leader, Karl Liebknecht was exuberant in his reaction to what appeared to him to be a revolution in the making. Liebknecht had just been released from prison where he had been serving a sentence for opposition to the war, and he proclaimed Germany a socialist republic. And Ebert, who despised revolutionary socialists, countered by declaring Germany a "Free German Republic."

Wilhelm refused to accept what he called a coup d'etat. But he was as powerless as his cousin Tsar Nicholas had been. On October 10, at Groener's and Hindenburg's insistence, Wilhelm boarded his silver train and left Spa for Holland, never to forgive Hindenburg for what he called his disloyalty.

On November 10, in a French forest in Compiègne, a German and French delegation met to arrange an armistice. The terms of the armistice were that Germany was to withdraw from all "invaded countries" and Alsace-Lorraine within fourteen days, and the Allies were to occupy German territory on the left bank of the Rhine. Further terms held that the right bank of the Rhine was to be neutral territory; the economic blockade against Germany was to continue; German forces were to evacuate East Africa within a month; Germany was to surrender to the Allies most of its navy (ten battleships, seventeen cruisers, fifty torpedo boats and over a hundred submarines); and Germany was to surrender 5,000 artillery pieces, 30,000 machine guns and 2,000 airplanes.

Matthias Erzberger, a member of Germany's Center political party, was prevailed upon by Hindenburg to lead the German delegation, and, on November 11, Erzberger signed the armistice. No German officers signed the agreement. Germany's military distanced itself from what to some Germans would appear to be capitulation. To some Germans it would now appear that civilian politicians and Marxian Social Democrats had stabbed Germany's army in the back.

Joy in the Streets and Casualty Summaries

News of the armistice brought cheering that exceeded that at the beginning of the war. People in England stopped work. Crowds there surged through the streets. Sirens screamed, church bells rang, factories blew their whistles, and those few with cars honked their horns. In Trafalgar Square a vast bonfire of celebration was lit. An elated King George V sent messages to the heads of state of Britain's allies referring to a "triumph of right and justice" and "a glorious chapter of the history of freedom."

In Paris the celebrations were as intense, with guns firing and so much other noise that people could not hear one another talk. People walked arm in arm, American soldiers among them, and the celebrations in the streets went into a second day. People also celebrated in Australia, Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo and in Palestine.

News of the armistice reached New York at three in the morning, and immediately church bells began ringing. After daybreak people paraded joyously in the streets. President Wilson went before Congress, where he was heartily cheered, and to Congress he said: "The victorious nations will set up a just peace throughout the world."

In the trenches, U. S. troops fought to the last minute. General Pershing was disappointed because he wanted to take the war into Germany. But at eleven p.m., when the armistice officially began, the frontline troops, officers and enlisted men, were overjoyed. They cheered. Officers and enlisted men fraternized, and enlisted men crossed over to Germans in their trenches a short distance away. And to the surprise of the Americans, they found overjoyed German soldiers, who cheered and fired flares in celebration through the night.

The influenza epidemic was now winding down. It had spread from Europe to every corner of the United States. In previous times, influenza had been killing five persons per thousand people per year, but recently it had been killing four per thousand per week. More American soldiers had died from the flu than from enemy fire power, and thousands of wounded had died because they were weakened by the disease. In the winter of 1918-19, over 500,000 Americans died from the flu and its complications. The development of a vaccine to combat the virus would not occur for another fifteen years.

People in the Allied nations were joyously claiming that a great victory had been won. God was thanked for having brought victory. In Germany and Austria-Hungary, God could at least be thanked that the war was over - the war that God was supposed to have sanctioned. The killing was over, but a lot of prayers had gone unanswered. The British Empire had lost over 908,000 - to be described in a London Times headline as the glorious dead. Many more were maimed and disfigured. Britain's young aristocratic males, who had become lieutenants and had led the vain charges against German lines early in the war, had been wiped out. France had suffered 1,357,000 dead - around 10.5 percent of the entire male population. Germany had suffered an equal number of military deaths in proportion to its greater population, deaths numbering 1,773,000. Austria-Hungary had suffered 1,200,000 dead, Italy 650,000, the Ottoman Empire 325,000, the United States 126,000, and Japan 300. Civilian deaths were not counted, but they must have numbered in the millions. Russia's population alone was 39 million less than the 171 million it had been in 1914.

The war Franz Joseph had started in order to preserve his empire, was ending with the breakup of the Habsburg Empire, and the rule of Habsburg monarchs, King Karl abdicating on November 10. The war Nicholas had launched by mobilizing against Germany and Austria-Hungary had left him and his family dead. Wilhelm, who had recklessly given Austria-Hungary a blank check in responding to the assassination of the Archduke, was now in exile in Holland.

Germany would have been better off had it not tied itself to the Habsburgs. Germany had led in science and manufacturing, and what brought it down was not the stab in the back in 1918 imagined by so many Germans. What brought it down was an unwillingness to make a compromise settlement during the stalemate of 1914-15.  The Russians, of course, as well as the Serbs, would have been better off if Tsar Nicholas had merely sent advisors and equipment to the Serbs and let the Serbs and the Habsburg forces fight it out - as the Italians and Franz Joseph had in the mid-1800s. And the answer to the question whether the United States accomplished their goal in entering the war - to make the world safe for democracy or to end all war - was about to unfold on the world stage.

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Copyright © 1998 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.

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