Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Farage:1918 Armistice a mistake - push for Unconditional Surrender

Options
  • 12-11-2014 4:28pm
    #1
    donaghs
    Registered Users Posts: 2,695 ✭✭✭


    Read this in the news today: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/nov/11/farage-ukip-armistice-hitler-german-surrender-first-world-war

    The idea being that the Armistice was a mistake, it occurred too early, and it allowed the the Germans (although in retreat) to claim their army was undefeated, and instead had been "stabbed in the back" (by socialists, jews, politicians, etc). Essentially that all this led to the rise of Hitler, the Holocaust, WW2 etc etc.

    At first, when I see his name, I'm inclined to disagree. But also, it would be hard to not want to stop that unparalleled bloodshed. Especially for Allies when the Germans were the ones coming looking for surrender terms.

    But, this isn't a new argument, and Farage repeating it doesn't make automatically wrong.

    The day after the Armistice, Field Marshall Hindenburg said "You have kept the enemy from crossing our frontiers and you have saved your country from the miseries and disasters of war... We end the struggle proudly and with our heads held high where we have stood for four years in the face of a world full of enemies.". Not exactly true, but widely believed in Germany, along with the "betrayal". German people also flocked to welcome home the "undefeated army" in late 1918. Can't remember the names of the historians who've made this point before. In WW2, the Allies wanted to make it very clear to Germany that they had indeed lost the war, and shouldn't try another one in the near future.

    My own point of view is more ambiguous. I can see the logic behind "total victory". But its a very high price to pay for a theory. In the end of the day, its just speculation, who knows what may have happened after ww1. In the Allied shoes, I would have accepted Armistice - with reservations too.


Comments

  • Options
    #2
    Manach
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 9,671 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manach


    My own understanding that the myth of the undefeated German army stemmed from a post war conversation with a member of the German general staff: blaming Bolsheviks and others. From numerous texts on WWI, it would seem that the civil fabric of German had been frayed to breaking point. Losses in the war and the Allied blockade had brought that country to the edge. In 1919 by Read (great name for an author) he describes the numerous social actors that were politically tearing Germany apart and there was a real risk of civil war and dis-integration into the prior composite states, pre-Bismark.

    As well, as per Read the allied states apart from the US were in scarcely better condition with a genuine threat of civil dissonance and mutiny if the war continued.


  • Options
    #3
    donaghs
    Registered Users Posts: 2,695 ✭✭✭donaghs


    Manach wrote: »
    My own understanding that the myth of the undefeated German army stemmed from a post war conversation with a member of the German general staff: blaming Bolsheviks and others. From numerous texts on WWI, it would seem that the civil fabric of German had been frayed to breaking point. Losses in the war and the Allied blockade had brought that country to the edge. In 1919 by Read (great name for an author) he describes the numerous social actors that were politically tearing Germany apart and there was a real risk of civil war and dis-integration into the prior composite states, pre-Bismark.

    As well, as per Read the allied states apart from the US were in scarcely better condition with a genuine threat of civil dissonance and mutiny if the war continued.

    Nonetheless the German army were defeated. It was just matter if when they wanted to stop their fighting retreat. Internal problems certainly contributed to this but I think to give too much prominence to this justifies the stab in the back myth.

    Also the blockade on Germany caused much worse shortages in Germany than in France or Britain.


  • Options
    #4
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,131 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    The other issues, of course, was the concern that if the Allies pressed on and Germany really did disintegrate, it must have seemed likely that, as had happened the year before in Russia, the end result would be a communist state. And a communist Germany would have looked like a much, much bigger threat than communist Russia.


  • Options
    #5
    JBG2011
    Registered Users Posts: 53 ✭✭JBG2011


    Farage's argument is essentially meaningless as he's entering into wild counter factual speculation. He's looking at 1918 from modern eyes, with the advantage of hindsight. The Allied leaders in 1918 could in no way have foreseen the rise of Nazism and all it entailed.

    While the German army which sought an armistice in 1918 remained on foreign soil it was in headlong retreat, with morale openly collapsing and revolution was spreading throughout Germany. Had the Allies rejected their offer and continued their pursuit it is likely that they would have entered Germany and inflicted upon them a final military defeat. How exactly this would have happened and what would have been the consequences, we simply don't know.

    It's a point which historians have argued for generations and Farage is saying nothing at all new. I'm inclined to think that it fits in with his world view of there being a bogeyman on the continent, and hinting to his audience that it's within Britain's power to do something about it.


  • Options
    #6
    DarkyHughes
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,393 ✭✭✭DarkyHughes


    Or better solution would have been to make the terms of the treaty more fair & not to punish Germany. Then there would have been a lot slimmer chance of the rise of fascism in Germany. An unconditional surrender would have embarrassed the Germans even more & might have led to rise of the Nazi's even quicker.


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #7
    donaghs
    Registered Users Posts: 2,695 ✭✭✭donaghs


    Maybe, that's the standard view. It would be the noble thing to do.

    It would be particularly hard for France to let Germany off lightly. The Western front was basically fought it north-east France (their industrial heartland) and was completely devastated. Its also sometimes forgotten that the retreating Germans also employed scorched-earth tactics in France in 1918. As well as measure to slow the Allies like destroying bridges and railways, they also deliberately blew up factories, flooded mines etc. Forcibly evacuated the local population with them.

    http://www.remembrancetrails-northernfrance.com/history/the-department-of-nord-and-the-coal-basin-under-german-occupation/refugees-forced-evacuation-and-scorched-earth.html

    Sometimes come across views which say the opposite: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4725294/Was-Versailles-harsh-enough.html

    Interesting to consider how harshly France was treaty after the Franco-Prussian war. The French lost the mineral-rich Alscace Lorraine, and also paid back all the Reparations demanded of them, ahead of schedule.


Advertisement