4
A Card for the Front Comic postcards were popular in Britain long before the Great War, and cards offering a humorous take on war-related subjects were produced during the war. Word-play— the pun, the double entendre—was part of that tradition and may be seen on comic British postcards produced throughout the war years. Later in the war, however, a different sensibility was reflected on even “comic” British postcards—a darker humor reflecting the worldview of those living through darker times.
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29.
A Seafaring Race
Britain would not stand aside while any European
Britons considered it no accident that their
power achieved hegemony on the Continent. Brit-
empire arose out of voyages of exploration
ain would always support the Continent’s second
undertaken by intrepid British sea captains,
greatest power in opposing the ambitions of its first.
and famous victories won in sea battles by
That was a principle that Chamberlain’s vision of
the British fleet: Britannia ruled the waves
Britain’s alliance with Germany had ignored.
because the British were, as they regarded
Another of the ancient British verities was the
themselves, “a seafaring race.” The fact that Britain maintained the
indispensability to Britain of a dominant navy, not
world’s preeminent battle fleet was both
only to serve as the glue that held Britain’s far-flung
an expression of Britons’ self-identification
empire together but for defense of the home isles.
and a means of projecting British influence
Indeed, Britain had always maintained a small army
beyond the home islands. On French
relative to those of the continental powers, relying
postcard 29, Britain’s King Edward VII is
on the protection afforded by the surrounding wa-
seen as a part of one of his battleships— so interconnected, in the world’s view, was
ters and the might of the Royal Navy. Early in his
the British nation and its fleet.
famous Commentaries, Lord Blackstone stated: The royal navy of England hath ever been its greatest defense and ornament; it is its ancient and natural strength . . . the floating bulwark of the island. So critical was dominance at sea that the Royal Navy’s ship-construction program was informed by the so-called “Two Power Standard,” which required Britain to maintain a fleet larger than the next two largest naval powers combined. Those were the stakes on the table when Germany chose, in 1897, to undertake construction of a battleship fleet to challenge the dominance of the British Royal Navy. Playing central roles in the Anglo-German naval competition were two of the leading figures of the pre-war period. If any other German may be said to have embodied the aggressive weltpolitik of Kaiser Wilhelm II, it was Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. Imposing and arrogant, Tirpitz was a fervent believer in Germany’s
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The German Empire’s Helmsman 30.
German postcard 30 depicts Kaiser Wilhelm II as “Germany’s helmsman.” If there were any doubts regarding the kaiser’s resolution to steer personally the German ship of state, Wilhelm answered them by forcing Bismarck’s resignation in 1890 and by
entitlement to rule the European continent. He also was a believ-
making it clear that chancellors he appointed in succeeding years were answerable to him. Had he seen this postcard, the kaiser would
er in the views of Alfred Thayer
have loved it: the image comported with his
Mahan regarding the impor-
image of himself. By way of his exposure to
tance of naval power. Mahan’s
seafaring ways during his visits to his mother’s
1890 book, The Influence of Sea
homeland, Great Britain, the kaiser came to fan-
Power Upon History, 1660–1783, expounded
the
proposition
cy himself an expert in matters nautical—a “man of the sea.” Wilhelm observed the yacht races at Brit-
that the nation in control of the
ain’s Cowes regatta and witnessed the sailing
world’s oceans controlled the
triumphs of the yacht captained by his hated
world. Mahan’s views were also
uncle, Bertie (later, King Edward VII). The kaiser
embraced by the kaiser. Tirpitz was thus, in this, a man after Wilhelm’s own heart.
became obsessed with competitive yacht racing, particularly when there was an opportunity to best his uncle’s entrant. Wilhelm’s yachts were often skippered by hired Britons, but the
When Tirpitz first proposed
kaiser occasionally seized the wheel. As recalled
construction of a German fleet
by Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow, “If the kaiser
in 1897, Wilhelm did not intend
steered himself, we regularly hit the buoy.”
it as an instrument for waging war on Great Britain. Indeed,
The kaiser did not hesitate to personally involve himself in the details of Germany’s plans to construct a battleship fleet to rival Great Brit-
until its outbreak, the kaiser en-
ain’s. However, he was afraid of losing his pre-
tertained the belief (in the end,
cious fleet once it was assembled, and so pre-
against all reason) that Germany
vented it from engaging in a decisive battle with
and Great Britain would not be enemies in the war he was helping to instigate. There is reason to believe that Tirpitz first proposed construction of a formidable German fleet to the kaiser as a means of winning Britain’s respect (which the insecure kaiser perpetually craved), and suggested that the fleet’s existence would serve as a trading chip in diplomatic discussions with the British. If that was
the British fleet by keeping it in harbor throughout the war, effectively ceding to Britain the power to impose a blockade of German ocean commerce. So it was that The German Empire’s Helmsman steered its fleet.
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36.
Germany’s Answers to Dreadnought Postcards 36 and 37 portray two German battleships of the dreadnought class, SMS Nassau and SMS Thuringen, both launched in 1909. Many of Germany’s dreadnoughts were constructed in the shipyards of Kiel on the Baltic Sea. Their beam and draft required Germany to widen and deepen the Kiel Canal between the Baltic and North Seas to af-
37.
ford the newly constructed German ships freedom of movement. That major engineering project was not completed until 1914. Fisher, well aware of the Kiel Canal project, predicted in 1908 that war between Britain and Germany would begin upon completion of the canal’s expansion. His prediction of the date on which hostilities would begin was, of course, very nearly correct, but not for the reason on which it was based. There was only one major battle involving the capital ships of Germany and Britain—and that battle did not occur until two years after completion of the Kiel Canal project. In short: the naval competition between Britain and Germany increased the likelihood that the two powers would be arrayed on opposing sides in the Great War, but had no direct bearing on the date when the war began.
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38.
The threat of Germany’s naval program not only inspired a reciprocal ship-building program in Britain, but informed Britain’s decision to abandon its policy of isolation to pursue ententes with France and Russia, diplomatic moves that increased Germany’s disquiet. In 1907 Germany completed three dreadnoughts; none was completed that year in Britain. Apprehensions concerning German intentions led to the 1909 Naval Scare in Britain. Public pressure forced Prime Minister Herbert Asquith to propose a budget that included tax increases for improved social programs and an increase in ship-building. The naval initiative was demanded by Britons who chanted, at political rallies, “We want eight, and we won’t wait!” The influence of public pressure in Britain cannot be exaggerated. Winston Churchill, then serving as Britain’s home secretary, recorded this wry re-
More Dread-Noughts!
flection on the appropriations process: “The Admiralty had demanded six
The German program of ship-building was viewed as a threat by Britons at all lev-
ships; the economists offered four; and we finally compromised on eight.”
els. “What did Germany want this great navy for?” Winston Churchill, then serving
British society, from the man on the street to those occupying cabinet
as Britain’s First Sea Lord, had asked himself. “Against whom, except us, could she
positions, agreed that Britain simply could not afford to lose the competi-
measure it, match it, or use it?” Churchill understood that he was not alone in his
tion for naval supremacy and would need to commit to that competition such resources as were required. Naval supremacy was perceived by Britons to be a matter of survival, whereas the force being assembled by the kaiser amounted to what Churchill called a “luxury fleet.”
apprehensions with regard to Germany’s exertions to construct a fleet, observing that “there was a deep and growing feeling, no longer confined to political and diplomatic circles, that the Prussians meant mischief.” Postcard 38 supports Churchill’s observation that his suspicions regarding Germany’s intentions were entertained broadly in Britain. “More Dread-Noughts!” (sic)
Just as Tirpitz assumed Germany’s principal enemy would be Britain,
demand the young Britons on this postcard. The card’s image has the young couple
and that the instrument of victory over that enemy would be the German
looking toward the southeast—toward Germany. Although it was published long
High Seas Fleet, so did Fisher believe that Britain was girding for an inevitable war against Germany—and that the weapons of decision would be manned by sailors.
before the war began, the lad on the card is already brandishing a rifle—ready. It was no accident that Churchill made “The Growth of the German Navy” the very first chapter of his celebrated multi-volume history, The Great War—a chapter tellingly entitled “Milestones to Armageddon.”
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126
circumstances, Wilhelm proposed yet another battle, to be waged by the army on his behalf—reminding the troops of the oath of allegiance they had taken to him. But with more than two million of their fellows dead, and now overwhelmed in every sector, the dispirited army was not buying the message of suicidal loyalty that Wilhelm had to sell: a poll of divisional commanders revealed that they were not prepared to fight for the kaiser, to whom they were, at that point, “quite indifferent.” It took a senior German general to tell Wilhelm, “Sire, you no longer have an army.” Forced to abdicate his throne, the bitter ex-kaiser wanted Germany to appreciate the enormous treasure the nation had so wantonly tossed aside. “You no longer have a War Lord,” he pettishly told those few minions still around to hear him.
Confidence in Military Leadership—Waxing, and Waning [II] Just as each of the warring nations soon lost expectations of a quick and glorious victory, so did a number of them become disenchanted with the leaders who were supposed to deliver that victory. None of the combatants produced postcards openly critical of its own war-time leaders. With regard to correspondence from the front, censorship would of course have foreclosed the expression of such views. Telling, however, is the absence of postcards of a certain type during relevant periods of time. For example, one is hard put to find postcards mailed in Britain in 1917 or 1918 portraying General Haig in a nimbus of glory. 127
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185.
Zeppelin Coming! Postcard 185 could aptly appear at more than one place in this volume. But it is
innovation. Posted in April, 1915, this German postcard provides a foreshadow-
more than simply a representative of the war-as-game, or war-as-lark, cate-
ing of humanity’s future that is the more chilling for the lighthearted purport of
gory of poignantly delusional early-war postcards—although it certainly could
its imagery.
qualify as either. The implications of this postcard’s imagery put it in a category of its own, and entitle it to the special attention it receives here. The Let’s-Slaughter-Civilians game was, in relevant particulars, a Great War
208
In the pictured game, only one child is in a military uniform. The smiling German child-soldier on the card’s far left is manipulating a toy zeppelin that is dropping little bombs on a cluster of buildings captioned “London.” The other
children, cowering in London, are in civilian dress: they are civilians.
against air attacks led to the creation of the Royal Air Force, on April 1, 1918, by
The concept of “total war” has been attributed to Carl Phillipp von Clause-
combining the Royal Flying Corps (the air arm of the British Army) with the Roy-
witz (1780–1831), the Prussian general and military theorist. He never used the
al Naval Air Service, making the combined entity independent of those other
term, however, and the closest he came to the more modern concept was his
services—and, hence, the world’s oldest independent air force.
acknowledgment that the notion of waging war in a limited way is a “logical
Although Germany expanded the scope of its bombing of civilian targets in the
fantasy”: natural impulses would always impel belligerents to use all means at
Second World War (Warsaw, Rotterdam, and Coventry were added to London as
their disposal to achieve victory.
blitz targets), Britain and its allies had gone to school in the intervening years and
The Germans, in their 1914 invasion of Belgium, were not the first nation to
put to their own use Germany’s war-making innovation. Echoing with eerie exac-
employ the systematic execution of civilians to demoralize an enemy in war.
titude Tirpitz’s 1915 statement, Sir Arthur (“Bomber”) Harris, commander-in-chief
There is no dispute, however, that the Germans, in the Great War, were the first
of the RAF’s Bomber Command during the later years of World War II, justified as
to employ a terror tactic of even greater and more far-reaching consequence:
follows the objectives of Britain’s bombing of German cities in 1942–45:
the deployment of manned warcraft to bomb civilian populations from the air. In the first month of the war, Germany dropped bombs from a zeppelin on
The aim of the Combined Bomber Offensive . . . should be unam-
the Belgian city of Liège, killing nine civilians. In August and September of 1914,
biguously stated [as] the destruction of German cities, the killing of
German zeppelins and propeller aircraft conducted a number of bombing raids
German workers, and the disruption of civilised life throughout Ger-
on Antwerp and Paris.
many. . . . The breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle
Unsurprisingly, Germany’s most concerted air campaign was reserved for
fronts, by fear of extended and intensified bombing, are accepted
England, Germany’s most hated enemy. The initial proposal was originated by
and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products
the German admiralty, whose chief, Alfred von Tirpitz, made the campaign’s
of attempts to hit factories.
objectives perfectly plain: “The measure of success will lie not only with the injury which may be caused to the enemy, but also in the significant effect it will have in diminishing the enemy’s determination to prosecute the war.” The objective, in other words, was to weaken Britain’s will to fight by instilling terror in its civilian population. Germany’s first zeppelin raid on England was conducted on January 19–20, 1915, resulting in the deaths of four civilians in the south of the country. The first zeppelin attack on London was in May of 1915. Germany conducted twenty raids in 1915, killing 181 people and injuring 455.
Putting aside the nuclear attacks on Japan, six of the ten most devastating bombing campaigns of World War II were sustained by the German cities of Kassel, Darmstadt, Pforzheim, Berlin, Dresden, and Hamburg. It is estimated that Germany incurred between 350,000 and 400,000 civilian deaths in those attacks, including more than 40,000 in Hamburg, and as many as 50,000 in Berlin. Arthur Harris’s most famous statement made reference to a biblical prophecy (Hosea 8:7), as follows: The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that
The raids continued into the following years of the war and targeted, in par-
they were going to bomb everybody else, and nobody was going to
ticular, the East End of London. On June 13, 1917, a formation of Gotha biplanes
bomb them. . . . They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap
bombed London’s Poplar District. One bomb fell on that area’s council school,
the whirlwind.
killing eighteen students in an infant class, sixteen of whom were between four and six years old.
Harris made specific reference to Germany’s bombing of specific English
Over the course of the war, German zeppelins, referred to as “baby killers” by
cities in the war then ongoing, no doubt considering it unnecessary to invoke
Britons, staged more than fifty attacks on Britain, resulting in approximately six
earlier precedents. Had he wanted to invoke such precedents, however, he
hundred civilian fatalities. Those raids had no material impact on the outcome
could have done so. This 1915 postcard, to the point, shows a member of Ger-
of the war. They did, however, establish a precedent—and inspire a response.
many’s military, smiling—and sowing the wind.
The report of Great Britain’s formal inquiry into the country’s ability to defend
209
238
239
268.
Thus, a recruitment poster asked British women: Is your Best Boy wearing khaki? If not, don’t you think he should be? And suggesting: If you cannot persuade him to answer his country’s call and protect you now, discharge him as unfit. A women’s Active Service League asked its members to commit to an undertaking: “I pledge myself never to be seen in public with any man who, being in every way fit and free for service, has refused his country’s call.” In the vein of using masculine pride to induce enlistment, a controversial move was the creation of the Order of the White Feather on August 30, 1914. A white feather was a recognized symbol of cowardice, and the White Feather Brigade was made up of British girls who righteously handed feathers to men who were not in military uniform. Many, including some British women, were appalled by the campaign—particularly by the enthusiastic participation of females who would not, themselves, be obliged to serve. A biting indictment was directed at the prototypical Feather Girl by one Helen Hamilton, which ends: But still the day may come For you to prove yourself As sacrificial as upbraiding. So far they are not taking us
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269.
Those in Need of Pushing, Pushed The women of Britain were told that it was their patriotic duty to urge the men in their lives to enlist; that, indeed, it was unseemly to be seen in the company of an able-bodied man not in uniform. Reciprocally, British men not in service were made to feel that they were unworthy of a woman’s affection. Postcards 268, 269, and 270 played off those themes.
270.
It can only be assumed that postcard 268 was published very early in the war, when the idea of dying in the war appeared fit for humorous treatment. But even putting aside niceties of timing, it is simply not possible to imagine this postcard being published in any of the other combatant nations.
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in deployed artillery. He began to use surveillance and centralized control to bring French artillery to bear on concentrations of Ger-
317.
man troops when they appeared during preparations for fresh assaults. The result was that the very tactics that were intended by Falkenhayn to “bleed France white” accounted for large and increasing numbers of German casualties. There were of course multiple engagements within the tenmonth battle of Verdun—including, famously, bloody assaults on the elevation known as Le Mort Homme (Dead Man), which changed hands several times during the battle. (By the end of the fighting incessant artillery fire by both sides had lowered the hill’s elevation by several meters.) The death toll of the battle of Verdun exceeded 300,000 men. Confounding Falkenhayn’s cold-blooded calculations, French
French Infantry Relieved of Duty on Mort Homme
battle fatalities did not exceed German fatalities by the antici-
One of Pétain’s most appreciated innovations was rotation of French troops into and out
pated margin; and the French Army, notwithstanding the losses
of the Verdun front lines. Units would typically spend no longer than two weeks in an area
sustained, emerged from the battle with its war-making capacity
of intense combat before being relieved. As a result, about three of every four French
still intact.
soldiers saw service at Verdun at some point during the battle. The battle became in that way a national experience—and the outcome, a source of national pride. Postcard 317 shows the survivors of a French unit that had been relieved after serving its time in the Mort Homme “Blood Mill.”
The failure of the Verdun offensive to break the French will to fight cost Falkenhayn his position. He was replaced by his nemesis, General Paul von Hindenburg, who had acquired his reputation on the war’s Eastern Front. While fighting in Russia and Poland, Hindenburg and his chief-of-staff, General Erich Ludendorff, regularly directed missives to Berlin critical of Falkenhayn’s strategies and results—the failed attack on Verdun serving as Exhibit A.
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319.
318.
Ne Passeront Pas “Verdun” became a byword for French patriotism and sacrifice. On June 23, 1916, General Robert Nivelle, successor to Pétain as Commander of the French Second Army at Verdun, gave voice, in his “Order of the Day,” to a rallying call that quickly achieved immortality: “Ils ne passeront pas!” Nivelle declared: They shall not pass! Versions of Nivelle’s order are found on many postcards, postcard 318 being an example. The French were proud of Nivelle’s resonant words of defiant resolve—and of the fact that the French Army made good on them. Postcard 319 gave royal treatment to a simplified iteration of Nivelle’s famous pronouncement. The statement, and the image of the stalwart poilu prepared to give it meaning on the field of battle, are woven into a piece of silk glued to a stiff paper backing. Such postcards were expensive. Rarely posted by themselves, they were usually carried home by soldiers on leave, or mailed in envelopes.
333
363.
Postcard images presented in this chapter offer differing (occasionally, contradictory) takes on the impact of the British blockade on the welfare of Germans—those in civilian walks, and those in the military. Postcard 361 depicts a row of anthropomorphic foodstuffs, in the “War Period 1916.” The bread, the butter, the pork—all are smiling reassuringly. The legend at its lower margin assures the German purchasers of this postcard that the “hunger devil” would be held at bay if they steadfastly held to upbeat messages from the government. Images like this one of course changed famine’s reality in no way, but amounted to propaganda—pure and simple. Exertions were made to deliver adequate nutrition to the troops in the field, and German Army morale remained relatively high for a time, even as suffering was widespread in the civilian population. As the months and years of blockade passed, however, not even the trenches were immune from the reach of shortages—notwithstanding the sometimes puzzling propaganda efforts to deny realities that had already become manifest to all—friend and foe alike. Postcard 363 portrays two German soldiers—well-fed, to appearances —contemplating a loin of meat just arrived in the post. The caption, “famished Germany,” is plainly intended to be ironic: the pictured soldiers are not famished. The question is: for whose consumption was this postcard produced? By the second year of the war, the average German knew that well-fed Germans were rarely to be seen—that the starvation of Germany was a reality, and not the invention of enemy propagandists. If the “well-fed German soldier” images were intended for the enemy’s consumption, the record offered by contemporary postcards establishes
386
that the French, at least, were not having it. A significant number of those postcards make it clear that the French were well aware of Germany’s plight, and were not above using it as grist for their own propaganda mills. French postcard 365, to that point, portrays a German soldier clutching at his belly—captioned: “the ferocious beast senses the approach of hunger.”
Germany’s U-Boat Blockade The British blockade induced the Germans to retaliate with an effort to blockade Britain. As Germany’s surface fleet could not do the job, U-boats were employed. German U-boats began unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1915, sinking all vessels in the zone of interdiction, enemy and neutral alike. The British passenger ship Lusitania was sent to the bottom by a U-boat torpedo on May 7, 1915, resulting in the deaths of 1,201 passengers, including 128 Americans. The outrage in then-neutral America prompted Germany to impose constraints on U-boat attacks. By early 1917, however, Germany’s situation was so dire that the kaiser was persuaded to lift those restrictions, meaning that American merchant ships would be subject to attack. When Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare, it was understood in Berlin that the step would almost certainly bring the United States into the war on the side of the Allies. Central to the kaiser’s decision to authorize expansion of U-boat warfare was the assurance of the measure’s proponents that Britain, without interdicted supplies of food from the United States, would
Propaganda of Famine [II]
be starved into submission by the autumn of 1917—before American troops would be a meaningful
The message intended to be conveyed by postcard
presence in Europe. That calculus proved to be mistaken.
363 is also the freight of German postcard 364, which
Britain’s adoption of a convoy system to accompany merchant ships on their Atlantic crossings meant that a smaller percentage fell victim to U-boat attacks. In addition, many more U-boats were destroyed. Britain was not starved into submission; and by the summer of 1918 two million Amer-
features
two
smiling—portly—German
soldiers.
“What? England wants to starve us!” they ask. “Oh, no!” they protest—with implied sarcasm.
ican soldiers were in France. What, in sum, was the situation of Germany, three years into the war? Germany’s plan to knock France out of the war in 1914 had not succeeded; and Germany remained engaged in a costly,
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364.
Now years into the war, and with their resources near to exhaustion, the French and the British independently arrived at the same Big Idea. General Pétain, relieving the disgraced Nivelle, pledged to refrain from major French offensives until the Americans arrived—a development which, in 1917, was finally in prospect. Even at that time, British leaders, in an attempt to dissuade General Haig from launching his Passchendaele offensive, suggested that major British attacks be deferred— until the Americans arrived. At length, the Americans did arrive: Germany all but insisted on it. America’s involvement in the Great War appears, in retrospect, paradoxical. For years, isolationism appeared to be the consensus preference of the American polity. President Woodrow Wilson was a passionate proponent of neutrality during the early-war years; but once Wilson concluded that German conduct required America to join the Allied cause, Americans plunged into the conflict with a will. America’s earlier, official posture of disengagement appeared to have masked passions within the populace that were anything but neutral. Chronicling the tortuous journey that brought America into the war appropriately begins with “first principles.” The United States had been disposed against involvement in European conflicts from the days of the country’s creation. Thus, when President Wilson declared in 1914 that the United States intended to be “impartial in thought, as well as in action,” his policy was in accord with national tradition: he could invoke in its support no less venerable an authority than the 1796 valedictory admonition of George Washington—advice that the United States “avoid foreign entanglements.”
410
378.
When the Great War began, Americans saw it as a European matter to be sorted out by Europeans. The issues that had brought European nations to war seemed mostly esoteric and remote. In that, those issues were unlike the alleged Spanish atrocities in Cuba at the end of the previous century—atrocities committed on America’s very doorstep. The latter provocations had compelled the nation’s engagement in the Spanish-American War—seen as a justified exception to the national policy of isolationism, which (by this telling) remained intact. Although America viewed itself as a presence on the world stage, that belief did not give rise to a felt obligation to involve the nation in overseas wars. Domestic politics also appeared to militate in favor of neutrality with respect to the Great War. A sizable percentage of the country’s population was of German or Irish ancestry, and thus unfavorably disposed toward Great Britain and its cause. As the years of the war passed, however, American public opinion increasingly favored the cause of the Allies. German atrocities in Belgium were reported in large-circulation American newspapers in the form of the eye-witness accounts of celebrity journalists. Less than a year after the invasion of Belgium, American public opinion was further outraged when Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare resulted in the sinking of the British passenger liner, RMS Lusitania, bringing about the deaths of more than a thousand civilian passengers—among them, 128 Americans. However, President Wilson declined to use the Lusitania sinking as a reason to involve America in the war. Indeed, without making direct reference to Lusitania, Wilson, in remarks addressed to a group
411
430.
roy of India, who observed, “After ‘the war to end war,’ they seem to have been pretty successful in Paris at making the ‘Peace to end Peace.’” Once the Allies agreed to its terms, the treaty was presented to Germany with an ultimatum: the war would resume if Germany did not sign the treaty as presented. The president of the German Republic, Philipp Scheidemann, resigned rather than sign the treaty under duress. Gustav Bauer, who succeeded Scheidemann, stated his intention to sign if certain particularly offensive articles were removed, including the War Guilt Clause. In response, the Allies sent Bauer a telegram stating that Germany would be invaded by Allied forces if the treaty, as presented, was not signed within twenty-four hours. On June 23, Bauer capitulated German “protectorates” that had thereby been established), and required
and advised the Allies that a German delegation would shortly arrive to sign
Germany to recognize the independence of Poland and Czechoslovakia.
the treaty. It was in those circumstances that the Treaty of Versailles was
Controversially, Article 231 of the proposed treaty—what became known
signed in the Palace of Versailles on June 28, 1919.
as the “War Guilt Clause”—provided that: The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies. Critics of the emerging treaty viewed it as unproductively vindictive, pointing out that the victors and the vanquished would continue to live in proximity in the years to come. Some expressed that assessment with trenchant cynicism, such as British staff officer Archibald Wavell, a future Vice-
456
While some viewed the Treaty’s terms as excessively punitive, France’s Marshal Foch was of another view. He wanted Germany divided into several separate states and argued for the creation of new, independent states on the western bank of the Rhine that would be permanently separated from Germany. Foch was convinced that anything less would leave Germany the dominant power in Europe—momentarily hobbled, but certain to rise and reassert its expansionist impulses. He considered Clemenceau’s acceptance of a treaty that settled for less to be “treasonous capitulation.” “This is not peace,” Foch said of the Treaty of Versailles. “It is an armistice for twenty years.” Although separate treaties would be signed with others of the Central Powers, the Versailles Treaty brought the Great War to a formal end. The period following was looked upon by most, at the time, as “peace.”
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431.
Alsace-Lorraine Restored to France France’s reaccession of Alsace and Lorraine, lost to Prussia in 1871, was particularly satisfying to French pride. Postcard 431 depicts the scene after the French army reoccupied Metz, the capital of the department of Lorraine, in November of 1918. In 1915, the kaiser, during a tour of Metz, directed that the face of a statue of Daniel at the Metz Cathedral be altered to bear his own likeness. After the Germans withdrew from Metz, one of the cathedral’s clerics hung a sign from the statue’s hand: sic transit gloria mundi. But permitting the statue to remain, even as a cautionary symbol, plainly was not enough for the city’s francophone citizenry: postcard 431 shows that statue after it had been toppled. A member of the celebrating crowd holds an American flag.
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483