1917 is over but the war is not.
But even as nations plan huge new offensives in the field to hopefully make such an end
a reality, one man alone is putting into words his specific hopes for a postwar world, Woodrow Wilson
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.
Last week, the Italians pushed the Austrians back at the Piave River, and the British advanced
from Jerusalem in the Middle East.
Russia had left the war and was negotiating peace with the Central Powers, but Civil War
had broken out in the former Russian Empire, with many regions declaring independence,
and the Soviet army occupying Kharkov.
Here’s what followed.
There were developments in the ongoing Russian peace process.
On the 7th, Leon Trotsky and other Russian delegates return to Brest-Litovsk for more
negotiating after a holiday break.
Trotsky was now there to hopefully prevent Central powers demands for huge chunks of
Russian territory with the threat of world revolution and specifically revolution within
Germany.
On the 5th, the Ottomans communicated their peace terms to Russia - these include total
Russian demobilization and disarmament, and the annulment of treaties relating to Persia.
The Ottomans would remain armed and mobilized and were intent on recovering lands in eastern
Anatolia lost to Russia in 1878.
That sort of clashed with something that was going on in the US this week.
President Woodrow Wilson made a speech to Congress outlining his 14 points for peace
on the 8th.
This was a statement of principles that would hopefully guide peace negotiations to end
the war.
The points were:
1.
open diplomacy with no private international understandings
2.
freedom of the seas 3.
removal of economic barriers and equality of trade
4.
reduction of armaments to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety
5.
colonial claims to be adjusted and “the interests of the populations concerned must
have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.”
6.
evacuation of Russian territory and development assistance there
7.
evacuation and restoration of Belgium 8.
French territory evacuated and the “wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871” over
Alsace-Lorraine be righted 9.
Italian border readjusted by nationality, giving Italy the Austrian South Tyrol.
10.
Austro-Hungarian peoples’ allowed autonomous development
11.
Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro evacuated and Serbia given access to the sea.
12.
Non-Ottoman nationalities in the Ottoman Empire to have autonomous development, and the Dardanelles
permanently opened for free commercial passage 13.
formation of an Independent Poland with access to the sea
14.
a General Association of Nations with mutual guarantees of independence and integrity must
be formed.
A lot of this doesn’t go as far as you might think on the surface.
For example, the peoples of Austria-Hungary would not be given independence, but rather
“the freest of autonomous development”.
There was no encouragement for a state for the Southern Slavs.
Austria-Hungary would have to evacuate Serbia and Montenegro, sure, but there’s no mention
at all of Croats and Slovenes.
It was pretty well received in Europe, but Wilson’s allies were somewhat skeptical
of what they saw as Wilson’s idealism.
But there was a real race for national patronage going on, and new nations were emerging all
the time.
Latvia declared its separation from Russia January 9th, and on the 13th, in revolutionary
decree number 13, Lenin and Stalin announced support for Armenian self-determination.
Let’s look at the Caucasus Front and those Armenians for a minute.
The stability of that front had pretty much disappeared after the October Russian revolution.
The Russian General Headquarters there was still functional in Erzurum, but General Przevalski
was pretty worried about a possible Ottoman offensive in the area.
The Baku oilfields were a tempting target.
The Russian staff couldn’t really organize a true defense with large parts of the army
just leaving and going home, so they would have to rely on national formations.
A Transcaucasian Federation was set up and had the nucleus of three states that would
one day be independent, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
Now, this federation did not recognize the Soviet government in Russia, but had yet to
officially secede from Russia.
But the three national groups had different interests.
The Tartars of Azerbaijan were happy to base future hopes on Turkish friendship, the Georgians
were hesitant about that, and the Armenians weren’t down with that at all and were seriously
dismayed.
They were Christian, strongly pro-Ally, pro-Russia and tried to develop a national army with
the help of Russian Caucasus HQ.
By now, it was two divisions of Armenian rifles, three brigades of volunteers, a cavalry brigade,
and some militia.
Each division was four regiments strong and each regiment was three battalions.
The volunteer brigades were four battalions each, and the cavalry was two regiments.
The rifle divisions were made up of men from the Armenian Druzhiny battalions, who had
seen serious action from 1914-1916.
They were bolstered by Armenians from different units of General Nikolai Yudenich’s former
army - he had retired before the October revolution - who had decided to join their compatriots.
The volunteers, though, were natives of Ottoman Armenia who joined the national army on the
spot in places like Erzurum and Van.
The army had plenty of good equipment, scavenged from the rear of Yudenich’s disintegrating
army, and the infantry was well-stocked with machine guns.
The artillery could have been stronger, though some of that was down to a lack of trained
gunners.
The Armenian national army numbered around 16,000 infantry, 1,000 cavalry, and 4,000
militia.
Ottoman Minister of War Enver Pasha saw the Russian revolution as a sign for the realization
of his ambitions to the east and expansion here might make up for the loss or impending
loss of Ottoman Arab provinces to the British.
That’s why the Third Army under Vehip Pasha had been reserved and despite the need for
reinforcements against the British, had been earmarked for a Caucasus adventure.
It held the front between Tirebolu on the Black Sea and Kemah, on a branch of the Euphrates
River.
Including auxiliary troops, Vehip had nearly 50,000 men and 160 guns, including Austrian
and German howitzers.
He began to plan his offensive, which would soon begin.
He wasn’t the only one making plans for an offensive, though.
His ally Germany was doing the same.
German Quartermaster General Erich Ludendorff wrote to Chief of Staff Paul von Hindenburg
on the 7th (Keegan), “The proposed new offensive should... lead to the decisive success for
which we hope... we shall (then) be in a position to lay down such conditions for peace with
the Western Powers as are required by the security of our frontiers, our economic interests,
and our international position after the war.”
Some of these conditions may well be the control of Belgian industrial economy and incorporating
France’s coal and iron belt into the Ruhr.
For the Germans, time was of the essence.
They had a window of opportunity between bringing men from eastern front to western, now that
Russia had left the war, and the arrival of the Americans in force in Europe by the summer.
Peter Hart wrote, “They had six months to change the course of the war.
This would be the narrative that drove events in 1918.
Nothing else would matter.
All the specious dreams woven by the “Easterners”, the campaigns in Mesopotamia, Salonika, Palestine,
and East Africa were now being seen for what they were- a waste of military resources.
The war would after all be decided on the Western Front.”
Ludendorff had his gang making plans for possible offensives all along the front, with names
like GEORG, MARS, and MICHAEL.
But wherever the attack would come, it would begin with short, violent, surprise artillery
preparations of the type advocated by expert Georg Bruchmuller.
It would also feature the infiltration tactics refined by Oskar von Hutier.
In fact, a few weeks ago, Hutier’s 18th Army had been inserted into the line from
St. Quentin to the Oise River, and Bruchmuller and his staff had been assigned to that 18th
army.
And the first full week of 1918 comes to an end, and as it does comes the results of the
second Australian referendum on conscription, with a majority voting against it of 165,000.
The Ottomans and the Germans are making plans for new offensive action, even as they continue
to make peace with Russia.
And Woodrow Wilson makes one of the most famous speeches of the early 20th century.
Let’s not forget that.
Which took a bunch of domestic progressive ideas like free trade and open agreements,
and applied them on an international level.
Was it idealistic, as Allied Prime Ministers claimed?
I suppose so, but so what?
I mean, other warring nations had given general notice of their postwar goals, but this was
the only explicit statement of war aims by any allied nation.
And they were, in fact, aims of a moral nature, as opposed to the nationalistic ambitions
that had started the war in the first place.
So as 1918 begins, after three and a half years of blood and carnage, maybe some good
old fashioned moral idealism is just what the world needs.
If you want to learn more about Woodrow Wilson - definitely a controversial and complex figure,
you can click right here for our bio episode.
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