vii Contents Acknowledgements viii Preface ix List of Maps xi Introduction: The nature of this book 1 1 The Paris peace conference 3 2 Nazi foreign policy 17 3 Appeasement 29 4 The fall of France 41 5 Great Britain alone 52 6 The Eastern Front 60 7 The strategic bombing offensive against Germany 80 8 The Holocaust 93 9 The Pacific war 105 10 The Second World War and the Cold War 130 11 The German question 146 12 The impact of World War Two on Great Britain and its empire 163 13 The impact of World War Two on the United States 179 Notes 196 Select Bibliography 207 Index 211
Transcript
vii
Contents
Acknowledgements viiiPreface ixList of Maps xi
Introduction: The nature of this book 11 The Paris peace conference 32 Nazi foreign policy 173 Appeasement 294 The fall of France 415 Great Britain alone 526 The Eastern Front 607 The strategic bombing offensive against
Germany 808 The Holocaust 939 The Pacific war 105
10 The Second World War and the Cold War 13011 The German question 14612 The impact of World War Two on
Great Britain and its empire 16313 The impact of World War Two on the
United States 179
Notes 196Select Bibliography 207Index 211
3
1 The Paris peace conference
World War One and the Armistice
Before analysing the Paris Peace Conference, it is first necessaryto consider the First World War in general and Wilson’s FourteenPoints and the Armistice in particular, because of the role whichthey together played in fostering the ‘stab in the back myth’which legitimated German bitterness and directed it outwards,against the Allied and Associated Powers, rather than inwardlyagainst the conservatives elites in general and the High Commandin particular, who actually bore most of the responsibility forstarting and then losing the war.
In examining the First World War, the spotlight will be focusedupon the Western Front, as that is where the war would be wonor lost. It is true that the war escalated from a Balkan crisis toengulf all the European Great Powers and thence the world, butthe potential for this arose from the rival network of alliances,which instead of deterring conflict merely ensured that if it came,it would ensnare those with no ostensible interest in the immedi-ate cause of war (Serbia’s rejection of Austria–Hungary’s ultima-tum following the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinandin Sarajevo).
In 1894 France and Russia had become allies, threateningGermany with a war on two fronts. This situation arose becauseFrance, humiliated in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, wasable to make common cause with Imperial Russia after Germanyallowed the Russo-German Reinsurance Treaty to lapse in 1890.
It was to deal with this problem that Count Alfred vonSchlieffen, as Chief of the German General Staff, devised the planwhich bore his name.This involved defeating France in six weeksand then moving troops eastwards to meet the slower mobilisingRussians. To defeat France in six weeks it was considered neces-sary to attack not at the Franco-German border (which was heav-ily fortified and where the French forces were massed) but through
neutral Belgium and Holland, encircling Paris and then placingFrench forces in a pincer movement. Helmuth von Moltke (Moltkethe Younger) as Chief of the General Staff modified Schlieffen’splans by, for example, respecting Dutch neutrality and reducingthe balance of forces on the revolving arc relative to the pivot inAlsace-Lorraine but in essentials it was Schlieffen’s plan which wasimplemented in August 1914.
The invasion of Belgium brought Britain into the war, but thisdid not unduly worry the Germans as the British ExpeditionaryForce (BEF) was, in the Kaiser’s words, ‘contemptibly small’, whilethe Royal Navy’s blockade of Germany would not have time to hurtin what was expected to be a short war.
However, the Schlieffen plan began to unravel, as troops hadto be dispatched to the Eastern Front (under Hindenburg andLudendorff) because the Russians mobilised and attacked morequickly than anticipated; Belgian resistance was tougher thanexpected; and the rapid rifle fire of the highly professional BEFdelayed the Germans at Mons.
Most fundamentally, the Germans turned too soon, failed toencircle Paris and allowed a French counteroffensive to be mountedat the River Marne (using troops ferried by taxi-cab from Paris). Afailure of nerve on the part of the German High Command resultedin the German forces pulling back, which meant that Paris wassafe and the Schlieffen plan had failed.
Both sides then engaged in a ‘race to the sea’, attempting tooutflank one another. They failed, and instead a line of trenchescame to be stretched from the Channel to the Swiss frontier,allowing men to take cover from the murderous firepower ofmodern weapons. Given that the advantage lay with the defender(as a result of barbed wire, entrenchments and machine guns), asituation of deadlock ensued and for most of the next four yearswarfare on the Western Front was static. Both sides tried butfailed to break the deadlock with new tactics (including shock-troops and creeping barrages) and new weapons (including poisongas and the tank).
The first Russian Revolution of 1917, which overthrew theRomanovs, created an opportunity in the East for the CentralPowers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman empire andBulgaria) for although the Provisional Government which replacedTsarist rule remained committed to the prosecution of the war, it
4 THE CAUSES, COURSE AND OUTCOMES OF WORLD WAR TWO
lacked legitimacy, popularity and power, and the German HighCommand exploited this situation by providing funds and a sealedtrain to allow Lenin (and other more radical revolutionaries) toreturn to Russia. Before the year’s end the Bolsheviks seizedpower, committed to making peace with the Central Powers inorder to consolidate their revolution.
The USSR (as the Bolsheviks had renamed Russia) made peacewith the Central Powers by the March 1918 Treaty of Brest–Litovsk. The end of fighting on the Eastern Front gave the Germansthe opportunity to move troops to the Western Front and try tobreak through before American troops started arriving in largenumbers (the United States having entered the war on the Alliedside in April 1917). At first Ludendorff’s Spring Offensive enjoyedsuccess and the Germans got closer to Paris than at any time since1914, but the offensive stalled and the Allies counter-attackedand eventually broke through the Hindenburg Line.
By 11 November 1918 the situation for Germany had becomeso desperate that its representatives signed the Armistice: a cease-fire which was to come into effect at 11 a.m. on the eleventh dayof the eleventh month, bringing to an end four years of war.
It is easy to see why Germany signed the Armistice: all its allieshad already signed armistices, so it was now fighting alone; theAllied blockade was producing near-starvation conditions; there wasdisorder on the home front, including naval mutinies, stimulated byintense hardship and partly inspired by Bolshevik propaganda; andthe Allies, while not yet on German soil, were steadily advancingand appeared to be unstoppable. The Kaiser had already abdicatedin favour of a civilian government and fled to Holland. It was rea-soned that further fighting would accomplish no practical endother than hardening the hearts of the enemy, resulting ultimatelyin even harsher peace terms.
Less immediately comprehensible are the Allies’ reasons foragreeing to the Armistice. Pershing (the commander of Americanforces), for one, urged marching on Berlin. However, the argu-ments in favour of accepting the Armistice were considered com-pelling. Firstly, while German forces were in retreat, they were notyet routed. The German army remained a disciplined fightingforce capable of inflicting large numbers of casualties in defenceof the Fatherland. Secondly, the Kaiser’s abdication and replace-ment by a democratic republic had already satisfied one key war
THE PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE 5
aim. Thirdly, while the United States, having only entered the warin April 1917, had the energy and resources to carry on fighting,the British and French were financially and psychologicallyexhausted. Moreover, British and French statesmen correctly cal-culated that the longer the war carried on, the greater would bethe role played by American forces, and accordingly the greaterwould be the role of American politicians at the peace table.Furthermore, the terms of the Armistice satisfied the immediateaims of securing British naval supremacy (the German High Seasfleet sailing under escort to Scapa Flow) and of withdrawingGerman occupation forces from French and Belgian soil, whilealso denying Germany the opportunity of renewing the fightingat a later date by obliging it to surrender enormous quantities ofwar material and to allow Allied forces to occupy the left bank ofthe Rhine and bridgeheads beyond it. Last but not least in debil-itating and disciplining Germany, the Royal Navy’s blockade wasto remain in force until a peace treaty was signed.
Nevertheless, in several respects the Armistice was fatallyflawed. The German High Command had cleverly ducked respon-sibility for losing the war by passing political control to a civiliangovernment. By concluding the Armistice with that governmentrather than a military delegation, the Allies were unwitting accom-plices in the lie that German politicians rather than the Germangenerals were to be blamed for losing the war.
In short, the Armistice laid the foundations of the ‘stab in theback’ myth whereby the German people were led to believe thatthe German army had not been defeated on the battlefield buthad been betrayed on the home front by Jewish-Bolshevikdefeatists. This myth was immensely appealing because it createda scapegoat for defeat and national humiliation and appearedplausible to many given that the German army remained a disci-plined force until the end of the war; Allied troops had notentered German soil when the Armistice was signed; and therehad been disturbances on the home front, such as a naval mutinyat Kiel, influenced in part by communist ideas.
The Big Three
The peace conference was held in Paris between January and June1919. Neither the British nor the Americans had wanted the
6 THE CAUSES, COURSE AND OUTCOMES OF WORLD WAR TWO
French capital to host this event, correctly believing that a neutralcity would provide a better backdrop to their deliberations, butthey had allowed themselves to be overruled by the French pre-mier. This dispute was the first of many between the ‘Big Three’:Woodrow Wilson of the United States, Georges Clemenceau ofFrance, and David Lloyd George for Great Britain.
Wilson, the son of a Presbyterian minister and author of theFourteen Points of January 1918, was idealistic. He was less inter-ested in the precise details of the settlement than in bringing intobeing a new world order by creating a League of Nations (thefourteenth point) which would prevent future wars by the peace-ful resolution of disputes. It was this mission which impelledWilson to overcome the objections of friends and foes alike tobecome the first-ever serving president to go to Europe.
Clemenceau, nicknamed ‘the Tiger’ for his ferocious disposi-tion, wanted a peace settlement which would make France secureby crippling Germany militarily, territorially and economically.Having experienced the hardship and humiliation of the Franco-Prussian War as well as the Great War (in which a quarter ofFrench males aged between 18 and 30 had died and 6000 squaremiles of France had been devastated), Clemenceau asserted shortlybefore his death that his ‘life hatred has been for Germany becauseof what she has done to France’.1 So intense and abiding was hisfear of the German threat that he allegedly asked to be buriedupright, facing Germany.
In general, Lloyd George occupied an intermediate positionbetween those of Wilson and Clemenceau. He understood verywell Clemenceau’s desire to ‘Make Germany pay’ but he alsorecognised the wisdom of Wilson’s view that a harsh treaty wouldbe unlikely to produce a lasting peace if it merely created Germanresentment. However, such a summary suggests that LloydGeorge’s position was more consistent and straightforward thanwas actually the case, or at least than it appeared to contempo-raries. So slippery was his performance that, with good reason, hecame to be as much distrusted by members within the British dele-gation as by their American and French counterparts. Thus whileLloyd George’s essentially liberal instincts and unerring capacityto see into the minds of most men and the heart of the most com-plex issues were powerful forces working for moderation, thistended to be undermined by his rather too obvious love of fancy
THE PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE 7
footwork and by his being more wedded to British interests, as heperceived them, than to any framework of moral values.
As the Peace Conference progressed Anglo-American relationsimproved but those of each country with France deteriorated(Franco-American relations were especially poor). Lloyd Georgeincreasingly shared Wilson’s concern that the German peace termswere becoming too severe because his own public opinion appearedto be moving in favour of a more moderate peace, his financial and military experts warned him about the dangers of having largeforces scattered about the globe, and he was alarmed by labourunrest at home and revolution in Europe (particularly after thenews on 21 March 1919 that Bela Kun’s communists had seizedpower in Hungary).
Hence Lloyd George’s Fontainebleau Memorandum, in whichhe argued that the peace should not be so punitive towardsGermany that it risked poisoning international relations – whichmight lead to another war or render Central Europe prey toBolshevism. However Fontainebleau foundered on the Frenchneed for revenge and restitution from Germany combined withreassurances for their security – aims which were simply incom-patible with a moderate peace.
The terms of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles represent an uneasycompromise between these disparate views.
The flawed nature of the Treaty of Versailles
The timing and venue of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles wereboth richly symbolic. The Treaty was signed on 28 June 1919: fiveyears to the day after the event which triggered the conflict, namely,the assassination in Sarajevo of the heir to the Austro-Hungarianthrone, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, by the Serb Gavrilo Princip.The scene of the signing was the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace ofVersailles where, 48 years earlier, France had been humiliated at theend of the Franco-Prussian War and the Second Reich had beenproclaimed by Bismarck.
The terms of the treaty are best summarised under three head-ings, namely, territorial clauses, disarmament clauses and war guiltand reparations.
Germany lost all its overseas colonies (to Britain, its Dominionsand Japan) and in total lost 12 per cent of its population and
8 THE CAUSES, COURSE AND OUTCOMES OF WORLD WAR TWO
13 per cent of its area (to France, Belgium, Denmark, Poland andLeague of Nations control). Moreover, in further violation of theprinciple of national self-determination (on the basis of which theGermans claimed they had signed the Armistice), Anschluss (orunion) with Austria was explicitly forbidden, and the 3.25 millionSudeten Germans who had formerly been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were placed in the new state of Czechoslovakiaunder the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain.
The Rhineland was to be permanently demilitarised and was tobe occupied by Allied troops for 15 years, while the German armywas limited to a volunteer force of 100,000 men, with no tanks orair force, while the German navy’s surface fleet was severely restric-ted in tonnage and it was banned from the possession of U-boats.
Moreover, having admitted its guilt for starting the war (underArticle 231), Germany accepted liability to pay reparations orcompensation to the Allies for all its war damages. Although theTreaty of Versailles did not specify the amount to be paid in repa-rations, it did lay down that for 15 years the coal of the Saar wasto go to France.
Not surprisingly the Germans were appalled by what they con-sidered to be the severity of the terms of the Treaty. Firstly, theyreferred to the Treaty as a Diktat, or dictated peace, as Germanrepresentatives had not had the opportunity to plead their casebut were merely invited to sign on the dotted line or reject theTreaty in its entirety and suffer the consequences of a resumptionof hostilities which they were plainly in no position to fight.
Originally the Big Four (Vittorio Orlando of Italy being thefourth) had planned to hold a preliminary conference to agree onthe terms to be offered, after which it was planned to hold a full-scale conference to negotiate with the enemy. However, as theweeks turned into months what had been intended as a prelimi-nary conference became the actual conference, with the result thata break was made with diplomatic precedent and the Germansnever got the opportunity formally to present their case.
This lack of consultation and the alleged harshness of the termsof the Treaty were even more bitterly resented given that Wilson’sFourteen Points had included open diplomacy (‘open covenantsopenly arrived at’) and the fact that the Kaiser had abdicated andGermany was now a democratic republic (indeed more democraticthan the United States, Great Britain and France insofar as women
THE PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE 9
had been enfranchised and the Weimar Constitution included pro-portional representation). Just as Louis XVIII had argued that theBourbon dynasty should not be held answerable for Bonapartistexcesses, so Weimar’s politicians argued that they should not bepunished for the wrongdoing of Wilhelm II.
Having been given no opportunity to negotiate terms, theGerman delegation in Paris was faced with the stark choice ofaccepting the Treaty in its entirety or rejecting it and resumingthe armed conflict (which Germany was manifestly in no positionto do). The Treaty was thus understandably regarded by theGermans and those who sympathised with their cause as a Diktat.
Secondly, despite having signed Article 231 they did not reallyregard themselves as responsible for starting the war and henceliable to pay war damages. Thirdly, the ‘stab in the back’ mythmeant that they did not feel that they had really lost the war, hav-ing been betrayed on the home front rather than being defeatedon the battlefield. Fourthly, they believed, with a good deal of jus-tification, that the Treaty did not reflect Wilson’s Fourteen Points,which they claimed as the basis upon which they had signed theArmistice. As has already been noted Wilson’s principle of nationalself-determination (whereby people of the same nationality resideas citizens in the same sovereign state) was repeatedly ignored, notonly with regard to German-speaking parts of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire which were placed under foreign rule (theSouth Tyrol going to Italy and the Sudetenland becoming part ofthe new state of Czechoslovakia) but also with regard to areaswhich had been part of the Second Reich, such as the ‘PolishCorridor’ (formerly Posen and West Prussia) which was now partof the revived state of Poland and which separated eastern Prussiafrom the rest of Germany.
The Fourteen Points also spoke of the need to create a Leagueof Nations to prevent future wars. The Covenant (or consti-tution) of the League was placed in the Treaty of Versailles (as was also true of the treaties of the other defeated powers) but at first Germany was not allowed to become a member because in 1919 it was clearly regarded as morally unfit to participate in international affairs on a par with the victorious powers. Thispariah status, which soon helped drive Germany into the arms of the equally leprous Soviet Union, was yet another cause ofresentment.
10 THE CAUSES, COURSE AND OUTCOMES OF WORLD WAR TWO
It is true that Wilson had been willing to accept an armisticebased upon his Fourteen Points, not least as a means of bindingthe British and French into accepting his principles. However,they had never been willing to accept the Fourteen Points at facevalue. Wilson’s personal representative, Colonel House, acceptedthe Allied reservations so that the Fourteen Points were modifiedto allow for what later came to be called reparations from Germany(which France was particularly keen to secure) and for discussionson freedom of the seas (which the British rejected) at the PeaceConference itself. Nevertheless, the Germans were able, plausibly,to claim that the peace terms which they were offered at Versailleswere largely illegitimate because they had accepted the Armisticeon the basis that the Fourteen Points would provide the basis forthe peace treaty and the Americans had accepted this, only to beoverruled by their French and British allies.
Ever since the publication of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919,some have argued that its terms were too harsh. Obviously theGermans had a vested interest in arguing that this was so, but thecritics of the Treaty have not been exclusively German. Indeed, RayStannard Baker of the American delegation and Harold Nicolsonand John Maynard Keynes of the British delegation wrote booksclaiming that Woodrow Wilson had been outmanoeuvred byClemenceau and Lloyd George so that the Treaty was both unwise(as it stimulated the German desire for revenge) and unjust.
Keynes resigned from the British delegation in Paris in protest atwhat he considered to be the unjust impositions made uponGermany, and in 1919 he publicised his beliefs in The EconomicConsequences of the Peace which argued that the reparations sumproposed would exceed Germany’s capacity to pay and would thusnot only ruin the German economy but thereby damage theEuropean and world economies and thus undermine future peace.
On learning the terms of the Treaty of Versailles the formerKaiser remarked: ‘The war to end war has resulted in a peace toend peace’. This feeling was not restricted to the defeated side.Thus General Smuts wrote to his wife that Versailles was ‘not a peace treaty but a war treaty’ and Alfred Lord Milner alsodescribed it as ‘the peace to end peace’. Most presciently MarshalFoch remarked: ‘This is not peace; it is an armistice for 20 years’.There is certainly a strong prima facie case for regarding theTreaty of Versailles as sowing the seeds of the Second World War.
THE PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE 11
The peacemakers at Versailles were concerned not just with thethreat of a revived Germany but also with the danger posed by the USSR, with its avowed intention of exporting revolution.They thus sought to prevent both the westward expansion ofcommunism from the Soviet Union and any eastward expansionof Germany by creating a string of buffer states in Scandinavia and Central and Eastern Europe out of parts of the formerRussian, German and Austro-Hungarian empires. Running fromnorth to south these new or enlarged states included Finland,Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania andYugoslavia.
However, these states were unable to perform this role for sev-eral reasons. Firstly, they were not united among themselves butinstead quarrelled over disputed lands. Thus both Poland andCzechoslovakia claimed Teschen, for example, and Poland andHungary both cooperated with Germany in the parcelling out ofthe Czech ‘rump’ in March 1939.
Secondly, not only did they face opponents outside their fron-tiers, they were also often internally divided because they con-tained substantial minority populations (such as the SudetenGermans in Czechoslovakia) who were potential fifth columnists.
Thirdly, neither Britain nor France were wholeheartedly com-mitted to supporting these states, particularly when German andSoviet strength revived and they could potentially be ‘squeezed’from both directions.
Versailles and the rise of the Nazis
Many problems may be laid at the door of Versailles but the treatycannot be blamed, except simplistically, for the rise of the Nazis.The allegedly harsh terms of Versailles, and particularly the warguilt and reparations clauses, can be said to have contributed tothe political and economic difficulties of the Weimar Republic,undermining popular support for it and contributing towards therevival of aggressive nationalism which (assisted by clever propa-ganda) helped to transform Nazism from a fringe völkischBavarian party into a successful mass movement. Hitler never lostan opportunity to condemn ‘das Diktat’ or ‘der Schandvertag’(the shameful treaty). However, Versailles provides neither a nec-essary nor a sufficient explanation of Hitler’s coming to power.
12 THE CAUSES, COURSE AND OUTCOMES OF WORLD WAR TWO
Firstly, the terms of the Treaty of Versailles were not as harshas was commonly made out. The hyperinflation of 1923, forexample, was not the direct consequence of reparations, set at£6600 million or 132 billion gold marks in 1921. Rather it aroseout of the German government’s strategy of printing more moneyto wipe out debt and/or discredit reparations. Not having suf-fered wartime occupation, Germany was actually better placed, inmany ways, than France, Belgium or Russia to benefit from thereturn to peacetime conditions. Reparations did not represent amillstone insofar as American loans under the 1924 Dawes and1929 Young Plans actually exceeded the amount paid.
Secondly, several of the most onerous features of the Versaillessettlement had already been undone before Hitler was appointedChancellor, including the withdrawal of Allied troops from theRhineland (in 1930) and the cancellation of reparations (in 1932).Rather it was the Wall Street Crash of October 1929 which fatallyundermined the Weimar Republic and gave the National SocialistGerman Workers’ Party (NSDAP) the chance to make significantelectoral gains (so that it went from just 12 seats in the Reichstagin 1928 to being the second largest party there with 107 seats afterthe 1930 election).
Thirdly, if it had not been for the intrigue and miscalculationsof the conservative elites then Hitler might never have beenappointed Chancellor, as he had never secured a majority in a freevote and NSDAP support had actually fallen between the July andNovember 1932 Reichstag elections.
Fourthly, it can be argued that the rise of Hitler and the Naziparty was less the result of the humiliating terms of the Versaillestreaty than of structural flaws within the Weimar constitution, mostnotably proportional representation, which gave even extremistparties a public voice and tended to produce weak, unstable coali-tion governments, and Article 48, which could be abused by aPresident hostile to the spirit of Weimar, such as Hindenburg.
Most fundamentally, it can be argued that the Treaty of Versailleswas not as harsh as commonly alleged at the time and since. It is cer-tainly the case that the Treaty was the result of an uneasy compro-mise between the views of the ‘Big Three’. However, it is worthpointing out that the terms of the Treaty were much less harsh thanwould have been the case if Wilson and Lloyd George had beenunable to exercise a moderating influence upon Clemenceau. If ‘the
THE PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE 13
Tiger’ had had his way, Germany would, in addition, have beendivided and instead of a demilitarised Rhineland, a separate French-inclined Rhenish state would have come into being.
Germany was certainly weakened but it was not delivered amortal blow. Germany itself had imposed much more debilitatingterms upon Rumania and Russia during the First World War (thelatter, for example, losing 25 per cent of its population, arableland and railway network), while its Central Power allies sufferedto a far greater extent than Germany did (Hungary, for example,losing 70 per cent of its pre-war territory).
Paradoxically, the weakness of the successor states of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires, added to the exhaustion sufferedby France and the pariah status (and hence potential friendship) ofthe USSR meant that Germany was relatively stronger in Europeafter the Paris Peace Conference than it had been in 1914. ThusGermany emerged from Versailles as ‘not only the dominant conti-nental power, but potentially more preponderant than in 1914’given the removal of any countervailing power2 and the failure ofthe United States, Britain and France to enforce the settlementwhich they had made in 1919 (although the French did makemoves in this direction in the early 1920s, such as their formaltreaty of mutual assistance with Poland signed on 19 February1921, the military convention with Poland of 22 February 1922,and 1923 occupation of the Ruhr).
Furthermore, it is fundamentally misguided to use the FourteenPoints as a yardstick with which to criticise the Treaty of Versailles.The Fourteen Points had been issued by Woodrow Wilson inJanuary 1918, yet Germany did not sign the Armistice untilNovember 1918. In the intervening period there had been a greatdeal more bloodshed and destruction. It was therefore unreason-able for the Germans to expect that the terms which they had pre-viously rejected would remain unaltered. Moreover, the UnitedStates only entered the First World War in April 1917. It there-fore only suffered very slightly (especially by January 1918) incomparison with its British and French allies, who had been fight-ing since August 1914 (hence Pershing’s willingness to drive onto Berlin). Moreover, France had been invaded and occupied twiceby the Germans in Clemenceau’s lifetime (in 1870–71 as well as1914), and the fighting on the Western Front had laid wastemuch of France’s most valuable farmland and industry. It was
14 THE CAUSES, COURSE AND OUTCOMES OF WORLD WAR TWO
therefore naive of the Germans if they really expected the Frenchto accept Wilson’s Fourteen Points as the basis of the peace; how-ever, much lip service was paid to its ideals.
It is thus difficult to imagine that allowing the Germans tonegotiate at Versailles would have had any significant impact onthe terms of the Treaty. The Germans themselves had negotiatedwith the Bolsheviks but that did not stop them from drawing upthe March 1918 Treaty of Brest–Litovsk which was much harshertowards Russia than the Treaty of Versailles was towards Germany.
It is true that the principle of national self-determination wasignored in several respects with regard to Germany, but plebisciteswere conducted in several areas (including Allenstein andMarienwerder) to take account of the ethnic preferences of theinhabitants. Similarly, although the coal mined in the Saar was togo to France for 15 years as part of Germany’s reparations, therewould then be a plebiscite to decide whether the region wouldremain under League control, become part of France or (as provedto be the case in 1935) be returned to Germany. The principle ofnational self-determination simply had to be overruled on occasionby other, more important considerations such as the need to cre-ate states which were economically viable and had defensible fron-tiers. Hence the inclusion of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia.
If the principle of national self-determination had been appliedrigorously towards Germany, the absurd result would have been thatit would have expanded rather than contracted (with the acquisitionof Austria and the German-speaking parts of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire) whereas it is the norm for defeated powers tolose territory. Despite losing 12 per cent of its population and 13 percent of its area, Germany still suffered less proportionately than itsdefeated allies under the terms of their peace treaties (Saint-Germainwith Austria, 1919; Neuilly with Bulgaria, 1919; Trianon withHungary, 1920; and Sèvres with Turkey, 1920).
As regards the dubious privilege of membership of the Leagueof Nations, Germany only had to wait until 1926, when it wasgranted not only admission to the League but a permanent seaton its Council.
The reparations issue deserves special consideration, for althoughthe amount was not specified in 1919, the war guilt clause (Article231) clearly provided the justification for the imposition of massivereparations later: the sum of £6600 million in 1921. Critics of the
THE PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE 15
Treaty argued that it was historically wrong to attribute the primaryblame for starting the First World War on Germany, either becausethe Kaiser was the guilty party and had abdicated or because otherpowers were to blame – notably the Triple Entente in general, for‘encircling’ Germany, and Russia in particular, for ordering mobili-sation in response to Austria–Hungary’s move against Serbia.
Furthermore, critics of the war guilt clause argue that it waseconomically and politically wrong to impose such a heavy impo-sition upon Germany as it simply could not afford to pay (havinglost 16 per cent of its coal reserves and 48 per cent of its iron pro-duction) so that Versailles in general and the reparations bill inparticular became a millstone around the neck of the democraticWeimar Republic.
This is not the place to assess Germany’s responsibility for start-ing the First World War, but whoever started it, Germany clearlylost the war, and common sense dictates that it is the defeatedpowers who pick up the bill.
It has been shown above that the German sense of grievancewas aggravated by the ‘stab in the back’ myth, which appearedsuperficially plausible, but the failure of Ludendorff’s spring 1918offensive to secure a breakthrough on the Western Front beforeUS troops started arriving in large numbers (despite being rein-forced by troops from the Eastern Front released through theTreaty of Brest–Litovsk) meant that Germany was bound to losethe war sooner or later.
In short, Germany had no real choice but to sign both theArmistice and the Treaty of Versailles, whatever their terms, and,as already argued, these terms were not as harsh as commonlyclaimed. Historians such as Maier, Trachtenberg and Schuker, forexample,3 suggest that notwithstanding all of its losses of territoryand resources, Germany still possessed the capacity to pay its repa-rations bill, especially given help through US loans (under the1924 Dawes and 1929 Young Plans).
Indeed, insofar as there was a problem with Versailles it was notthat it was too harsh but rather that it was too lenient, or ratherit would be more accurate to say that the problem was that theterms of Versailles were not enforced rigidly enough. Thus theAllies had the worst of both worlds, with the German peoplemade resentful and embittered, but Germany itself wounded andweakened rather than definitively contained or curbed.
16 THE CAUSES, COURSE AND OUTCOMES OF WORLD WAR TWO
149, 165Barova, Lida, 98Barrett, Margaret Mary, 180Bartky, Walter, 125‘bases for destroyers’ deal, 40,
113, 164Battle of Britain, 35, 38, 50,
52–6, 70, 73, 85, 113, 164Battle of the Atlantic, 56–9, 114Battle of the Bismarck Sea, 116Battle of the Bulge, 140, 147Battle of the Coral Sea, 115Battle of the Java Sea, 115Battle of the Philippine Sea, 116Belgium
40, 45, 50, 52, 70, 119, 1661945 election defeat, 166, 1691951 election victory, 169, 173appeasement of Japan (closureof the Burma Road), 108Atlantic Charter, 168Battle of Britain assessment, 55Battle of the Atlanticassessment, 57and the Bomb, 126, 170Casablanca conference, 88, 147Chamberlain’s arch–critic, 34European integration, 157, 176France as Soviet counterweight,150and ‘Guilty Man’ thesis, 33Halifax peace feelers defeated,38, 56‘Iron Curtain’ speech, 175on Poland, 141Prime Ministerial appointment,37, 166Second Front in 1944promised, 118Stalin warned about Barbarossa,165and the strategic bombingoffensive against Germany, 80,81, 83, 85, 91–3and the ten-year rule, 31‘three circles’, 163–4Truman pressed for Big Threemeeting, 124–5USA as source of frustration,140, 149Wars of Intervention in Russia,131See also Mediterranean strategy
Clark, Alan, 38, 39
Clark, Tom, 186–7, 189Clemenceau, Georges 7, 11, 13–14Coble, Howard, 183Cold War, 129, 130–145, 154,
159, 160, 169, 170, 176, 177,194
Colmery, Harry W., 192Cologne, 88Comintern, 131, 133Commonwealth, 161, 169, 174,
175, 177Concordat, 20‘Congress of Europe’, 157, 176Corregidor, 115Council of Europe, 157Council of Foreign Ministers, 151Crimea, 78Curzon, George Nathaniel, 141Czechoslovakia, 24–6, 32, 163
Fourteen Points, 3, 6, 14, and disarmament, 20, 32and freedom of the seas, 11and the League of Nations, 10and open diplomacy, 10and Poland, 142and Versailles Treaty, 16
Four Year Plan Office, 22, 100,102
Francearmistice of 1940, 49–50attitude towards buffer states,12
Brussels treaty, 156colonies vulnerable, 108, 167communist party, 175declaration of war on Germany,35, 41decolonisation, 51, 169Dunkirk treaty, 156European integration favoured,157, 160fall of, 41–51, 56, 57, 70, 85,101, 108, 135, 163German occupation zone, 150,153and Hossbach Memorandum,22imperial overstretch, 43investment in Russia, 61May weekend crisis, 25NATO, 156Poland’s symbolic importancefor, 142Popular Front collapse, 43Popular Front formation, 21Third Republic, 41, 42Versailles, limited efforts atenforcement, 14veto against British membershipof the EEC, 161
GermanyAllied Control Council, 150,153Allied occupation, 145Aryanisation, 100Bizonia, 151boycott of Jewish shops andprofessionals, 95conscription reintroduced, 32conservative elites, 3, 13, 17,95, 96declaration of war on theUnited States, 112, 113–4, 164Decree for the Restitution ofthe Street Scene, 100Decree on the Exclusion ofJews from German EconomicLife, 100deindustrialisation, 147, 149division of, 146
German Question, 146–162Gestapo, 103hyperinflation, 13Italy assisted in North Africaand Greece, 112Jewish emigration, 97, 101Kiel naval mutiny, 6Kristallnacht, 99Law for the Protection ofGerman Blood and Honour, 97Law for the Restoration of theProfessional Civil Service, 95Law on the Use of JewishAssets, 100League admission, 15, 32League withdrawal (and fromGeneva DisarmamentConference), 20, 32Luftwaffe formally recreated, 32Nuremberg Laws, 96–7occupation zones, 146, 148–9,150population shifts, 146Reich Citizenship Law, 96reunification, 147, 154, 155SA, 95, 98Saar, 15, 46, 147SD (Sicherheitsdienst), 97, 99second purge of 1937–8, 23stab in the back myth, 1, 6, 9,16, 27, 94, 101surrender, 140, 148Wehrwirtschaft (defence-basedeconomy), 27Zollverein, 156See also Federal Republic ofGermany, German DemocraticRepublic, Hitler, Rhineland, Ruhr, and Weimar
‘Germany First’, 136, 165Ghana, 177GI Bill (Servicemen’s
anti-democratic views, 113anti-egalitarianism, 71anti-negro views, 113anti-Semitism, 64, 93–101,102, 113, 195anti-Slav views, 64, 65–6, 72,98anti-Soviet views, 66, 70, 72and Battle of the Bulge, 140Britain, attitude towards, 22–3British invasion indefinitelypostponed, 54Chamberlain at Munichassessed, 36Chancellor appointment, 13,19, 65Commander-in-Chief of theArmed Forces and head ofstate, 23Führer Directive No. 6, 42Führer Directive orderingdestruction of the RAF, 53
218 INDEX
Führer Directive orderingdestruction of the USSR, 68Führerprinzip, 93interference in militaryoperations, 78–9Italian alliance desired, 18Japanese alliance desired, 19military masterplan claimed, 70Napoleonic comparisons, 71orders temporary halt in Frenchadvance, 48–9orders to U-boat commanders,57overconfidence regardinginvasion of Russia, 73overconfidence regardingStalingrad, 77pacific pose, 26rise to, and consolidation of,power assisted by splits on theLeft, 152Social Darwinism, 27, 93suicide, 140USA warned against interferingin the ‘Jewish question’, 101USA, reasons for declaring warupon, 113–4Versailles condemned, 12and weapons of massdestruction, 117‘working towards the Fuhrer’,93See also the HossbachMemorandum and Mein Kampf
Kaiser, the. See under Wilhelm IIKatyn, 39, 141, 142, 165Keegan, John, ix, 59Kennan, George, 175Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, 174Keynes, John Maynard, 11, 32,
Malaya, 167Manchuria, 111, 121, 128, 168Manchurian incident of 1931, 20,
31, 107, 111Manhattan project, 117, 122,
126, 171Manila, 184Manstein, Erich von, 42, 77Marco Polo Bridge incident, 107Marianas, 116Marne, first battle of the, 4Marseille, 138Marshall, George, C., 151Marshall Aid and Plan, 40, 151,
economic appeasement ofHitler, 69–70and the Bomb, 126desire for ‘friendly’ neighbours,175and German reparations, 148Germany offer (1952), 147Japanese relations, 121Munich agreement increasinghis distrust of the westerndemocracies, 36Nazi-Soviet Non-AggressionPact, motives for, 67
Note on the Neutralisation ofGermany, 155Polish ambitions, 140–5purges, 34, 36, 39, 73, 75realpolitik, 144Second Front in 1944 promisedhim, 118Ukraine famine, 39unwillingness to face prospectof German invasion, 68–9, 75
Stalingrad, 77–8, 136, 179Stimson, Henry L., 122, 123,
United States of America (USA),19442nd Infantry Regiment, 188African American civil rightsmovement, 183, 191–2, 193African American migration,180, 190, 191African Americans discriminatedagainst, 145, 190–1Alien Exclusion Acts, 106American Civil Liberties Union,183American Civil War, 81–2, 179anti-imperialism, 167–8, 169,176, 194atom bomb spies, 173Battle of the Atlantic, 57–8
Belle Isle, 191the Bomb, 170–174, 179Bracero programme, 190Britain assisted, 113–4, 172British Empire disliked, 163Brotherhood of Sleeping CarPorters, 191casualties in World War Two,179Chicago university, 192‘Chocolate Soldier from theUSA’, 191Churchill’s view of, 163–4Commission on WartimeRelocation and Internment ofCivilians, 189Congress, 171, 172, 174, 181,182, 184, 187Congress of Racial Equality(CORE), 192demobilisation, 192–3Democrats, 182Department of Justice, 185Depression, 106, 180Detroit Housing Commission,190‘Double V’ campaign, 192Eighth Air Force, 88, 90entry into the First World War5, 6, 14entry into the Pacific War, 117,118, 120, 122–3, 128, 129entry into the Second WorldWar, 58, 136feminist movement, 193full employment, 181, 194German Americans, 188–9German occupation zone, 150Hearst press, 186hypocrisy (regarding Britishimperialism), 168 (andJapanese), 114 Idaho, 186
INDEX 227
United States of America (USA)(contd)isolationism, 30, 163, 164,173, 175, 194Italian Americans, 188–9Japanese Americanscompensated and apologised to,189Japanese Americansdiscriminated against, 106, 180,183–190, 194Japanese immigration blocked,106‘Jim Crow’ laws, 192Los Angeles Times, 187Marine Reserves, 184Mexican Americans, 190military–industrial complex,193Military Intelligence Service,185Munich agreement, significancefor, 37National Guard, 184Native Americans, 190NATO, 156NSC68, 154–5Office of EconomicStabilization, 182Office of Naval Intelligence,185Office of War Mobilization(OWM), 183Office of War Mobilization andReconversion (OWMR), 183Oregon, 184, 188Packard plant, 190post-war prosperity, 194rationing, 183, 191rearmament, 50reconstruction of Germany andJapan, 194Republicans, 182, 184
Ruhr preferred to racing theRed Army to Berlin, 140, 166sexual discrimination, 193signals intelligence, 116, 121Smoot–Hawley tariff, 106Sojourner Truth, 190—1strategic bombing offensiveagainst Germany, 80–1, 88, 89,90Texas, 112unemployment, 180—1USSR
appeased (in order to securehelp against Japan), 118, 165assisted, 113–4officially recognised, 132
anti–imperialism, 167–8,169–170atom bomb spies, 126, 170,173atomic power, 154, 173casualties in World War Twocompared with those of theUSA, 179Civil War, 62, 131, 164expansion (1939–40), 41, 47,51hypocrisy regarding Britishimperialism, 168ignored at Munich, 25invaded, 56, 70–5, 136KGB, 165leverage over the western allies,117–8Lublin committee recognition,142Pacific War entry, 117, 133,134scientific informationexchanged with Britain, 171scorched earth policy, 75Soviet-German relations, 62–70Warsaw Pact creation, 155Wars of Intervention, 62, 131weakness after revolution andcivil war, 30
Vansittart, Robert, 33VE Day, 118, 140Versailles, treaty of
Article 231 (the war guiltclause), 9, 10assessments: Ray StannardBaker, 11; Marshal Foch, 11;Adolf Hitler, 12, 18; John
Maynard Keynes, 11; CharlesMaier, 16; Alfred Lord Milner,11; Harold Nicolson, 11; Stephen A Schuker 16; GeneralSmuts, 11; Marc Trachtenberg,16; Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 148; Wilhelm II, 11as Diktat, 9–10, 12dismantling by Germany, 19,20, 32, 63Lloyd George’s shaping of,31–32terms and character, 8–12, 19,30timing and venue, 8and the rise of the Nazis,12–16‘Versailles guilt’, 32
Vichy France, 49, 50, 70, 101,108, 109, 136, 164
Vienna, 97, 138, 149Vistula river, 142VJ Day, 169
Waffen SS, 103Wake Island, 114, 184Wallgren, Monrad Charles, 186Wall Street crash of 1929, 13, 19,
