Pandora's Box by Jörn Leonhard

Author:Jörn Leonhard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harvard University Press

1. CRISES AND INNOVATIONS

The Asynchronicity of Space and Twentieth-Century Warfare

New military and political leaders had become active in 1916, Hindenburg and Ludendorff taking over at the Third OHL in the summer, and David Lloyd George as British prime minister in December. In France, the following year saw Pétain rise to head of the army and Clemenceau to head of the government. The crisis of military and political credibility gripped all countries to one degree or another: it was a result of the drain on their strength in 1916 and of the widening gap between expectations and experiences; between aims, casualties, and achievements. Therefore, hopes focused ever more on ending the war with the next offensive. But in early 1917 such heightened hopes could at any moment turn into disappointment, as the mutinies at the French front and the Russian revolutions in February and October 1917 showed.

On the German side, the successes in eastern Europe encouraged a greater willingness to take risks to achieve final victory—hence the decision on January 9, 1917, to launch unrestricted submarine warfare, followed a month later by Austria-Hungary in the Mediterranean. The high casualties suffered in the battles of 1916 forced the German armies into a defensive posture on the western front, but Berlin had to find an answer to the British blockade, to the global dimensions of the war, and, most important, to the mobilization of the resources of the British Empire. The naval officer Albert Hopman had high hopes for the declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1, not least because it promised to restore the reputation of the navy: “I have awaited today with great tension, and I felt quite a relief when the newspaper brought news this morning of the beginning of intensified submarine warfare.… Hopefully it will soon go swimmingly, and all will be up with Albion’s proud dominance. Then the future of Germany, and especially its navy, will rest for all time on solid rock, and its rightful position amid the pack of liars would have fallen to it centuries ago, if we had not, with the exception of Frederick the Great and Bismarck, had such pathetic politicians.”6 The top brass in the navy, as at the OHL, were also confident that their U-boats would yield quick results. On April 1, Hopman wrote, “I feel an unshakable faith that submarine warfare will bring a decision within 3–4 months, in such a favorable sense that we will be able to dictate the peace. Hopefully other factors, such as the food question, national political currents, etc., or men of Bethmann Hollweg’s ilk, will not make the settlement come too early.”7 Still, unrestricted submarine warfare was a risky business. The sinking of passenger ships in 1915, causing the deaths of numerous civilians from neutral countries, had increased the pressure on the United States to enter the war—which it finally did in April 1917, in a move that, in view of their growing economic and military exhaustion, was all the more in the interests of France and Britain.

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