The German Army in November 1918
Soldiers of a nation beaten by war returned home to find a country and people on its knees
When the guns fell silent across the battlefields of Europe in November 1918, it brought to an end over four years of the most devastating war the world had ever seen. The conflict ground to a halt on November 11 with a cease fire and Germany’s surrender.
As the end of the war was announced, relief replaced fear in the trenches of the Western Front. The Allies went home victorious, but in a war in which 17 million people were killed, the winners wouldn’t feel much better than those who lost.
The German population was on its knees in the autumn of 1918. Economic downturn had started to starve the people, and the tide of the war was very much against them. The resentment towards Kaiser Wilhelm II forced the monarch to abdicate on November 9. By this point, the army had turned their back on the institute and the public were revolting against the war.
The nation was desperate for the war to end. The Allies had been boosted by the arrival of fresh American soldiers, whilst Germany’s forces were continued to be bled dry by their commanders. As the death toll rose, patience of the people and soldiers wore thin.
Attempts to seal an armistice or at the very least a cease fire had been in the works of German High Command since the end of September. When it came down to it, the Germans were pushed into a corner- a corner from which the overwhelming desire was for peace.
The peace terms forced upon Germany by the Allies in 1919 have long been outlined as one of several causes of The Second World War. But back on November 11 1918, the mood in the trenches and lines of German soldiers would have been one of exasperation and relief.
German soldiers returned home to a country they would barely recognise. Three million men had died, a huge 15 percent of the male population. The country they had left a monarchy had become a republic on their return.
They returned to see the streets of their country raved by protest and revolution. The people were starving and left humiliated by the bitter end to a war they had given so much to win.
The First World War shaped the history of Europe for the rest of the 20th century. The disappearance of millions of men lost in the fields of the Western Front. The devastating Spanish Flu and then financial downturn hit populations hard, but the German people were faced with both of these as well as defeat in a war and consequential huge reparation payments.
The newly created Weimar Republic was saddled with payments which were so vast in size it would take the country over 90 years to finish paying. Germany would gradually rebuild through the 1920s, but would spiral back towards war the following decade.
In November 1918 the Second World War was 20 years away. But the path to the conflict is argued by many to have been started by actions triggered by the end of the last war. As German soldiers trudged home from the muddy hellhole of the Western Front, their likely main thought was just that- getting home- and not what the end of the conflict would mean for the future of their country.
