Platz under Sonne - German AAR (The Grand Campaign Mod)

[stnylan]

I do find matters naval the one bedevilling weakness of almost all PDS games.

Again I like the juxtaposition of this propaganda piece interspersed with gameplay screenshots.

 

[Melnek]

Great update! Many do not like the naval part of the game, despite the limitations, I always try to invest and make good use of my navy, especially playing with Germany.

 

[Rifal]

Those are some stinging losses for the smaller German fleet, but both Japan and England have suffered much more severe losses. Sad to see Spee gone. Maybe name a upcomming ship after him?

 

[Specialist290]

An impressive gauntlet run by the High Seas Fleet.

I note from the screenshots that France seems to be having a bit of trouble holding on to Algeria at the moment -- perhaps something we'll see in a later update?

 

[J_Master]

An impressive gauntlet run by the High Seas Fleet.

I note from the screenshots that France seems to be having a bit of trouble holding on to Algeria at the moment -- perhaps something we'll see in a later update?

I think it was noted earlier that France only really reasserted its control over the colonies in the early 30ies. For me, the more intresting question is that Brittain seems to have seized French holdings around the Ivory Coast

 

[Cossack_PL]

These colonies were taken by Germany in peace treaty, so England occupied them later.

 

[Dofon]

that was certainly something! The Japanese have truly been humbled, though I was quite surprised by the move. The British have suffered doubly so, but the Home Fleet probably has at least one more squadron and one mixed squadron of beaten up vessels to go. Given your invective, even if the entire Hochseeflotte is down, they are definitely going to rise to the challenge once more.

 

[Vlad_Dracul1989]

I do find matters naval the one bedevilling weakness of almost all PDS games.

I would appreciate myself some blockade runner or raider mechanics, slightly improving own industry and complicating naval supply of enemy.

Great update! Many do not like the naval part of the game, despite the limitations, I always try to invest and make good use of my navy, especially playing with Germany.

It's always lovely to imagine shiny floating toys sinking in fire. Or port naval bombardments

Those are some stinging losses for the smaller German fleet, but both Japan and England have suffered much more severe losses. Sad to see Spee gone. Maybe name a upcomming ship after him?

Some new class in the future will be definitely named Graf Spee

An impressive gauntlet run by the High Seas Fleet.

I note from the screenshots that France seems to be having a bit of trouble holding on to Algeria at the moment -- perhaps something we'll see in a later update?

I think it was noted earlier that France only really reasserted its control over the colonies in the early 30ies. For me, the more intresting question is that Brittain seems to have seized French holdings around the Ivory Coast

These colonies were taken by Germany in peace treaty, so England occupied them later.

When I tried to count, no less than 25-30 British divisions in one time, in Africa tried to get every piece of German jungle, desert and swamp.
Yeah, Africa is sooo a top priority...but hey, it's realistic, considering that Lion of Africa also tied 300k of them. What a pointless exercises.

that was certainly something! The Japanese have truly been humbled, though I was quite surprised by the move. The British have suffered doubly so, but the Home Fleet probably has at least one more squadron and one mixed squadron of beaten up vessels to go. Given your invective, even if the entire Hochseeflotte is down, they are definitely going to rise to the challenge once more.

High Seas Fleet now makes much more spectacular plan, in Kaiserschlacht fashion: to obtain total victory, throwing everything to it, one last battle - now or never.

 

[Vlad_Dracul1989]

​

From "The Ethical Problems of the War". Gilbert Murray. 1915.
​

[An address delivered at the National Conference of Unitarian, Liberal Christian, Free Christian, Presbyterian, and other non-subscribing or kindred congregations, London]


I think that we may say that probably all here do begin, in their own minds, by feeling the war as an ethical problem. Certainly that is the way it appealed to me, and it is from that point of view I wish to speak tonight. Curiously enough I remember speaking in this hall, I suppose about fifteen years ago, against the policy of the war in South Africa. I little imagined then that I should live to speak in favour of the policy of a much greater and more disastrous war, but that is what, on the whole, I shall do.

Deposed and disgraced monarch with his family travelled through unoccupied Russia for a long time, before they could be evacuated on British cruiser. After capture of Winter Palace, Wilhelm, the Crown Prince of Germany, offered them publicly the safe passage through occupied territory, but former Emperor Nicholas didn't even bother to answer, considering it an insult and victor's attempt to take him the last piece of dignity. "This is either a manoeuvre to discredit me or an insult." was the immediate reaction. Instead, he rather kept faith in his former subjects, who now despised him deeply. Before imperial family was able to leave revolutionary Russia, however, his son Alexei died on the way, succumbing to disease he had since he was born. Apparently due to one incident with guards, which were supposed to protect them. The remaining family members never talked about it, and Nicholas's wife spent her last years in mental asylum. When asked about their fate, Kaiser answered plainly: "The misery of the unhappy Tsar is only his own doing. He can blame only himself for this personal hell of him."

But I want to begin by facing certain facts. Don't let us attempt to bind ourselves or be blinded by phrases into thinking that the war is anything but a disaster, and an appalling disaster. Don't let us be led away by views which have some gleam of truth in them into believing that this war will put an end to war that it will convert Germany, and certainly convert Russia to liberal opinions, that it will establish natural frontiers throughout Europe or that it will work a moral regeneration in nations which were somehow sapped by too many years of easy living in peace.

There is some truth, and very valuable truth, in all those considerations, but they do not alter the fact that the war is, as I said, an appalling disaster. We knew when we entered upon it that it was a disaster we knew that we should suffer, and that all Europe would suffer.

The Wilhelm II. in conversation with General Otto von Below, Commander of the German 14th Army on the Italian Front. Von Below was killed in action only a weeks after the meeting. Compared to common soldiers, officer corps suffered twice as many losses, especially from young officers leading the infantry and cavalry charges - but losses of high ranking officers were not an exceptions. By the later stages of the war, there were many more sharpshooters on both sides, specifically targeting them. This persistent problem was partially compensated by the later battle manuals, urging flexible, independent actions of small groups, greatly supported by Oskar von Hutier or his higher ranking cousin Ludendorff. These were tested first against Italians in 1916.

Now let us run over very briefly the ways in which it is doing evil. Let us face the evil first. There is, first, the mere suffering, the leagues and leagues of human suffering that is now spreading across Europe, the suffering of the soldiers, the actual wounded combatants, and behind them the suffering of non-combatants, the suffering of people dispossessed, of refugees, of people turned suddenly homeless into a world without pity. Behind that you have the sufferings of dumb animals. We are not likely to forget that.

There is another side which we are even less likely to forget, and that is our own personal losses. There are very few people in this room who have not suffered in that direct, personal way; there will be still fewer by the end of the war. I don't want to dwell upon that question; the tears are very close behind our eyes when we begin to think of that aspect of things, and it is not for me to bring them forward.

In case of Georg von Marwitz, General der Kavallerie, who died in same month on Russian Front, things were a bit more complicated: after he was appointed as military administrator of occupied territories and immediately imposed the German law and order over Ukraine, he was killed during an ambush made by nationalist radicals, enraged by planning puppet status of the country: by that time, Reichsbank took over assets of every bank in Kiev and elsewhere and German Empire's military courts extended it's jurisdiction officially over all the inhabitants, both locals and foreigners residing here.

Think, again, of the State's loss, the loss of all those chosen men, not mere men taken haphazard, but strong men, largely men of the most generous and self-sacrificing impulses who responded most swiftly to the call for their loyalty and their lives. Some of them are dead, some will come back injured, maimed, invalided, in various ways broken. There is an old Greek proverb which exactly expresses the experience that we shall be forced to go through, "The spring is taken out of your year." For a good time ahead the years of England and most of Europe will be without a spring.

In that consideration I think it is only fair, and I am certain that an audience like this will agree with me, to add all the nations together. It is not only we and our allies who are suffering the loss there; it is a loss to humanity. It seems almost trivial after these considerations of life and death, but think too of our monetary losses; of the fact that we have spent 1,595 millions and that we are throwing away money at the rate of nearly five millions a day. Yet just think what it means, that precious surplus with which we meant to make England finer in every way, that surplus is gone.

From a rich, generous, sanguine nation putting her hopes in the future, we shall emerge a rather poverty stricken nation, bound to consider every penny of increased expenditure; a harassed nation only fortunate if we are still free. Just think of all our schemes of reform and how they are blown to the four winds schemes of social improvement, of industrial improvement; a scheme like Lord Haldane's great education scheme which was to begin by caring for the health of the small child, and then lead him up by a great ladder from the primary school to the University!

How some of us who were specially interested in education revelled in the thought of that great idea; but it was going to cost such a lot of money. It would cost nearly as much as half a week of the war! Think what riches we had then, and on the whole, although we are perhaps the most generous nation in Europe, what little use we made of them. We speak of spiritual regeneration as one of the results of war, but here too there is the spiritual evil to be faced.

By the start of year, France resembled wasps' nest more than anything else. Radicals from both sides of French political spectrum openly fought in the streets against each other and the Army was the only force keeping Third Republic in one piece. Things were only worse after third elections in one year and appointment of former commander of French Army, Joseph Joffre as President, who, along with Prime Minister Georges Clémenceau urged to return to the war: which seemed the only thing able to unite various political groups. Knowing well, that Army still didn't fully recovered from 1914 Armistice, they pushed for renewed fighting anyway - with coming Civil War as the only alternative in sight.

I do not speak merely of the danger of reaction. There will be a grave danger of political reaction and of religious reaction, and you will all have your work cut out for you in that matter. The political reaction, I believe, will not take the form of a mere wave of extreme Conservatism; the real danger will be a reaction against anything that can be called mellow and wise in politics; the real danger will be a struggle between crude militarist reaction and violent unthinking democracy.

But besides that there is another more direct spiritual danger. We cannot go on living an abnormal life without getting fundamentally disorganized. We have seen that, especially in Germany; with them it seems to be a much stronger tendency, much worse than it is with us; but clearly you cannot permanently concentrate your mind on injuring your fellow creatures without habituating yourself to evil thoughts.

With the ending winter, the French Army's divisions amassed once again on borders with Reichsland Elsass-Lothringen, leading to first incidents with border guards. German General Headquarters recalled many divisions from defeated Russia, to prevent any possibility of offensive against imperial assets around Rhine. Public of the German Empire was more than outraged, while the newspapers accused spies of United Kingdom of dragging another nation into senseless bloodshed. In this case, twice. But the French nation was not spared of slander either, called as a fools to trust their centuries old enemy and for what? For piece of land, which was never truly French in the first place. When the Germany was more than generous in 1914, not annexing a single French village in Vosges or Champagne. This was, of course, used by the militant French government to convince population that French spirit must not be left broken this time.

In Germany, of course, there is a deliberate cult of hatred. There is a process, which I won't stop to analyze, a process utterly amazing, by which a highly civilized and ordinarily humane nation has gone on from what I can only call atrocity to atrocity.

Now we do not act like that; there is something or other in the English nature which will not allow it. We shall show anger and passion, but we are probably not capable of that organized cruelty, and I hope we never shall be. Yet the same forces are at work.

And ahead, at the end of all this, what prospect is there? There is sure to be poverty and unemployment, great and long continued, just as there was after 1815. I trust we shall be better able to face it; we shall have thought out the difficulties more; we who are left with any reasonable margin of subsistence will, I hope, be more generous and more clear sighted than our ancestors a century earlier.

Still, there was an opposition from left-wing elements in society and many commanders within the Army, that with British military tied in Middle East, Russia defeated and with major defeats of Italian Army, it would be just a third humiliation - and this time, Germans may entirely scrap concept of leniency. But the French public, missing the slaughter on both Russian, Serbian and now Italian front, rather lived in delusions. On March 29th, when one newspaper mentioned remembrance day of Sack of Paris by Vikings in 845, it was the last straw: it's headquarters were attacked and burned, while mobs of soldiers and civilians approached the Versailles, calling for war. The peace treaty with German Empire was not legally breached, however, as declaration of war was made against Bulgaria, not mentioned in the treaty of 1914.

But in any case there is coming a time of great social distress and very little money indeed to meet it with. We shall achieve no doubt peace in Europe, we shall have probably some better arrangement of frontiers, but underneath the peace there will be terrific hatred. And in the heart of Europe, instead of a treacherous and grasping neighbour we shall be left with a deadly enemy, living for revenge.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I do not think that I have shirked the indictment of this war. It is a terrible indictment; and you will ask me perhaps after that description, if I still believe that our policy in declaring war was right. Yes, I do. Have I any doubt in any corner of my mind that the war was right? I have none.

Louis Franchet d'Espèrey, who led the center of French armies standing against Germans, was the greatest opponent of another war, as he assumed correctly, that fairytales about 'Americans saving France' or 'two British armies coming to help us' are nothing but lies not even President Joffre can really believe. Soon, he found himself as an ally of opportunist and conservative commander Philippe Pétain, who more than agreed that they're fighting a hopeless battle, just a 'show for happy street rabble', he called it.

We took the path of duty and the only path we could take. Some people speak now as if going on with the war was a kind of indulgence of our evil passions. The war is not an indulgence of our evil passions; the war is a martyrdom.

Now, let us not exaggerate here. It is not a martyrdom for Christianity. I saw a phrase the other day that we were fighting for the nailed hand of One crucified, against the "mailed fist." That description is an ideal a man may carry in his own heart, but, of course, it is an exaggeration to apply to our national position, to the position of any nation in international politics. We are not saints, we are not a nation of early Christians. Yet we are fighting for a great cause. How shall I express it? We are a country of ripe political experience, of ancient freedom; we are, with all our faults, I think, a country of kindly record and generous ideals, and we stand for the established tradition of good behaviour between nations.

When battle-hardened German divisions broke the fierce Italian resistance through relentless artillery bombardments and daring charges of heavily armed infantry, they finally realized the hopelessness of whole resistance: even with many German units still in Russia, even with another one recalled to French and Greek borders, they were decimated by superior numbers, superior firepower and most importantly, superior skills. Capture of Venice was crippling humiliation itself, combined with heavy losses of now encircled divisions holding prewar Austrian borders.

We stand for the recognition of mutual rights, for the tradition of common honesty and common kindliness between nation and nation; we stand for the old decencies, the old humanities, "the old ordinance," as the King's letter put it, "the old ordinance that has bound civilized Europe together." And against us there is a power which, as the King says, has changed that ordinance. Europe is no longer held together by the old decencies as it was.

The enemy has substituted for it some rule which we cannot yet fathom to its full depth. You can call it militarism or Realpolitik if you like; it seems to involve the domination of force and fraud, it seems to involve organized ruthlessness, organized terrorism, organized mendacity. The phrase that comes back to my mind when I think of it is Mr. Gladstone's description of another evil rule it is the negation of God erected into a system of government.

The Easter Rising in 1916 didn't went at all like rebels or German military intelligence imagined: the ship Libau of Captain Karl Spindler reached Ireland succesfully, with no less than 20.000 Russian rifles, machine guns and explosives, which could prove vital for the success of the rebellion - unfortunately, the Irish failed to make a contact in time and Spindler was forced to sink the ship, when approached by first patrolling warship. Without them, the Irish had little chance to succeed, especially when naval bombardment of the Dublin started and isolated positions of the rebels were soon crushed, one by one. In the long term, however, harsh British reprisals against rebellion were used against them by both Irish nationalists and Germany: Irish loyal to United Kingdom lost all their influence and such atrocities were often used by German diplomats and newspapers, condemning such vile actions against own subjects.

The sort of thing for which we are fighting, the old ordinance, the old kindliness and the old humanities is it too much to say that, if there is God in man, it is in these things after all that God in man speaks? The old ordinance is illogical. Of course it is illogical. It means that civilized human beings in the midst of their greatest passions, in the midst of their angers and rages, feel that there is something deeper, something more important than war or victory that at the bottom of all strife there are some remnants of human brotherhood.

Now, I do not want to go into a long list of German atrocities; much less do I want to denounce the enemy. As Mr. Balfour put it in his whimsical way: "We take our enemy as we find him." But it has been the method throughout this war the method the enemy has followed, to go at each step outside the old conventions. We have sometimes followed. Sometimes we have had to follow. But the whole history of the war is a history of that process.

Italian prisoners of war in one the German POW camps in 1916. Due to absolutely unacceptable inability of Austrians to provide enough place to held them, they were transported to the Germany, which was often mentioned with much contempt in the military and diplomatic circles, further eroding the mutual relations. More Germans every day were convinced, that Austria-Hungary is some dead body, already rotting, the Kaiser himself must keep it standing to make it look alive. What was worse, Army's generals started to see it as well - Galician, Romanian and now Italian front didn't collapse only due to arrival of German divisions and every succesful offensive here was entirely German plan, Austro-Hungarian units reduced to unreliable auxiliary units.

In peace, with their neighbours reasonable, in no pressing danger, Germany deliberately preferred war to fair settlement; and thereby in my judgment Germany committed the primal and fundamental sin against the brotherhood of mankind.

Of course all great historical events have complicated causes, but on that fact almost alone I should base the justice and the necessity of our cause in this war. It is suggested that we are fighting to prevent the break up of the Empire. In that case, from motives of loyalty, of course we should have to fight, and I think the break up of the Empire would be a great disaster to the world. But not for any causes of that description would I use the phrase I have used, or say that in this war we were undergoing a martyrdom.

A sketch from memories of Italian who survived the onslaught during Hutier's Offensive in 1916. Apparently, that man remained alive only because of mud and dead bodies of others, who were laughing, by his own words, just moments before Germans started almost perfectly coordinated artillery barrage. These were followed by attack troops, clearing the way with flamethrowers, grenades, light machine guns, with their officers wreaking havoc with pistols and sabers in hand. They were clearly taught to move forward, until all ammunition is depleted and had no time to take of prisoners or injured men - this did only the second wave of regular infantry, securing the captured positions and supply links.

Many nations after a career of extraordinary success have become mad or drunk with ambition. "By that sin fell the angels." They were not so wicked to start with but afterward they became devils. We should never have said a word against the Germans before this madness entered into them. We liked them. Most of Europe rather liked and admired them.

So that, ladies and gentlemen, as with our eyes open we entered into this struggle, I say with our eyes open we must go on with it. We must go on with it a united nation, trusting our leaders, obeying our rulers, minding each man his own business, refusing for an instant to lend an ear to the agitated whispers of faction or of hysteria. It may be that we shall have to traverse the valley of death, but we shall traverse it until the cause of humanity is won.​

 

[stnylan]

If I am being entirely honest I had forgotten that you were fighting Italy as well.

 

[J_Master]

Why hasn't France learned its lesson already? Why do they want to lose the rest of Lorraine and Longwy?

 

[Rifal]

Why hasn't France learned its lesson already? Why do they want to lose the rest of Lorraine and Longwy?

Pff, at this point there will be no France. Only Western Germany.

 

[Nikolai]

France better keep out of this war if they are to survive, yes.

 

[Vlad_Dracul1989]

If I am being entirely honest I had forgotten that you were fighting Italy as well.

These kids were safely locked, while adult countries needed to finish conversation.
But now, spanking time.

Why hasn't France learned its lesson already? Why do they want to lose the rest of Lorraine and Longwy?

Not sure if more baguettes as citizens of Reich is good idea.

Pff, at this point there will be no France. Only Western Germany.

Let's just say Germans will never leave France again.

France better keep out of this war if they are to survive, yes.

They couldn't simply understand there's absolutely no chance for revanche. All for nothing.

 

[der Kriegsherr]

@Rifal @Nikolai

Exactly what I was thinking. Gallia delenda est, if for no other reason that their sheer stupidity is a mortal threat to themselves and others.

 

[JodelDiplom]

Balkanize France like it's 987 again

 

[Vlad_Dracul1989]

​

From "Nation, State and Economy." Ludwig von Mises [1]. 1919.

​

The united efforts of the Prussian Junker class and the Social Democratic working class, was the way opened up for the policy of Bismarck and William II; the last trace of the liberal spirit had first to disappear from Germany and liberalism had to become regarded as a kind of dishonorable ideology before the people of poets and thinkers could become a weak-willed tool of the war party.
A new generation arose that saw and noted nothing but the uninterrupted growth of prosperity, of the size of population, of trade, of shipping, in short, of everything that people are accustomed to call good times. And they began to make fun of the poverty and weakness of their fathers; they now had only contempt for the ideals of the nation of poets and thinkers.

When the flag of German Empire flew in Petrograd, Moscow and Tsaritsyn, no one in the world could finally deny, that full victory in the East is reality - by the end, only a handful of elite divisions continued with advance to Urals, Caucasus and Lapland, without much fervor, however, as Germans had little intention to continue further. The gains here had to be consolidated to gain more resources, while the division had to send elsewhere, to finish all the enemies of the Reich.

Many of the best people never reconciled themselves with this state; others did so late and reluctantly. Yet it was not easy to stand aside bearing a grudge. There came brilliant days for the German people, rich in outward honors and in military victories. The Prussian-German armies triumphed over imperial and over republican France, Alsace-Lorraine became German again (or rather Prussian), the venerable imperial title was restored. The German Empire assumed a respected position among the European powers; German warships plowed the oceans; the German flag floated over—rather worthless, to be sure—African, Polynesian, and East Asian possessions.

For all the difficulties that confronted the German people at home and abroad, the military solution was recommended; only ruthless use of power was considered rational policy. These were the German political ideas that the world has called militarism. Nevertheless, the formula that attributes the World War simply to the machinations of this militarism is wrong. For German militarism does not spring, as it were, from the violent instincts of the "Teutonic race," as the English and French war literature says; it is not the ultimate cause, but the result of the circumstances in which the German people has lived and lives.

The imperialist wants a state as large as possible; he does not care whether that corresponds to the desire of the peoples. The imperialistic people's state scarcely differs from the old princely state in its interpretation of sovereignty and its boundaries. Like the latter, it knows no other limits to the expansion of its rule than those drawn by the opposition of an equally strong power. Even its lust for conquest is unlimited.

It wants to hear nothing of the right of peoples. If it "needs" a territory, then it simply takes it and, where possible, demands further from the subjugated peoples that they find this just and reasonable. Foreign peoples are in its eyes not subjects but objects of policy. They are—quite as the princely state once thought—appurtenances of the country where they live. Expressions also recur in the modern imperialistic manner of speaking, therefore, that were believed to be already forgotten. People speak again of geographic boundaries, of the necessity of using a piece of land as a "buffer zone"; territories are again rounded off; they are exchanged and sold for money.

German theory saw itself compelled to fight the nationality principle and replace it with the doctrine of the unified state. Small states are said no longer to have any justification for their existence nowadays. They supposedly must therefore necessarily seek links with larger states in order to form an "economic and trench community" with them. If this means no more than that small states are scarcely able to mount sufficient resistance to the lust for conquest of their more powerful neighbors, well, one cannot contradict that. If it comes to war between them and a great power, then they must succumb unless help comes to them from outside. It is provided by large and small states, not from sympathy or on principle but in their own interest.

The Russian Provisional Government, by the time of surrender stationed at Omsk by the single unit loyal to the Russian Republic was seen as unreliable even enough to capitulate and to ensure surrender of military's remnants. Therefore, Russian revolutionaries in Swiss exile led by Lenin, were allowed to return and form a government which could ensure the signing of final peace treaty. Civil war in Russia seemed unavoidable and Germans needed time and stability for their planned vassal states, especially Ukraine, where German military had to take drastic actions against nationalists, anarchists and bolsheviks, which wouldn't cease for years to come and then, there was an issue of new monarchies - by the various proclaimed governments, German princes arrived to the eastern lands - some sought permission of Kaiser first, some did not.

When Naumann, Renner, and their numerous disciples recommended to the small peoples of Europe an association with a Central Europe under German leadership, they completely misunderstood the essence of the Prussian protective tariff policy. On political or military grounds, an alliance with the German nation assuring independence to all participants could be desirable for the small nations of Eastern and Southeastern Europe.

In no case, however, could an alliance that would be serviceable exclusively to German interests appear welcome to them. That was the only kind, however, that the advocates of Central Europe had in view. They wanted an alliance that would enable Germany to compete militarily with the world's great powers for colonial possessions, possessions whose advantages could have benefited the German nation alone. They conceived of the Central European world empire, furthermore, as a protective tariff community.

Just that, however, is what all these smaller nations do not want. They do not want to be mere markets for German industrial products; they do not want to forgo developing at home those branches of industry that have their natural locations there and importing from outside Germany the goods produced more cheaply there.

Everyone in the Eastern Europe had enough of war. Only slowly reducing number of refugees of various nationalities, in care of Germany and Austria-Hungary or their armies, were proof enough: in the end, only Alexander Kerensky, the 'theoretical leader' of Russia, remained from the ones, who wanted to continue with the futile battle, which now was only prolonging the German control of Russian lands. With the Lenin and his lackies back and outside his reach, Kerensky finally decided to accept the terms, whatever humiliating they were. This act gave the fledgling Republic more time to solve it's issues: which couldn't be really solved peacefully, with Vladimir Lenin back or not. Defeat was so crushing from all possible views, historic, economic or militarily ones.

It is not to be denied that Rumania, say, on voluntarily joining a German-Austrian-Hungarian customs community, would have experienced a rise in the prices of agricultural products. It is overlooked, however, that industrial products would have risen in price, on the other hand, since then Rumania would have had to pay the higher German domestic prices, while if it is not joined in a customs community with Germany, it pays the lower world market prices.

What it would have lost from joining the German customs community would have been greater than what it would have gained thereby. At present Rumania is a relatively underpopulated or at least a not overpopulated country; that means that the bulk of its export goods can at present and in the foreseeable future be exported without any dumping. Rumania has no enterprises in primary production and only a few in industry whose location would not be natural. Things are different for Germany, which, precisely in the most important branches of production, works under more unfavorable conditions than foreign countries.

Number of Kaiser's advisors to partition of Russia varied, but Hindenburg and Ludendorff always remained as his right and left hands, as always. Hindenburg, who first fought as a soldier in Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and who even remembered the rule of Frederick William IV, preferred questions of historical and dynastic traditions, which had to be properly created to make an orderly realms protected by Germany. Ludendorff, more a practical man, cared about communication lines, sources of raw materials and ethnic composition of conquered lands. These thoughts were all channeled through the Kaiser's mind and two principles then directed these efforts: final peace settlement regarding precise partitions and claims will be made only after the end of entire conflict, therefore, after capitulation of British Empire. Other one, was the encouragement of governments in the East loyal to German Empire, regarding their efforts to stabilize the territory through loyal population, as much as invitations of German princes, military advisors, landowners and industrialists.

The imperialistic way of thinking, is in truth gripped by barter economy and feudal preconceptions. In peacetime it is a matter of indifference whether one produces foodstuffs and raw materials at home oneself or, if it seems more economic, obtains them from abroad in exchange for other products that one has produced.

When a medieval prince acquired a piece of land where ore was mined, then he had a right to call this mine his own. But if a modern state annexes a mining property, these mines still have not thereby become those of its citizens.

If the prince is happy about the annexation of a new province, if he is proud about the size of his realm, that is immediately understandable. If, however, the common man is happy that "our" realm has become larger, that "we" have acquired a new province, well, that is a joy that does not arise from the satisfaction of economic needs.

Once that has been recognized, however, then only the military argument can still be adduced in favor of the policy of national expansion. The nation must be populous to field many soldiers. Soldiers are needed, however, to acquire land on which soldiers can be raised. That is the circle that the imperialistic way of thinking does not escape.

The Duke Wilhelm of Urach, of regnal name Mindaugas II, who was chosen as King of Lithuania by it's Constitutional Council, was not the first, second, not even third, who was considered: Kaiser himself contemplated the title, to create a personal union between Prussia and Lithuania. Then his youngest son Joachim came to discussion or some Catholic candidate from Saxony, as the House of Wettin had historical ties to the land. But the Duke's candidacy prevailed due to numerous reasons: an intelligent and Catholic noble of succesful military career, he was outside of succession line to Kingdom of Wurttemberg and was not closely related to House of Hohenzollern - moreover, his family had no ties with now also independent Poland. He also started to learn the language as soon as possible.

Conquering nations finally perish, either because they are annihilated by strong ones or because the ruling class is culturally overwhelmed by the subjugated. Once already the Germanic peoples conquered the world, yet were finally defeated. East Goths and Vandals went down fighting; West Goths, Franks and Lombards, Normans and Varangians remained victors in battle, but they were culturally defeated by the subjugated; they, the victors, adopted the language of the defeated and were absorbed into them.

One or the other is the fate of all ruling peoples. The landlords pass away, the peasants remain; as the chorus in the Bride of Messina expresses it: "The foreign conquerors come and go, and we obey but we remain." The sword proves in the long run not to be the most suitable means of gaining broad diffusion for a people. That is the "impotence of victory" of which Hegel speaks.

With all events happening in the Eastern Europe, the world's public could easily forget about Middle East and the Ottoman fronts: with the help of German money, supplies and military advisors, the Palestine remained in Ottoman hands and Iraq stood peaceful and secured. The efforts of British Empire in the area remained futile - Arab leaders, at least most of them, were not so easily persuaded to try to lose everything against obviously strongest military alliance in the world.

The princely states waged war as often as required by the interests of princes aiming at extending their power. In the calculation of the prince and his counselors, war was a means just like any other; free from any sentimental regard for the human lives that were thereby put at stake, they coolly weighed the advantages and disadvantages of military intervention as a chess player considers his moves.

The path of kings led literally over corpses. Wars were not perhaps begun, as people are accustomed to saying, for "trivial reasons." The cause of war was always the same: the princes' greed for power. What superficially looked like the cause of war was only a pretext. (Remember, say, the Silesian wars of Frederick the Great.) The age of democracy knows no more cabinet wars.

The United States, slowly, but surely, were turning against the Central Powers, but not at the pace the British hoped: President Wilson, otherwise more than sympathetic to the Entente, was re-elected in 1916 under slogans such as "America First" or "He kept us out of war". Aftermath of sinking of Lusitania, which coincided with discontinued submarine warfare (after crippling battle loses), only reinforced his image as succesful anti-war politician and a diplomat. The Americans, therefore, had seen domestic issues now more important - not saving France or Britain by sending their sons and fathers to some purely imperialist slaughter amongst monarchies.

Even the three European imperial powers, out of which only one remains now, were the last representatives of the old absolutist idea of the state, had for a long time already no longer possessed the power to instigate such wars. The democratic opposition at home was already much too strong for that. From the moment when the triumph of the liberal idea of the state had brought the nationality principle to the fore, wars were possible only for national reasons.

That could be changed neither by the fact that liberalism soon was seriously endangered by the advance of socialism nor by the fact that the old military power still remained at the helm in Central and Eastern Europe. That is a success of liberal thinking that can no longer be undone, and that should not be forgotten by anyone who undertakes to revile liberalism and the Enlightenment.

There was one troublesome development much closer to Germany, than isolationists in America: the death of Austro-Hungarian monarch, who ruled since 1848 was now replaced by his grandnephew Charles I. The timid man, who sought compromises from the very first day of his reign, unsuccesfully tried to rekindle loyalty to his House from suffering subjects, turning against each other and blaming the Vienna altogether for miseries of war. Anytime Charles tried to pursue policy of final peace settlement, however, he was 'strongly reminded' by first visit of Wilhelm II, that it was Austria-Hungary which started the storm, and they should thank him and his armies, to still stay in existence so far.

A hundred years ago the Holy Alliance sought to elevate the principle of legitimacy to the basis of international law. The possessions of the princes at that time were to be protected and guaranteed both against other princes and also, in line with the political thinking of the time, against the demands of revolutionary subjects. The causes of the failure of this attempt need not be investigated at length; they are obvious.

Rodbertus and Engels both oppose the political demands of the non-German peoples of Austria. That the Germans and Magyars, at the time when the great monarchies really became a historical necessity in Europe, "put all these small, stunted, impotent nationlets together into a great empire and thereby made them capable of taking part in a historical development to which they, left to themselves, would have remained quite foreign"—for not having understood that, Engels reproaches the Pan-Slavists. He admits that such an empire cannot prevail "without forcibly crushing many a tender flowerlet of a nation.

Emperor Charles then saw no other option, but to turn to his peoples, to see if there's indeed no hope for the future: it was far worse than he imagined, when he gained the precise datas about the war economy, which had worse impact on mostly agrarian state than on industrial Germany. Aside from German Austrians, there were only two ethnicities overwhelmingly loyal to the Dual Monarchy despite everything: Poles and Jews. The Austrian part of the Empire suffered from food shortages, while Hungarians had surplus production, which they rather stockpiled or sold directly to German Empire or Bulgarians. There was some success with South Slavic population, though. Charles's concept of 'trialism' which supported creation of Slavonian-Croatian third part of monarchy, to which also Dalmatia and Bosnia would be incorporated, had seen support from local elites and the population alike - less from Hungarians, of course.

Everywhere democracy has been able to overcome the old princely state; everywhere the revolutionary forces have triumphed. Only precisely in Germany and in Austria —has the democratic revolution been defeated again and again. While every nation of Europe and America has experienced an age of liberalism in constitutional and economic policy, in Germany and Austria only slight successes have been accorded to liberalism.

When the subjects of the German princes began to awake, they found their fatherland torn to shreds. Only two territorial princes were strong enough to stand on their own feet; their means of power rested, however, not on their German position but on their possessions outside Germany. For Austria this assertion needs no further justification; the fact was never disputed. It was otherwise for Prussia. It is common to overlook the fact that the position of Prussia in Germany and in Europe always remained insecure until the Hohenzollerns succeeded in building a rather large contiguous state territory, first by the annexation of Silesia, which at the time was half Slavic, and then by the acquisition of Posnania and West Prussia.

Visits in the least fortunate parts of the Dual Monarchy, however, were a much more cold shower to reformist mindof young Emperor: Galicia-Lodomeria or Transylvania suffered from much greater impacts of war, which only multiplied the century long ethno-religious conflicts. These poor lands were now brought to brink of famine and repeated epidemics, too, were perfect target for left-wing agitators and many radicals.

It is true that the state of the Hohenzollerns, too, which Prussian court historiography lauded as the implementation of all utopias, was not a whit better than the other German states; and Frederick William I or Frederick II were no less hateful despots than any Württemberg or Hessian lord. But one thing distinguished Brandenburg—Prussia from the other German territories: the state was not ridiculous; its policy was purposeful, steady, and power—seeking.



[1] Author, a liberal Austrian noble and academician, emigrated to United States in 1925, after his works were repeatedly denounced in academic circles and public - followed by accusations and public attacks for spreading Bolshevik propaganda.​

 

[stnylan]

German power is thus shown to have been consolidated, in more ways than one.

 

[AchtungPanzer]

One down, Italy is next. Can't hold for longer.

 

[HIMDogson]

So wait, is Ludwig von Mises still a proto-Ayn Rand? If so good riddance.