Crisis Point
Mustafa Kemal Pasha, Commander of the Ottoman Seventh Army
The Contentious East
The German Spring Offensive and its aftermath would come to have immense consequences for the conduct of the war in the Middle East. First and foremost, it saw the reassignment of the EEF's Commander in Chief, Edmund Allenby, to command of the BEF in France and his replacement with recently promoted General Phillip Chetwode. An experienced commander though one widely despised by his British subordinate commanders for his role in the Curragh Incident of 1914, when a series of British officers threatened to resign their posts in protest over the passing of the Irish Home Rule Act, with Chetwode accepting an offer to replace the preeminent brigadier-general Hubert Gough if Gough were to follow through on the threat to resign. Secondly, the Egyptian Expeditionary Force Chetwode inherited was significantly different from that under Allenby following the mass transfer of British and Anzac troops from Palestine to France, and consisted primarily of recently transferred soldiers from the British Indian Army. These troops commonly had very little combat experience, though around one tenth of the soldiers were more experienced soldiers from the Mesopotamian front, and very few of them shared a language with their inexperienced British commanders (1).
Chetwode would spend much of the summer trying to rebuild the EEF following the disruptions caused by the mass troop transfers, skirmishing with the Army Group Yildirim to their north. The Yildirim were themselves experiencing a great deal of changes as the recently ascended Sultan Mehmed VI exerted his influence by appointing Mustafa Kemal Pasha to commander of the Ottoman Seventh Army in the Judean Hills and pushing for the transfer of forces in the Caucasus to support their defence of the region. Over the course of the summer of 1918, the two forces would work to strengthen their positions, with the Ottomans committing to a successful push on Amman, overrunning Arab defences in the region and forcing them back into the desert, only to be turned back by a joint British-Arab push on the city in early August.
The recapture of Amman began an extended Arab campaign in the Transjordan, in which Emir Faisal and his men were able to go on a rampage, overrunning positions by the dozens and pressing ever further northward. This in turn put pressure on the Ottomans west of the Jordan, who were forced to turn their focus eastward and eventually forced the German commander of Army Group Yildirim, General Liman von Sanders to order the construction of a defensive line further to the north, between Haifa and Beisan, and a series of fallback lines in preparation for a retreat from Palestine. It was around the time this order was given that Chetwode began testing the Turkish positions in the Judean Hills, provoking a series of bitter skirmishes and ambushes which helped harden the raw army under his control. By mid-September, as British resources began to become available once more, Chetwode was almost ready to launch an offensive he had been planning for months while Emir Faisal began penetrating into southern Syria, threatening the suburbs of Damascus in one daring raid (2).
On the 22nd of September 1918, Emir Faisal launched an all-out assault on Dera and cut the railroads there, placing the Ottoman positions atop the Judean Hills in danger of being cut off. Although the Ottoman defenders were able to beat back the Arab attack on Dera and reopen the rail line, this would prove enough for Liman von Sanders to order a staged withdrawal which was undertaken over the next five days out of the hills to the recently constructed defensive line. As they went, they stripped the countryside to their south of anything they could get their hands, ruining railroads, poisoning wells and leaving boobytraps behind every corner. At first the Chetwode didn't quite believe his luck and it would take two days before his men pushed forward slowly, encountering the devastation the Ottomans had left behind. It would take the better part of a week before the British reached the new Ottoman lines, whereupon they began a series of assaults to test it, only to experience considerable casualties. The new positions occupied by the British were also extremely exposed, located on a flat plain and with the Ottomans on an incline, allowing them to rain hell from above with what artillery they had available. It was also around this period that further reinforcements began to arrive from the Caucasus, turning the front to stalemate once more (3).
However, further east the situation was far more fluid, as Faisal pressed ever northward. Having been thwarted at Dera, he would launch a series of raids on the town and the surrounding rail lines over the next month before exploiting the relative coolness of the approaching winter to conduct a daring expedition that would make his name. Amassing a force of 5,000 warriors, Faisal went on a week-long crossing into the Syrian desert, emerging north of Damascus where he and his men proceeded to wreak absolute havoc, cutting rail lines and burning out military outposts, while the Ottomans rushed forces to counter them, only for Faisal and his men to retreat back into the desert, returning to Amman in the new year (4).
This raid would provide a morale boost to the British in the region precisely when they needed it the most, for events on the Mesopotamian front had taken a turn for the worse. Having seen the forces in the region gravely denuded in order to support Allenby's assault on the Judean Hills and later to reinforce the sudden weakening of the Palestine Front in May and June, the careful General William Marshall, Commander-in-Chief of Mesopotamia, had sought to consolidate British gains in the region and build up sufficient defences to hold until reinforcements could arrive. However, with the Turkish successes in the Caucasus and northern Iran over the course of early and mid-1918, the Ottomans felt able to finally turn back to this theatre in the autumn, proceeding towards the execution of an offensive in October of 1918.
Pressing forward and overrunning the outer defences Marshall had constructed, the Ottomans were able to place Baghdad under siege on the 8th of October 1918, sending panic through British ranks as fears of a repeat of the Siege of Kut spread like wildfire. Forces were rushed forward while further men were drawn from India itself, despite the sudden occurrence of a deadly flu which began running rampant in India around the same time. However, by the time forces were being landed in southern Mesopotamia they were having to cart them directly into hospital wards by the thousands, and even more into mass graves. The flu would spread like wildfire up the Tigris and Euphrates, often in advance of the reinforcements, and eventually reached the besiegers outside Baghdad, soon crossing the lines and tearing into the besieged force as well. By the time British reinforcements grew closer to Baghdad, they would find themselves met by a British force under General Alexander Cobbe, who had led a breakout from Baghdad when it became clear it could not be held, General Marshall having fallen to the flu. With disease preventing a Turkish pursuit and the British themselves crippled by disease and supply shortages, neither side felt well enough to provoke a battle, the British pulling back down the river to Kut (5).
General Maurice Sarrail was replaced as commander of the Armée Alliées en Orient at Salonica by the talented Adolphe Guillaumat in December 1917. On arriving, Guillaumat found his new post in considerable disarray, disease running rampant and short on supplies, the result of the Austrian thrust into the Mediterranean immediately following the fall of Italy. It would take months for Guillaumat to put everything right, setting out plans for an ambitious offensive in the region designed to reopen the Balkans front, only for the German Spring Offensives to intervene in his plans and force preparations to a halt. In the aftermath of the German Offensive, Guillaumat was recalled to France to take up command of the Paris Military District, leaving behind his plans to the man who would replace him, the former commander of the French Seventh Army, General Baucheron de Boissoudy. Baucheron de Boissoudy arrived on the heels of the French GQG's decision to prioritise the French offensive in Champagne with Boissoudy's primary task being to tie down Central Power forces in the Balkans while several divisions were shipped back to France to support the big offensive.
It was under these circumstances that Boissoudy decided against authorising a proposed assault on the immense fortified position at Skra-di-Legen by the Greek Army, believing it too great of a risk. He instead commenced a series of demonstration assaults up and down the line, testing it for weakness and seeking to draw Central Power reinforcements, while launching smaller attacks on positions that seemed weak, though experiencing little success in this effort. 1918 on the Salonica Front would pass much as 1917 had, with minor battles and skirmishes but little sign of breaking the stalemate. This, as well as the severe manpower shortage provoked by the Fourth Battle of Champagne, would result in the recall of much of the French forces in the region, with most of the Allied positions being turned over to Greek and Serbian defenders as the Allies reevaluated the prospects of the region for the coming year (6).
However, despite the small scale of conflict in the Salonica theatre, war weariness and socialist agitation in Bulgaria, which had been at war nearly uninterrupted for eight years by this point, finally boiled over in the Radomir Rebellion which was to have significant consequences for the future of Bulgaria. Centering on the small town of Radomir west of Sofia, the rebellion saw several thousand disenchanted Bulgarian soldiers abandon their posts on the frontlines to march on Sofia at the urging of the leader of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union, Alexander Stamolijski, who wanted to overthrow the Tsar and institute a republic.
As the growing group of rebels approached the outskirts of Sofia on 30 September, they were met by a highly motivated force of loyal Bulgarian military cadets and German soldiers. Their anger at the rebellious ‘traitors’ had already been vented two days earlier when the cadets held up a train transporting injured Bulgarian soldiers from the front. Accusing them of defeatism and socialist subversion of the front, the loyalist troops had executed some 500 of the injured. Over the following days they proceeded to crush the Radomir Rebellion with heavy artillery, followed by mass arrests and massacres, in which about 3,000 supporters of the uprising were killed and 10,000 wounded. Among the dead was Stambolijski, who had been captured while trying to flee the collapse of the rebellion and had been summarily shot on his identity being confirmed. The collapse of the Radomir Rebellion and the death of Stambolijski splintered and weakened the Bulgarian pacifist movement and removed the single greatest threat to the Tsar and his family, who had to be forcibly detained by German soldiers to prevent the Tsar's flight from Sofia. In the aftermath of the Radomir Rebellion, German influence in Sofia would grow at a marked rate while Austro-Hungarian troops were brought in to help prop up the Tsarist regime (7).
Footnotes:
(1) IOTL the Palestine front experienced immense disruptions following the launching of the German Spring Offensives as well IOTL, resulting in similar troop transfers. The major difference in Palestine is that the British aren't quite as convinced of its potential as the centre of a breakthrough due to the failures in April in the Judean Hills and the fact that it is Chetwode who is in charge in the Palestine now. This might seem like a minor difference, but it has an immensely important political impact which results in the reprioritizations of the Palestine front and results in it only receiving what little assistance the military leadership can get away with. Chetwode was widely despised by his peers and a lot of that antagonism follows him into his new position.
(2) The Palestine front is a bit more active than IOTL, particularly in the Transjordan where Emir Faisal is very motivated to press forward in memory of Lawrence of Arabia. Not only is this partially for revenge, but seeing as Faisal doesn't have the highest opinions of the British following the revelations of the Secret Treaties, he is determined to secure as good a position as possible. This plays a key role in convincing Liman von Sanders to follow a proposal he got IOTL but didn't follow up on to pull back from the exposed positions along the coast.
(3) The Ottoman retreat disrupts any possible chance of launching an assault like the OTL Battle of Megiddo and allows the Turks to secure a more stable line. They have a railroad to their rear which allows quick movement up and down the front and are dug in along a series of smaller hills overlooking the flatlands to their south. This is a position that can be held unless morale completely collapses and has no major weaknesses, as the positions they held before had.
(4) Having failed to take Dera, the result of more troops being transferred in from the Caucasus after the successes earlier in the year, Faisal is looking for something to keep his men engaged in the struggle, which is what leads to the rather brazen crossing of the Syrian Desert. While he doesn't have the resources or men to take Damascus, his raid does cause significant disruption and chaos which allows the British in Palestine to steady their new front and dig in.
(5) There are a number of important factors that play into the Ottoman recapture of Baghdad, first and foremost among them The Great Flu, which tore through India at this point in time. India had more than 17 million dead from the Spanish Flu IOTL and here it just so happens to coincide with British efforts at reinforcing Mesopotamia, resulting in the disease travelling in the cramped troop transports. These are optimal conditions for the disease to spread and germinate, resulting in a major outbreak tearing through much of Mesopotamia. The capture of Baghdad is another major morale victory for the Turks following their successes in the Caucasus. IOTL the British only attempted taking Baghdad because they thought the Russians would be able to support them and take Mosul. Under these new circumstances, and having lost Baghdad, the British are unlikely to throw much more manpower into Mesopotamia.
(6) Franchet d'Esperey does not find himself dismissed as a result of the Third Battle of the Aisne, as happened IOTL, and actually leads the most successful sector of the Fourth Battle of Champagne. As a result, he is not available when the French pull Guillaumat back to Paris. In his place we have Boissoudy, a more conservative general with a considerably different mandate than that given to d'Esperey IOTL. With the British setback in Flanders, the French are forced to keep more forces on the Western Front and as such they turn to the greatly reinforced Salonica Front for men. This in turn makes something like the Vardar Offensive far less feasible. Furthermore, the timing of the German Spring Offensives means that Guillaumat isn't willing to authorise the OTL assault on Skra-di-Legen for fear that he will need to transfer forces to France in the middle of the assault. This delays the assault to September, where Boissoudy comes to the conclusion that it is too great of a risk for him to take given his current mandate. Thus, there is no great breakout in the Balkans. An important thing to note here is that with the failure of the Eastern Strategy earlier in 1918, there is a general belief in Allied circles that the region isn't worth the investments that Allied forces have been making there.
(7) While the Radomir Rebellion still happens as IOTL, the lack of a collapsing Salonica Front has important consequences for how the primary actors respond. With Salonica stable, Tsar Ferdinand is less willing to abandon his position, though he does need some German coercion to stay put, and there are more forces available to put down the rebellion earlier. In contrast to OTL, the rebellion is crushed outside Sofia proper, rather than in the city, as happened IOTL, and as such the Bulgarians don't experience the same sort of collapse of order within the city that happened IOTL. The different circumstances of the defeat of the Radomir Rebellion also mean that Alexander Stamolijski is captured and killed. This has incredibly important consequences for Bulgaria, putting back the Agrarian Union significantly and weakening it considerably, which allows more conservative forces to spin the Agrarian Union as a revolutionary movement seeking to destroy Bulgaria from the inside, appealing to the patriotism and conservatism inherent to the Bulgarian peasant class, though they are forced to promise land reforms following the war to shore up support.
Georges Clemenceau, Prime Minister of France
A Tumultuous Winter
While France had proven victorious on the battlefields of Champagne, it was about to go through one of the harshest winters in its history. As tens of thousands of wounded and dead came streaming from in the frontlines, they overloaded the already precarious rail network around Paris and forced Clemenceau to conscript the rail workers into the army, forcing them to stay at their posts for days on end in order to keep up with the incredible traffic and allowing for the enforcement of military discipline. Furthermore, the massive coal shortages during the summer had been partially alleviated by the use of coal destined for heating across Paris. The first cold snap of 1918, occurring at the tail end of the Fourth Battle of Champagne, on the 27th of October, would therefore prove deadly. With coal nowhere to be found, there was little the Parisians could do other than huddle together for warmth during the cold autumn nights. This was particularly harsh on the overburdened rail-workers, who were left to direct rail traffic in the cold, with several instances of workers being found dead at their posts in the morning.
By mid-November 1918, France found itself barreling directly towards a political crisis. Clemenceau did what he could to rally his fellow citizens, but war fervour among the French was at an all-time low as a result of the German defenders holding their ground throughout the Battle of Champagne. If not even five French armies with every resource at their disposal could break through the German lines, then what hope was there of ending the war on French terms. Day by day, it grew colder, while bodies piled up from the deadly flu. With everyone crushed together for warmth, the disease ran rampant, tearing through France's cities like the Black Death come again. The smell of cremated bodies hung heavy over Paris, while the left began to muster its forces for a push towards peace. However, while the various anti-war factions began to coalesce it was determined that any large meetings, strikes or protests would need to wait until the flu died out, for fear of the disease spreading amongst their supporters. In the meanwhile, plans began to be laid and efforts were undertaken to improve the coordination between left-wing Frenchmen in all sorts of positions (8).
However, before the left-wing could really move forward with any of their planned actions, they would find themselves upstaged by a radical anarchist by the name of Émilie Cottin. Émile Cottin was twenty-two years old and had developed an interest in anarchism as a youth, meeting with several prominent anarchists in 1915 and establishing a ring of friends in those circles during the middle years of the war. In May of 1918, he was in Paris participating in the mass demonstrations and witnessed municipal guards gunning down striking workers on Clemenceau's orders. This would be the event that radicalised Cottin and set him on the path to infamy. On the morning of the 18th of January 1919, as Clemenceau was departing his apartment at Rue Benjamin-Franklin he was met by Émile Cottin, who opened fire on the French Premier with a revolver. Clemenceau was hit once in the back and three times in the torso before he went down, while Cottin was swarmed by Clemenceau's guards and arrested.
Clemenceau reportedly lamented that "They shot me in the back. They didn't even dare to attack me from the front!" Before he was carried back into his apartment while doctors were rushed to his side and news of the assassination attempt spread like wildfire. Clemenceau was very weak and the doctors gave him only hours to live. In great pain, but aware of his surroundings, Clemenceau would do what he could to put his affairs in order and tried to secure his legacy by declaring his wish to be succeeded by his close friend and political ally Georges Mandel, the Minister of the Interior. The Great Man, "Le Tigre", France's hard-willed heart, willing to fight on to the bitter end, passed away at the age of 78 in the early hours of the evening on the 18th of January 1919 (9).
While Clemenceau's death was widely lamented in public, his dedicated rival and enemy President Poincaré was swift to ignore Clemenceau's own wishes, urging his political ally Alexandre Millerand to form a cabinet and take up the duties of French Prime Minister on the 20th of January, well before Clemenceau's supporters could make their move. While Clemenceau's supporters and pacifist opponents were still trying to come to grips with his death, Poincaré stole a march on them and made a grasp at power. By the time anyone was beginning to think of the consequences of Clemenceau's death, Poincaré had already resolved the issues in his and his supporters' interest. Cottin found himself jailed on charges of treason and murder, with his trial set to start on the 15th of February 1919.
The bruising warfare of 1918, and the consequent drain on manpower and resources, had stretched the Central Powers nearly to the limits. While a food and energy crisis was avoided in the winter of 1918-1919, it was only accomplished by drawing on the resources of Italy, Ukraine and Romania that famine was kept at bay. Beyond that, the recent negotiation of an end to the blockade of Denmark meant that Germany was suddenly able to secure some food imports and the like from abroad once more, even if at a distinct Danish premium. A state of affairs which would leave the small Kingdom of Denmark swimming in money by the end of the war. Furthermore, the capture of the Béthune mines had allowed the Germans to further improve their coal supplies while massive amounts of supplies secured in Flanders were used to ease the worst crises facing the Central Powers. Even Austria-Hungary was able to skirt shortages for the time being, actually rebuilding some of their production capacity over the course of 1918 from the precipitous fall it had experienced in late 1917 and early 1918. With the Austro-Hungarian Empire largely focused on occupation duties, the Germans were able to turn their attentions firmly to the Western Front, with OHL increasingly hopeful that 1919 might mark the last year of the war (10).
However, with the end of the war with Russia in mid-1918, a flood of former prisoners of war had begun returning to the Central Powers. While this might under ordinary circumstances have seemed a beneficial development, the problem lay in the ideological leanings of many of the former prisoners of war. While in captivity, these soldiers had been bombarded incessantly with socialist, anarchist and pacifist propaganda. Now, they returned home with radical ideals which they were more than eager to share with any who would hear of them. While the Germans sought to press many of their returning soldiers back onto the line, the Austro-Hungarians would experience incredible difficulties accomplishing any such thing. Socialist and pacifist agitation, led by these returned prisoners of war, grew increasingly powerful over the course of 1918 and neared their climax in the winter of 1918-1919. It was around this time that the cries for democratic reforms and parliamentisation of the government, which had plagued the German governments throughout the war, finally began to reach a pitch that forced OHL and the civilian government to act (11).
In a meeting of the Imperial Crown Council, Max Hoffmann raised the issue in late November and suggested that efforts to include the majority parties in government at this point could prove useful in defusing much of the tension building up within Germany and would make it easier to negotiate an end to the war. This was a radical proposal and there was a great deal of initial resistance, which led to Hoffmann suggesting that key posts - most importantly the foreign ministry - would remain subject to an Imperial appointment while the Kaiser retained the right to refuse the appointment of a chancellor but allowed for parliamentary votes of no confidence. After consultation with the heads of the four major parties, the SPD, Centre, Progressive People's Party (FVP) and the National Liberal Party (NLP), three major reforms were enacted. First, membership in the Reichstag and a government office were made compatible. Second, a vote of no confidence against the chancellor in the Reichstag would result in his dismissal, meaning that the Reichstag and Kaiser would exert equal control over the government. Finally, a declaration of war as well as a peace treaty would need the consent of the Reichstag.
As part of the reshuffle that followed, Germany would see Chancellor Hertlingen resign and be replaced by Prince Max von Baden, a noted liberal monarchist of talent, though in poor health, and well known within the German establishment for reformist sympathies. While Kühlmann would remain as Foreign Minister, having amply demonstrated his talents in the cut and thrust of diplomatic warfare, he would be joined in the cabinet by two SPD polticians, Gustav Bauer as Minister of Labor and Friedrich Ebert as Minister without Portfolio, three Centrum politicians, Adolphe Gröber and Matthias Erzberger as Ministers without Portfolio and Karl Trimborn as Minister of the Interior, while the FVP remained present in the former of Vice-Chancellor Friedrich von Payer and the NLP as a Minister without Portfolio in the form of Gustav Stresemann. This new government secured a strong vote of confidence from the Reichstag and gave Hoffmann and Kühlmann the task of negotiating a peace with the Allies on as equitable a footing as possible. The shockwaves of these changes would be felt immediately in Germany where the pro-peace and social democratic movements split over the issue, collapsing into bitter infighting and leaving the field clear for the government to proceed in peace. Not to be left out, the Fatherland Party would react negatively to these changes, but Hoffmann's crackdown earlier in the year and the threat of OHL pulling funding for the party made many of their leading members extremely hesitant and kept them quiet for the time being (12).
The latter half of 1918 was a difficult time for the British, as the conscription crisis in Ireland grew worse by the day while councils of action began popping up across Britain. Scotland would find itself in the grip of intense socialist-led strikes while the British merchant marine was placed under constant pressure from German U-Boats. Pressure mounted on Lloyd George and Field Marshal Allenby to restore British honour on Flanders Fields and a coalition of anti-Lloyd George politicians in the Parliament began to form.
Most immediately destabilising were the troubles in Ireland, where Field Marshal Haig was setting about crushing resistance to conscription. Protests and strikes were broken up violently and draft dodgers were hunted down with extreme prejudice, before being shipped to France for service. Sinn Fein was swift to begin organising resistance to the British and were soon joined by disillusioned supporters of the Irish Parliamentary Party and a wide variety of other Irish nationalists. The Irish Nationalists formed bands of fighters who began ambushing British squads out rousting draft dodgers and quelling Unionist resistance across the Irish Isle. In response, the Unionists formed their own armed gangs and went after Nationalists with murderous intent ,often finding themselves deputised to support Haig's own men to make up for the severe manpower shortage he faced. The situation in Ireland soon began spinning out of control as neighbours turned on each other and summary justice began seeing widespread use. There were five assassination attempts on Haig over the course of his first four months at the new posting, while dozens of other British government and military representatives found themselves murdered or ambushed. The conflict caused its first major diplomatic crisis when Irish-American arms smugglers were caught by the coast guard off the Irish west coast with a shipment of 10,000 rifles and almost a million rounds on the 28th of October. The smugglers were imprisoned on a host of charges, several of them carrying the death penalty, prompting significant outrage amongst Irish-Americans and in the Unionist and Conservative press. While President Wilson tried to secure the release of the smugglers, there was little Lloyd George could do politically. The three Irish-American smugglers were hanged early in the new year to thunderous protests in America (13).
At the same time Scotland's powerful Red Clydeside socialist movement geared up for a knock-down drag-out fight. While they were passionately anti-war, they focused their protests on the release of anti-war politicians like the Marxist John Maclean and the Independent Labour Party (ILP) member James Maxton, who had been imprisoned for their pacifist actions. The pressure grew ever greater on the Government to release their anti-war prisoners, with demonstrations and protests spreading steadily southward, resistance to the Government line increasingly being organised by councils of action in the model of Socialist Soviets in Russia. This would climax with the Battle of George Square, the bloodiest riot in Glasgow's history, requiring armed intervention by the military to put an end to the looting.
Fearing the worst, The British government were forced to give way before the pressure on the condition that the Councils disband, which they ostensibly did, despite a few radicals calling for the overthrow of the government and its replacement with a Socialist or Communist state. Nonetheless, these councils of action would prove surprisingly easy to reform in the future. Maclean was quick to return to his anti-war work, holding several speeches daily across northern Britain against the war and calling for peaceful resistance to the government's bloodthirst. At the same time, he sought to rally Scottish workers around his belief in Celtic Communism, centring on Celtic clan loyalties, equal distribution of the state's resources and resistance to foreign, in this case English, power. His combination of Celtic pan-nationalism and Bolshevik communism would prove more marginal than he might have hoped, but would find some adherence amongst Irish Nationalists in Ulster and in Cornwall over the coming years (14).
Footnotes:
(8) The situation in France is nearing disaster, as the consequences of 1918 really start to play havoc on the French. Here we see the consequences of Clemenceau's insistence on an Autumn Offensive, the overstretched rail infrastructure, the collapsing class relations and significant coal shortages. Paris is nearing a boiling point and it won't be able to take much more pressure.
(9) Cottin's assassination of Clemenceau is based on his OTL attempt on Clemenceau's life on the 19th of February. Here the deteriorating situation in Paris pushes Cottin to make his attempt earlier, allowing him to get more lucky in his shots. Rather than hitting Clemenceau once with very little impact on the old man, he is able to fire most of his bullets into Clemenceau at close range, fatally wounding him. The quote is from OTL and highlights what an absolute badass Clemenceau was. The assassination of Jean Jaurès and Georges Clemenceau, bookending the war, will come to be viewed by many as the symbolic murder of peace in the first case and the killing of war in the second. Clemenceau will feature heavily in right-wing mythology as the man who could have saved France from itself.
(10) While the pressure on the Germans is quite significant, they have now held control of Romania and Italy for over a year and nearly one-and-a-half year of Ukraine, which is enough for them to begin extracting sufficient resources to resolve most of the issues they ran into during 1917 and 1918. They are pressured, but not quite as much as IOTL, by resource shortages. Furthermore, their control of so much of eastern Europe means that they can draw on the region's resources to make up shortages.
(11) The destabilising impact of former PoWs from Russia is based on what happened IOTL, where they played a key role in spreading the chaos following the Kiel Mutiny and helped worsen the situation in Austria-Hungary enough for it to collapse when the Italians attacked. Here the same soldiers are returning, but the states they are returning to have more resources available to deal with them.
(12) I know that IOTL the only reason Ludendorff went for a democratic government was to undermine its legitimacy, but with a more liberal figure in Hoffmann, who is more aware of the benefits of cooperation with the civilian government, then I think we might have seen a limited effort at strengthening the Reichstag in preparations for an effort at negotiating with the Allies. IOTL the German government had already promised reforms almost as soon as the war began and continued to promise them for years to come, the pressure to do this was undoubtedly there IOTL and so is there ITTL as well. I will say this is not a parliamentary monarchy or anything like that, the Emperor still remains a powerful figure and the military and foreign affairs remain outside of parliamentary purview for the time being. The reforms are based on those passed by Baden IOTL, with the exception of those ITTL not including the subordination of the military to the government and the Emperor retaining the ability to dismiss the Chancellor should he wish to.
(13) Ireland is turning into an utter nightmare as neighbour goes to war with neighbour and the British fight to put down the Nationalists wherever they can while keeping their conscription efforts going. By this point in time the actual quality of the conscripts being transported to France has become increasingly immaterial and the issue is seen more as a way of bludgeoning the Irish before Home Rule is implemented. With the chaos and bloodshed across Ireland that this crisis has provoked, the government has also decided to continue pushing Home Rule down the road but it is starting to catch up to them. The investment involved in holding onto Ireland is growing by the day and it will soon reach a point where one would ordinarily question the worth of the investment. But this is the British and Ireland, neither side is going to be logical about this.
(14) The Red Clydeside movement is really interesting, and if you get the chance I would suggest reading up on it. This is a period of socialist ferment in Britain and there is a pretty strong socialist movement in the region. While the socialists are unlikely to be powerful enough to overthrow the British government, they do present a considerable threat to the continued war effort and given the continuation of hostilities in Ireland the British can't exactly afford another uprising, particularly not in the crucial industrial region of northern Britain. Celtic Communism isn't quite the same construct as IOTL, with Maclean being influenced by TTL's Communists and their mixture of Syndicalist-Anarchist-Socialist ideology this time around. Without the stifling influence of the OTL Bolsheviks weighing down on his movement, Celtic Communism is able to build a small but significant following in Celtic parts of the UK, mostly northern Ireland, Urban Scotland and the coal fields and cities of Wales. This isn't a movement that is going to overthrow anyone anytime soon, but they are an important ideological movement which will have an influence on Socialism in Britian and Ireland more broadly.
Emperor Karl I von Habsburg of Austria-Hungary
The Struggle of Democracy
While there were several critical factors, particularly growing nationalist movements, which played into the challenges facing the continued existence of Austria-Hungary as a multi-ethnic empire, there were a number of important short-term factors which would prove even more influential in regards to the immediate fate of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Preeminent amongst these short-term factors which enabled a collapse of social order in Austria-Hungary were the material deprivations of large sections of the population, notably in Austria’s cities during the war years. By late 1917 parts of its urban populations were starving, thus significantly increasing the potential for civil unrest. Strikes in Austria initially took the form of protests against high prices and poor food distribution. Within days nearly a million workers had downed tools across Austria, Hungary, Galicia and Moravia; demands grew for ‘the most speedy end to the war’ and for national self-determination. This was followed at the beginning of February by a short-lived sailors’ mutiny at the naval bases of Pola and Cattaro, driven by complaints about food shortages and demands for an immediate end to the war, although as Italian food sources became available some of these complaints grew quieter.
As in Germany, the strikes and mutinies in Austria-Hungary did not cause the collapse of the regime or the war effort. While war weariness, supply shortages and the cost of policing half of Europe, from the Alpine Piedmont in the west and Albania in the south to the Baltic coast in the north and deep into the Ukrainian steppe in the east, dragged down morale across the vast Austro-Hungarian Army, it would not be the army that cracked first. Demonstrations began in Vienna on the 22nd of January 1919, rallying around calls for the proclamation of a republic and the release from prison of Friedrich Adler, the radicalised son of the Austrian Social Democratic Party’s founder, Victor Adler (15). While Emperor Karl was inclined to release Adler, he faced considerable resistance to the measure from his own officials and from amongst German diplomats who feared what the consequences might be.
On the 25th of January an Austrian daily newspaper vividly compared the revolutionary mood in Vienna with the delirium of the deadly Flu. So-called ‘Red Guards’, inspired by events in Russia, marched through the city, attracting left-wing intellectuals like the famous journalist Egon Erwin Kisch and the Expressionist writer Franz Werfel, as well as radicalized soldiers and workers. However, the government was able to draw on military cadets, students and various right-wing groups to muster a force capable of resisting this Red wave. On the 27th of January, as the counter-revolutionary contingents in Vienna found themselves called up to end the demonstrations and protests by right-wing figures in the government, Emperor Karl went out to meet with a deputation from the masses. As counter-revolutionaries mustered, Karl negotiated, offering political reforms, the implementation of trialism with the establishment of a Croatian co-kingdom to the Dual Monarchy, the release of Adler and as swift of an end to the war as possible. While the representatives from the demonstrators returned to discuss the terms, counter-revolutionaries began clearing the streets one by one. By the time news of the counter-revolutionary stroke spread, the leadership of the protestors were no longer on speaking terms, as half wanted to accept the Emperor's offer while the other called for his overthrow. The sudden assault by the counter-revolutionaries broke the demonstrators, with the mob splintering and running. Over the following week, the Emperor could do little more than look on in horror as the reactionaries began imprisoning leaders of the demonstrators wherever they could find them, with many fleeing to relative safety in the countryside and a few into exile (16).
As news of the end of Vienna's Red Week spread through the rest of the Empire, it was met with widespread equanimity by most of the population, with the significant exception of two important groups. One of these groups were the Hungarian liberal nationalists in Budapest, who were horrified to learn that the Emperor had offered trialism to the masses and his apparent turn against liberalism, and the radical working class in Budapest, who hoped to overthrow the rotten imperial structures of the Empire in order to create a Communist state stretching across the entirety of the Balkans. The liberals rallied behind Count Mihály Károlyi, a liberal whose political ideas were rooted in the tradition of the 1848 revolution. Károlyi had long promoted a political programme aimed at Hungarian independence, and thus a revocation of the 1867 ‘Compromise’ that established the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. He also advocated universal suffrage and land reform, an interesting proposition given that Károlyi himself was one of the biggest landowners in Hungary.
In order to achieve his goals, Károlyi’s United Party of Independence used its newspapers to spread word that a third Croatian kingdom would be formed from the carcass of the Hungarian one, riling up nationalist sentiments, and struck a deal with the bourgeois Radical Party to declare Hungarian independence. Word quickly spread through the city and crowds began taking to the streets demanding Hungarian independence by the 3rd of February 1919. Prime Minister Sándor Wekerle of Hungary resigned on the 4th, and was replaced by János Hadik at Archduke Joseph August's direction. While Hadik floundered in the face of Károlyi's movement, pro-Habsburg reactionaries called up monarchist forces from the Balkans, primarily of Austrian and Czech in origin, who began getting ferried northward from the Salonica Front.
These men arrived under the command of Colonel General Viktor Graf von Scheuchenstuel on the outskirts of Budapest on the 8th. Here they were joined by rural militia forces, military cadets and a conglomeration of volunteer reactionaries. In the meantime, the conflict had begun spreading to the countryside, while the revolutionary workers of Budapest sought to turn the nationalist revolution into a communist one. Led by recently arrived former prisoners of war and committed revolutionary communists Béla Kun and Tibor Szamuely, a worker's uprising was launched on the 6th of February, with violent clashes in the streets between nationalists and communists. With Budapest descending into utter chaos, many bourgeois and liberal nationalists, disenchanted by the chaos and terrified that the Red mob would come for them, abandoned Károlyi's nationalist movement and moved to support the monarchists, who advanced under the claim of restoring peace and order to the city. It would take around a week before the last gasp of the Budapest Rising, as it would come to be known, had come to an end and Habsburg rule was restored. During this time some 5,000 people were killed in the fighting or crossfire, and the upper and middle classes of Budapest were reminded of why they had once supported the Habsburgs, Béla Kun was killed in the fighting but the extremist Szamuely escaped into the countryside and Károlyi was imprisoned for his role in the Rising (17).
In the 1918 elections, the Republicans won control of both houses of Congress for the first time in ten years. President Wilson’s refusal to raise the guaranteed price of wheat from $2.20 a bushel had badly hurt Democrats in the West. In the ten leading wheat producing states, the Republicans gained twenty four House seats, around two-thirds total number of seats they picked up in the election, picking up five senate seats and thirty house seats in total (18). Wilson also hurt his prestige by intervening in a special Senate election in Wisconsin. Viewing the contest as vital to holding the Democratic majority in the Senate, Wilson suggested that the Republican candidate failed the “acid test” of “true loyalty and genuine Americanism” by voting against the administration on several neutrality issues, including the McLemore resolution, prior to the United States’s entry into the war, a charge which utterly outraged the Republicans. They were further provoked when Wilson, just days before the election, explicitly appealed to voters to support the war effort by returning a Democratic Congress, despite having proclaimed in late May that politics was “adjourned” because of the war.
Both of these episodes helped to drive up Republican turn-out to the polls. More significantly, Wilson demoralized his own progressive base after April 1917 by failing to promote his vision of a league of nations and by ruthlessly repressing anti-war leftists and socialists. Conversely, the Republicans, unlike in 1916, ran an efficient and effective campaign. They exploited the controversy over the administration’s wheat price and its lack of price controls on cotton to portray the Democrats as a southern-dominated party unfit to govern in the interest of the whole nation, a damaging charge in a country only fifty years removed from the Civil War. They appealed to business interests by stressing that Wilson’s wartime mobilization programs amounted to socialism and pro-labor radicalism, and warned that a Democratic victory could extend such tyrannical policies into the post-war period, instead proposing a more business-friendly system of industrial mobilization. Led by Roosevelt and Lodge, Republicans also advocated for the unconditional surrender of Germany and attacked Wilson’s peace program, centred on establishing a League of Nations, as a betrayal of American nationalism and the sacrifices of American soldiery. Along with the massive casualties in France, the chaos in Russia, the conscription crisis and imprisonment of Irish-American smugglers in Ireland and a host of other issues, the Democrats faced an absolute hammering.
During this period, in an effort to boost support for the war, the various state and federal governments held major Liberty Bond drives across the country. However, this would take a turn for the tragic when the bond drives turned into key vectors for the spread of the Flu, resulting in a major rise incidents in cities in the days following bond drives - including Philadelphia, Pittsburg, New York, Boston, San Fransisco, New Orleans and Baltimore. Throughout this period, America found itself increasingly under the influence of nationalistic jingoism and anti-Socialist hysteria, further enflamed by the increasingly radical pacifist movement. With Russia in the grips of a nightmarish civil war, a series of major strikes in Seattle in January 1919, where dockworkers shut down shipping in protest over long hours and insufficient pay - provoked considerable paranoia in America's halls of power. Seattle's mayor, Ole Hanson, would secure federal support to end these strikes while the American Federation of Labor's (AFL) sought to end the strikes peacefully. Though the general strike collapsed because labour leadership viewed it as a misguided tactic from the start, Mayor Hanson took credit for ending the five-day strike and was hailed by the press. He resigned a few months later and toured the country giving lectures on the dangers of "domestic bolshevism." This would mark the beginning of what would come to be known as the First American Red Scare (19).
While the two warring sides faced considerable hardship at home, their respective military commands turned their attention to the coming campaign season. German OHL, having considered the situation, determined that while they had been under considerable pressure during the Summer and Autumn Offensives of the previous year, morale remained high and their position in the west was as strong as it was going to get. While offensives were considered, a survey of the strong frontline and the presence of fresh American troops across the front from them led OHL to the conclusion that there would not be any great benefit to be gained from risking an offensive. Efforts were undertaken to survey the likely thrust of the next Allied offensive, but while there were areas where an offensive was likely to occur, they had largely been addressed already in the various rounds of defensive construction during the preceding years. Finally, OHL reformed the German Twelfth Army as a counter-offensive force under the command of General Fernand von Quast, formerly of the elite Guard Corps.
Allied Supreme Command, however, was anything but complacent. With American troops, increasingly armed and prepared by their own industries, arriving in large numbers and the BEF about ready to resume offensive action there was a feeling of optimism in the air at the meetings of the SWC, among everyone except Pétain and his staff. While the other armies had strengthened during the late autumn and winter, Pétain and the rest of the French Army had experienced considerable deterioration in morale and military preparedness. The devastating flu had caused havoc while a feeling of hopelessness, that the war would continue for generations to come, had become predominant amongst French soldiers. None of Pétain's worries or warnings would be heeded in the planning of the coming Allied offensives. Foch, buoyant over the considerable successes of his March to the Aisne in the previous year, was determined that the Germans were nearly on their last leg and that if enough pressure could be brought to bear the rotten edifice of Imperial Germany would come crumbling down.
In order to accomplish this, Foch, Wilson, Allenby and Pershing all imagined a large series of offensives across multiple sectors with several objectives, all aimed at destroying the German capacity for war. At the northern end of the front, along the Somme, the BEF would take to the field for the first time in nearly a year with the aim of pushing across the Somme and steadily driving the Germans from Flanders in addition to aiding the efforts of the American Third Army. The American Third Army, under Major General Joseph T. Dickman, would slot in between the French and British Armies south of the Somme, covering the Croazat Canal and the Oise tributaries. This would be the location of the second offensive, aimed at pressing down the Oise and capturing Laon, La Fere and St Quentin, before pushing all the way to the Aisne. This led to the third offensive, launching across the Aisne east of Rethel with the aim of cutting off German forces in the Argonne Forest and capturing the rail hub at Sedan. This would be supported by a push up the Meuse Heights by the American Second Army under Robert L. Bullard, with the aim of eventually taking Sedan as well. This left the main focus of the Americans, the capture of Metz, by the over-strength American First Army under Hunter Liggett, with the eventual goal of advancing to Luxembourg. The Supreme War Council discussed several different potential sequences of offensives. However, they eventually settled on launching the joint Anglo-American thrust up the Oise and across the upper Somme first. This would be followed by the French Aisne Offensive, coupled with the supplementary thrust along the Meuse Heights, before giving way to the concurrent American assault towards Metz and British assault across the Somme into Flanders. It would take months of preparations for these offensives to begin and they were timed to launch in increments of two or three weeks - depending on the success of any individual offensive. These Offensives would collectively come to be known as the Four River Offensives (20).
Footnotes:
(15) In the first decade of the twentieth century, Friedrich Adler had established for himself a reputation as an outstandingly talented scientist. Yet he rejected the chair of theoretical physics in Zurich (a post subsequently offered to Adler’s lifelong friend, Albert Einstein) in order to devote himself to politics full-time. In 1911 he became party secretary of the Austrian Social Democrats, but fell out with his comrades when his party approved the war credits in 1914. Increasingly radicalised, Adler wasted no time in publicly attacking the party leadership (including his father) and the political establishment of Austria-Hungary in a series of newspaper articles and pamphlets. In October 1916 he went further and shot Count Karl von Stürgkh, Minister-President of Cisleithania (the northern and western ‘Austrian’ parts of the Dual Monarchy), in a deliberate act of protest against the war. Originally sentenced to death for the assassination of von Stürgkh, Adler was pardoned by Kaiser Karl, who commuted his sentence to eighteen years in prison. IOTL he was pardoned by Emperor Karl as one of his last acts as ruler of Austria-Hungary. It bears mentioning this is happening almost three months later than IOTL and that the pressure of these demonstrations isn't nearly as powerful or as well supported as IOTL.
(16) IOTL this wave of protestts resulted in Emperor Karl peacefully stepping down from his post, but with the better military situation, larger portion of conservatives and reactionaries willing to act and Karl's relative disempowerment by his court, the reactionaries are able to hold onto power for the time being, dispersing the demonstrators and strikers. However, much as in 1848, events in Vienna can inspire others within the empire to action.
(17) The Budapest Rising meshes the Nationalist and Bolshevik revolutions of 1918-1919 together into a single event, as the socialists try to exploit the chaos to take control of the revolutionary masses. This ends predictably, with everything coming crashing down. While revolutionary pressures are still present in Austria-Hungary, and it is more a matter of when rather than if the state will fragment, this buys the Habsburgs some time and has a couple important impacts in Budapest, with the anarchy and chaos of the Rising convincing many in the city to view Habsburg rule as a benefit to stability and prosperity.
(18) That is one senate seat more than OTL, with the Republican Oscar Lanstrum beating Democrat Thomas Walsh for the seat in Montana. It is also six more seats in the House, three more in the corn states and three from districts where Irish-American turnout cratered. This giving the Republicans 49 seats in the senate to the Democrats 47 and the 246 in the House to 186 Democrats.
(19) The Liberty Bond drive in Philadelphia IOTL raised a considerable amount of money, but contributed to Philadelphia having one of the highest mortality rates from the Spanish Flu IOTL. ITTL, there is much greater pressure to secure more financing for the war and as such many other cities, particularly on the East Coast, copy Philadelphia's model with tragic consequences. IOTL Philadelphia lost nearly 1 percent of its population but Baltimore just 0.83 percent, although the two cities were only 100 miles apart. What most distinguished Philadelphia from Baltimore in 1918 was that, in the former, patriotic Liberty Loan Drive parades continued all through the duration of the epidemic there, drawing thousands together in its streets. One such parade, on 28 September 1918, attracted 200,000 participants; three days later, 635 new cases of “Spanish” flu were reported. In Baltimore, such mass gatherings were prohibited, though not without considerable opposition from the city’s Health Commissioner first. ITTL the Health Commissioner is able to end this prohibition, with similar events up and down the coast. It is really important to note that ITTL the Red Scare and the Great War coincide as this will have some important consequences moving forward.
(20) These offensives are extremely ambitious and would stretch even the best prepared systems to the brink. The Germans are well aware that now the Americans are on the front in large numbers, they will have to first succeed on the defensive before unleashing a brutal counter offensive once the Allies are disrupted.
Allied War Plans for The Four River Offensive
The Four River Offensives
The Oise Offensive launched early on the 8th of February 1919, following a rapid bombardment. The American Third Army rolled forward between the Ardon and Oise River with the aim of securing Laon on the right wing of the offensive while the left wing launched its assault directly at the Croazat Canal. Along the Somme, the British Fourth Army under General Rawlinson had expanded considerable and secured large numbers of heavy tanks in preparation for the thrust over the Somme. While tanks would see little immediate use in crossing either river or the canal, the American right wing would secure almost 500 tanks of mixed British and French make. The initial success of the Oise Offensive would come here, at the southern end, where the Americans were able to exploit the wide-open landscape to considerable effect. Further north, the American left was able to force a crossing of the canal at three points but was thrown back across it with heavy casualties early on the second day of the fighting. The British successes were even more limited, having to cross the much wider Somme River against well-prepared positions. They did succeed in securing a bridgehead at Brie, and pushed over the river here, creating a bulge in the line, but with the Germans anchoring their positions to the south on the Omignon stream and around Péronne in the north, they were able to create a brutal crossfire which eventually forced Rawlinson to order a retreat back over the Somme on the 12th.
With efforts along the Somme and Croazat stymied, the focus of the offensives shifted south to the drive on Laon, where the Germans had finally found a strong defensive position to hold back the American assault. To meet this changing orientation of the offensive,General Dickman ordered the transfer of half of his divisions north of the Oise to move south in order to support the fighting as it neared the St Gobain Forest north-west of Laon, with these forces replaced by British reinforcements from further up the Somme River. Having made considerable advances on the first and second day of the Offensive, the forces in the region had been forced to a crawl by attrition to their armoured spearhead, mainly the result of mechanical failures, mud and considerable German artillery efforts. While the tank brigade under Lieutenant Colonel Eisenhower regrouped and repaired their machines, the infantry was forced to push forward face-first. While defensive positions around the ruins of the Château de Coucy were taken after four days of intense fighting, the American assault would find itself increasingly hampered by the harsh conditions of the St Gobain Forest. Intensive artillery bombardments shattered a defensive line around Aumont, but as the forestation grew ever thicker, the American assault found itself slowing to a halt by the 19th of February.
With more and more German troops being drawn into the fighting around St Gobain, British GHQ felt that another opportunity had presented itself to press across the Somme on the 22nd of February. This time the Fourth Army laid the weight of its assault at the key position of Péronne, while demonstration assaults and a testing of defences happened up and down the Somme River in search of a weak point further north. Focusing considerable artillery resources on the roads into and out of the town, General Rawlinson was able to cut it off from the rest of the Front for long enough to allow for a crossing of the river. Intense fighting ensued, as the Germans rushed men up the Somme, but by the second day of fighting the defenders had been driven from the town.
Throughout the week of assaults, the Germans were forced to rush men up and down the Somme, driving back dozens of bridgeheads with considerable difficulty. While the Germans launched several counterattacks to retake the bridgehead at Péronne, they were unable to push the British back over the river at this point. Pontoon bridges were constructed to connect Péronne with the rest of the British line and considerable numbers of men were pushed into this salient as it fought to expand their hold on the surrounding area. It would take until the 4th of March before the British half of the Oise Offensive came to an end, with the British in control of Péronne and its surroundings. However, this effort had cost dearly, with the British exchanging around 80,000 casualties to the German 50,000 over the course of the entire offensive.
In the meanwhile, the fighting in the St Gobain Forest continued unabated as more and more men were thrown forward against the German lines. Perhaps the most famous battle of the entire offensive would happen within and around the Abbaye de Prémontré, the former mother house of the Premonstratensian Order and a mental asylum since the mid-1800s. With the abandoned abbey as the centrepoint of their defences, the German division in the area held out against five times their number for nearly two weeks, throwing back assault after assault, before they were eventually forced to retreat from the position on the 6th of March 1919, when the American tank brigade under Eisenhower broke through at Anizy-le-Chateau and cut the southern supply-line to the abbey. From Anizy, Eisenhower pressed up the road to Laon, through Foucoucourt and Cessières, before being forced to a halt once more by mechanical failures. While they had nearly taken Laon, General Dickman was forced to call a halt to the offensive due to the incredible exhaustion of his men. In total, the Americans would exchange around 150,000 casualties for 110,000 Germans, having clearly learned a great deal of lessons from the previous year's fighting.
This turned the focus to the planned French Aisne Offensive, which was launched in spite of Pétain's considerable resistance on the 10th of March 1919. While the French had been preparing for a considerable amount of time, they were forced to deal with a number of important issues in the lead-up to the assault. First of all, they would need to ford the Aisne River and attack into the roughest section of the Argonne Forest. Beyond that, the French soldiers were extremely demoralised and dispirited, with the fighting of the previous year having sapped much of their will to fight. Third, the supply situation remained precarious, with the overstressed rail network and relatively low munitions production capacity of France raising the constant spectre of munitions shortages. The American Second Army, on the eastern bank of the Meuse, was somewhat hesitant about the advance to come, well aware that this push up the Meuse Heights would see considerable casualties.
The first day of the Aisne Offensive saw the French soldiery hurl themselves across the river, crashing into well-defended the German strongpoints at Vouziers and Attigny, where they were forced to a crashing halt. The first wave crossed the river, but was swiftly repelled. The second made some gains, and was able to hold a few bridgeheads for a couple of hours before being driven back over the Aisne. However, when the third wave was ordered to make its assault on the evening of the 10th they mutinied. Division after division refused to attack, with calls for peace and demobilisation spreading like wildfire. While the Americans made good progress on the first day, the collapse of the primary French effort allowed the Germans to turn their efforts to the Meuse Heights. Over the next three days of American assaults, they were able to make no progress to immense casualties, the Second Army calling a halt to their assault and redirecting forces south-east to where the Moselle Offensive was being prepared.
With the French in crisis, the Supreme War Command held an emergency meeting to determine their next course of action. With signs that the Germans were martialing forces behind their lines on the Aisne, and increasing indications that they were preparing for a counteroffensive in the region, it was determined that the Americans would need to launch the Moselle Offensive immediately to distract the Germans from the French collapse. Along the Aisne, the French armies found themselves gripped by mutinies which dwarfed even the 1917 mutinies. Up and down the line, division after division demanded peace. While there were some officers who tried to force their men forward, French GQG under Pétain were largely in agreement with the soldiery on their own inability to support the offensive and tacitly supported the mutinies on the condition that the mutineers remain in their trenches and accept orders from Pétain and his allies. This was a major disaster for Foch, whose insistence on these offensives had provoked the crisis to begin with, and who now found himself the target of considerable abuse by the wider French Army, prompting Foch to consider the replacement of Pétain for fear of being tarred with the defeat on the Aisne. However, with Pétain's support the resistance to Foch's leadership in France grew considerably in the aftermath of the Aisne fiasco, while word of the mutinies proved the spark that would set ablaze the French pacifist movement once more.
It was with the French situation deteriorating rapidly to their rear, that the Americans of the First Army launched their Moselle Offensive into the Wövre Plains, with the aim of taking Metz and Briey, on the 15th of March 1919. While the preparations were rushed and the offensive was launched prematurely, it made considerable early gains. The assault was led by two tank brigades under Colonel Patton, who reached Pommérieux by the second day of the offensive and expected to make Metz by the following evening. However, it was at this point that disarray in France hit the American offensive like a sledgehammer. A general strike gripped Paris while rail workers blocked all rail traffic eastward. This meant that critical reinforcements, supplies and munitions were suddenly stuck in Paris and while Patton was able to advance another five kilometres on the 18th, nearing the outskirts of Metz, before running out of fuel for his tanks, this would be as far as the Americans got.
With the American assault stalling out, the Germans launched a major counter offensive down the river, overrunning Patton positions and capturing him, before sweeping all resistance before them. Exploiting the American collapse, the Germans pressed down along the Moselle River, while forces further west, facing the Second Army atop the Meuse Heights, joined the assault. Pressing forward with recently formed tank brigades in the revolutionary light Sturmpanzerwagen Oberschlesien, the Germans were able to catch the Americans flatfooted. While the American forces did what they could to resist this sudden assault, there was little they could do with their supply lines jammed behind them. Exploiting this weakness, the Twelfth and Fifth Armies, the former leading the charge, slammed through the American formation and rushed down the two rivers.
So fast was this advance, that the small French garrison in Verdun were overrun in a day, on the 22nd of March 1919, while Pont-a-Mousson was lost the following day. The German push would sweep through the former St Mihiel Salient, capturing the epynomous town on the 25th, while on the Moselle, the Americans were finally able to firm up their defences around Nancy and Toul. The collapse of the Allied Four River Offensives was an undoubted catastrophe and would come to be viewed as one of the great failures of the war. By the end of the German counter-offensive, on the 29th of March, the Germans had taken a collective 80,000 casualties while inflicting nearly double that number, with two thirds of these prisoners of war captured in the chaos of the retreat. The collective defeats of 1918 and 1919 had brought France to the brink of defeat and left the Anglophone Allies scrambling for safety.
Summary:
The Ottomans shore up their positions and recapture Baghdad while the Bulgarians deal with internal dissent.
French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau is assassinated in the midst of considerable turmoil. This turmoil also hits the British and Germans, who each deal with it in their own way.
While the American vote, the Austro-Hungarians experience considerable revolutionary turmoil and both sides prepare for the military campaigns of 1919.
The Allied Four Rivers Offensive turns into a disaster after initial successes by American and British forces along the Somme and Oise.
End Note:
That brings an end to the events of Winter and early Spring 1919 and sets us firmly on the road towards peace. Now, while the French are experiencing considerable disarray, it bears mentioning that they have not been defeated on the field at this point. This is not a total victory by any means, and there are still plenty of ways things can turn sour for the Germans. First of all, they need to try to open negotiations with the Allied leadership, determine who to approach first and how to do so. Then they need to establish an armistice, agree to a location for the peace talks and an arbiter of them before they can even sit down and begin negotiating. The road to peace is still pretty damn long. Finally, the Germans don't really have the resources to launch an all-out attack, having scraped the bottom of the barrel manpower wise.
Sorry about the late update, ended up getting side tracked and the current update is rather slow going.
