Peace
On the 30th December 1917, the war finally came to an end, as representatives of the Allies and Central Powers signed the Treaty of Stockholm.
Germany lost all her colonies, although not all to the supposedly victories Allies. German New Guinea, New Pomerania and the islands of the Bismarck Archipelago went to Australia. Territories in China and the northern Pacific went to Japan, while Britain and France gained all the African colonies except for an isolated inland region of German East Africa, which German militias had managed to hold until the end of the war.
In a separate treaty, signed in 1918, the German government would give up rights to this worthless patch of land to the newly formed League of Nations, which along with a series of settlements in the East helped the war-ravaged nation to secure American financing.
Alsace and Lorraine were returned to France, although following a great deal of pressure from the other Allies, this was in lieu of many of the substantial damages claimed by the French government.
In these financial terms, the Treaty did not come close to answering all the demands or expectations. The French had wanted to make Germany to pay for the war, and although such sentiments certainly existed elsewhere, both the British and Americans could see that this was utterly impractical. Given the circumstances of the peace treaty, the fact that the Germans agreed to participate in an international commission to ‘compensate states for damage to civilian property due to German actions on land or the high seas’, was considered to be a remarkable achievement.
The timing was fortunate for the Allies, as the outbreak of riots and rebellions in Russia government during the final days of the Treaty negotiations could have significantly weakened their hand. British and American negotiators pressed for a quick deal, before Germany signed any form of peace with the Bolsheviks. Fear that the Germans might still be able to turn their entire army west was very real, as was the concern that morale at home might collapse if the war were continued.
Even in early December, people were becoming accustomed to the idea of peace. It wasn’t all over by Christmas, but military, industrial and economic planning in Britain and America was already beginning to move away from wartime thinking.
For the German government, the threat of revolution within their own country was still very real, particularly now that ‘another’ socialist revolution was occurring in Russia. In any case, there would be hard times to come. Germany’s resources and manpower were depleted, and the military position in the East was still unresolved (there was a ceasefire in place, but the western Allies were in a poor position to enforce terms on either the Bolsheviks or the Germans).
The naval position was much clearer. The German ships held at Rosyth would be, in effect, sold to the Allies. No actual money would change hands, it was a question of writing off compensation payments, although that didn’t stop the Germans complaining about the price. The Allies agreed to divide the ships amongst themselves and scrap them, and hence the Germans benefitted from little more than scrap value. The Kaiserin went to France, Konig to the USA, Konig Albert to Italy, while the rest went to Britain.
Numerous older German vessels would also be scrapped, but this would happen in Germany under allied supervision. The German Navy would not be permitted to lay down any new capital ships for ten years, meaning the first could not be started until 1928. Even then, no German ship would be permitted to carry a gun with a calibre greater than that of the smallest main armament fitted to a Royal Navy capital ship (12” at the time the Treaty was signed).
The British thinking was that this did not entirely humiliate Germany, as it left her with a sufficient naval force to keep any communist Russian force in check in the Baltic, and in due course to allow her to send token forces around the world to assist in League mandated operations against piracy, or the remnants of the slave trade. However, with a small number of older and less capable ships, they would have no hope of ever challenging the Royal Navy again.
