WORLD WAR ONE
1918
CONTENTS
Russia drops out of the war
Wilson's Fourteen Points
America is fully mobilized
Germany's spring offensive – "Operation Michael" – March - June 1918
The Germans begin to fall back – summer of 1918
Russia collapses into civil war
The Germans are forced into deep retreat – September - November 1918
The air war
Armistice
The textual material on page below is drawn directly from my work
A Moral History of Western Society © 2024, Volume Two, pages 93-96.
RUSSIA
DROPS OUT OF THE WAR |
Lenin
began almost immediately after taking control of the Russian capital to
look for the best way out of the war with Germany. He sent
Trotsky to negotiate with the Germans at Brest-Litovsk. In
December both sides agreed to an armistice and an opening of
peace negotiations. A war of nerves then ensued as the Germans
demanded harsh terms from Russia in the form of territory to be given
up and expensive reparations payments to be made to Germany. But
the Germans were also in a hurry to get something agreed on. At
one point negotiations broke down ... and the Germans made ready to
march towards Petrograd (the Russians at this point barely had an army
to defend themselves by). Thus the Russians gave in first.
In early March the announcement was made to the world that a formal
peace had been agreed on by the two parties. It would constitute
a very huge loss for Russia. But it did give Lenin the peace he
needed to pursue his revolution in Russia. And it gave the
Germans the clearance they needed to vacate the Eastern Front and
reposition their army in the West.
|
The Russo-German Armistice
- December 15, 1917
Russian and German troops
fraternizing upon the news of an Armistice worked out by Trotsky with
the Germans
The Brest-Litovsk Treaty of March 3,
1918 Trotsky arriving at Brest - January
1918
Trotsky at Brest-Litovsk
- January 1918
Imperial War Museum,
London
The signing of the Brest-Litovsk
Treaty - March 3, 1918
The signing of the Brest-Litovsk
Treaty
The treaty took away a third of
Russia's population, half of her industry and nine-tenths of her coal mines. But
it enabled the Communists to focus their full efforts at securing their
rule over what remained of the former Russian Empire.
A huge and extremely bloody
civil war was about to begin.

Wikipedia -
"Treaty
of Brest-Litovsk"
Meanwhile,
American President Wilson was working hard to make the American war
effort a moral crusade rather than just a crude power play. The
cynical nature of the war thus far had been amply revealed when the
Bolsheviks published copies of the secret treaties that had been
exchanged among the Allies, offering the bribes of land and payments in
exchange for various forms of wartime support. Also, Lenin
himself had, as an immediate follow-up to the Bolshevik seizing of
control of Petrograd, delivered a speech promising Russian support for
a new peace of equity and justice for the toiling classes of the world,
one involving immediate peace without annexations (which he
subsequently himself was unable to secure from the Germans). So
pressure was mounting to get Wilson's own moral ideals in place as the
higher light that would bring peace to the world.
On January 8, 1918 Wilson delivered a speech to Congress in which he
clearly outlined similar but much more specific war goals of America in
the form of Fourteen Points. He called for open rather than
secret diplomacy, freedom of navigation and trade, reduction in
armaments, the restoration of territories lost in the war by all
parties, the restoration of Poland, and finally (Fourteenth Point) the
creation of a general association of nations (the future League of
Nations)
for
the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence
and territorial integrity to great and small states alike. |
The
speech had been prepared without any prior consultation with America’s
allies, who had, as part of their empires, numbers of great and small
states (or provincial possessions). They clearly had no
intentions whatsoever of setting these territories free as independent
democracies, such as Wilson expected to happen as a result of America's
involvement in this supposed moral battle for global democracy.
Nonetheless, despite Wilson’s political presumptuousness, his
declaration was well received by his allies. It helped give moral
cover to what was otherwise a completely immoral war.
|
AMERICA
IS FULLY MOBILIZED |
Actor-celebrity Douglas Fairbanks
encourages deeper financial support for the War - New York, Wall Street -
1918
American War Posters
 

"Liberty Loan Choir sings
on the steps of City Hall, New York City during third Liberty Loan campaign. Bishop William
Wilkinson leads the choir"
By Paul Thompson, April
1918
National Archives
Women welders at the Hog
Island shipyard near Philadelphia
National Archives
Women workers in ordnance
shops, Midval Steel and Ordnance Co., Nicetown, Pa. Hand chipping with pneumatic
hammers - 1918 - photo by Lt. Lubbe
National Archives
American women operating
farming machinery
National Archives
GERMANY'S
SPRING OFFENSIVE "OPERATION MICHAEL" – MARCH - JUNE 1918 |
The
Germans of course at that moment had other ideas than Wilson's.
On March 21 the Germans began their assault on three points on the
Western Front; at the Somme (March 21-April 5), the Lys (April 9-29)
and the Aisne (May 27-June 4). Although these drove deep wedges
into the Allied lines (especially at the Somme) they failed to break
through French and British lines. By early June the Germans were
exhausted.
|
Ludendorf – by the beginning of 1918,
the virtual dictator of Germany – planning to break through
the Allied lines before the Americans can get fully in position

Marshall, p. 269.
General Ferdinand Foche,
Commanding General of the Allied Armies
British troops blinded by
tear gas. They await treatment at an Advanced
Dressing Station near Bethune during the Battle of Estaires, 10 April 1918, part of the German
offensive in Flanders. Imperial War Museum
AMERICA
IS FULLY ENGAGED AT THE FRONT ... AND THE GERMANS BEGIN TO FALL BACK – SUMMER
1918 |
The
British and French merely assumed that the American one and a half
million troops would be blended into their own ranks as reserves.
But the American commander Pershing insisted that Americans fight as an
integral unit at various points along the front. Finally the
allies relented and American troops took their positions along the
line. The newly arrived troops were eager to go, and gave a fresh
spirit to the allies as they pushed the Germans back at Belleau Wood at
the center of the front (June-July) and at St. Mihiel (September) and
the Argonne Forest in the Verdun region (September-October). |

Marshall, p.
293
US troops being transported
to the trenches – 1918
Pershing address U.S.
Marines – June 1918
American Signal Corpsmen
donning gas masks
Marine receiving first aid
before sent to hospital in rear of trenches. Toulon Sector, France. March
22, 1918. Sgt. Leon H. Caverly, USMC.
National Archives
"Negro troops in France.
Picture shows a part of the 15th Regt. Inf. N.Y.N.G. organized
by Col. Haywood, which has been under fire." ca. 1918. IFS.
National Archives
US troops resting up after
the bitter fighting at Belleau Wood - June 1918
Foch and Pershing in one
of their few pleasant moments together - June 1918
National Archives
Destruction in Northern France
- August 1918
National Archives of
Canada
Americans advance against
the Germans' St. Mihiel salient
American troops moving forward
into the St.-Mihiel salient - September
National Archives
A 75-mm. American gun crew
targeting the St.-Mihiel salient
National Archives
American charge against the
St.-Mihiel salient
(one doughboy has just taken
a hit from German fire)
National Archives
A French couple in Brieulles-sur-Bar
greeting American soldiers who have just delivered them
from four years
of German occupation
United States Army
They then move into the Argonne
Forest – where fighting proves to be vastly more difficult
Because of their victory
at St-Mihiel, American troops head into
the Argonne Forest with spirits running high
National Archives
American troops going forward
to the battle line in the Forest of Argonne
in Renault FT-17 tanks. September 26, 1918.
National Archives
But the Argonne Forest affords
only a very painful inch-by-inch advance for men of the 23rd Infantry
USSC, National Archives
Machine gunners of the German
Fifth Army in the Argonne
National Archives
A makeshift-hospital in a
bombed-out French church
treats American wounded
from the first day's action (September 26)
National Archives
American soldiers advancing
on a bunker
October
Fierce fighting accompanies
the American advance through the villages of the Meuse valley (a dead German lies next
to the tank)
National Archives
Young Brigadier General Douglas
MacArthur (38) in a French manor
National Archives
LENIN'S
COMMUNISTS BEGIN THE CONSOLIDATION OF THEIR POWER IN
RUSSIA ... AND THE COUNTRY COLLAPSES INTO CIVIL WAR |
Lenin addressing a crowd
gathered for May-Day ceremonies in Moscow - 1918
The basement in a house in
the Ural Mountains
where Communists executed
the Czar and his family - July 16, 1918
Time Inc.
Western intervention in the Russian Civil War
Western allies do not consider
either Lenin's "Armistice" with Germany or his claim to rule Russia as a "done deal" and intervene directly in Russian affairs to give support to the "Whites" (an uneasy
combination of Kerensky's Democrats and the Tsarists) who are involved in a bitter
resistance campaign (or civil war) with Lenin and Trotsky's "Reds."
"Soldiers and sailors from
many countries are lined up in front of the Allies Headquarters Building.
The United States is represented."
Vladivostok, Russia - September 1918 National Archives
THE
GERMANS NOW ARE FORCED INTO A DEEP RETREAT – SEPTEMBER - NOVEMBER 1918 |
The big push
Meanwhile the British, led into battle by their huge tanks, advanced
strongly at the Somme (September) ... and the French, along lines just
below the British, combined with the British to push the exhausted
Germans back to the point that by the beginning of November the Germans
were nearly out of France and much of Western Belgium. The German
lines were collapsing rapidly.
|
Marshall, p. 340
The British advance against
the Germans further north along the front lines at Amiens
British Tanks at Amiens -
1918
Imperial War Museum,
London
German artillery unit taking
a direct hit
And the number of German
prisoners now grows astronomically
A long line of German prisoners
near Amiens escorted by a handful of Australian guards
Imperial War Museum,
London

German POWs in French
Prison Camp
A British soldier sharing
a smoke with a German prisoner
Imperial War Museum,
London
Young German prisoners seeming
relieved that the action is all over
Imperial War Museum,
London
A young German
soldier
Very dis-spirited German
soldiers
German prisoners carry a
wounded comrade to an American aid station
National Archives
Wounded American soldiers
watch German prisoners file by
National Archives
"Capt. Edward Rickenbacker,
America's premier "Ace" offically credited with
22 enemy planes and the proud wearer of the French War Cross
as he appeared upon his arrival on board the Adriatic"
National Archives

Eddie Rickenbacker - American flying ace
National
Archives
Eddie Rickenbacker (27),
former race driver – by war's end an American air ace
National Archives
Baron Manfred von Richthofen
(26) - Germany's "Red Baron" air ace for 20 months.
80 confirmed kills
... before being shot down near Amiens on
April 21, 1918
Baron Manfred von Richthofen
and his Jasta 11 squadron
Serbian peasants watching
an observation plane
Bulgarian troops aiming at
incoming planes
ARMISTICE (NOVEMBER 11, 1918) |
Now
Wilson’s Fourteen Points looked very attractive to the Germans.
They were running out of military supplies and food (the urban
population back in Germany was struggling to survive near-famine
conditions). Thus in early October Wilson received a message from
Germany requesting an armistice and peace negotiations along the lines
of Wilson’s Fourteen Points. But Wilson was probing to see
exactly on whose part the request was made: the German imperial
government ... or the German people.
Meanwhile U-boat attacks on American shipping continued ... and Wilson
hardened his terms for an armistice: he would deal only with a
post-imperial government. German hopes were dashed ... and
protests began to rise from the German left calling for Wilhelm’s
abdication and the creation of a German republic. Rebellion
in the streets now spread rapidly and Bavaria became the first German
state to proclaim itself a republic. Berlin then came under
control by revolutionaries. It was time for Wilhelm to make his
escape. But the military would not promise their protection ...
and finally on November 9, Wilhelm made his way into exile in the
Netherlands.
Seeing the imminent collapse of Germany Pershing wanted to push the war
all the way into Germany to make it clear to the Germans that a new
international status quo was now in force. But British commander
Haig and French commanders Foche and Pétain felt that it was time to
bring the war to an end ... just where things presently stood.
Nonetheless on November 8 the Allied commander presented the German
commanders in their discussions at Compiègne a number of very strong
concessions imposed on Germany as terms required for a cease
fire. The Germans were given until November 11 to respond.
Finally in the early hours of the 11th the Germans agreed to the terms
and a general armistice was announced to go into effect at 11:00 later
that same morning. Tragically however the shelling and slaughter
continued right up to the very last minute of the war. But at
11:00 it was finally over.
|
The trains which brought
the two sides together at Compiègne for Armistice negotiations
November
1918
Officers in the forest of
Compiègne after reaching an agreement for the armistice that ended
World
War I.
This railcar was given to Ferdinand
Foch for military use by the manufacturer, Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits.
Foch is second from the right.
President Wilson reading
the Armistice terms to Congress. November 11, 1918.
photo by Sgt Vincent J.
Palumbo.
National Archives
Armistice celebrations in
the trenches
Jubilant Harlem Hellfighters
(369th Infantry) - on return from Europe after serious combat against
the Germans (they were the first to reach the Rhine River) (3/4s of the 200,000 "Colored"
troops served as menials during the war)
National Archives
US soldiers excited to be
leaving training camp at Camp Dix, New Jersey - late 1918
(122,500 soldiers were killed
or missing, 237,135 wounded during the war)
National Archives
Medal of Honor and Croix
de Guerre winner Alvin York and his mother back in Tennessee (in the 1918 Meuse-Argonne
offensive he charged a German machine-gun nest by himself, killed 25 Germans and captured
132 others in two separate forays)
Armistice celebrations in
Paris
Londoners celebrating the
Armistice
Londoners celebrating the
Armistice
Miles
H. Hodges
|