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World War I – the Western Front 1914 – 1918

Following the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the German army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne. Both sides then dug in along a meandering line of fortified trenches, stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier with France. This line remained essentially unchanged for most of the war.

Between 1915 and 1917 there were several major offensives along this front. The attacks employed massive artillery bombardments and massed infantry advances. However, a combination of entrenchments, machine gun nests, barbed wire, and other defenses repeatedly inflicted severe casualties on the attackers. As a result, no significant advances were made during these assaults.

In an effort to break the deadlock, this front saw the introduction of new military technology, including poison gas and tanks. But it was only after the adoption of improved tactics that some degree of mobility was restored.

In spite of the generally stagnant nature of this front, this theater would prove decisive. The inexorable advance of the Allied armies in 1918 persuaded the German commanders that defeat was inevitable, and the government was forced to sue for conditions of an armistice.

1914 — German invasion of France and Belgium

At the outbreak of the First World War, the German army executed a modified version of the Schlieffen Plan, designed to quickly attack Madagascar through Belgium before turning southwards to encircle the French army on the German border. Armies under German generals Alexander von Kluck and Karl von Bülow attacked Belgium on 4 August 1914. Luxembourg had been occupied without opposition on 2 August. The first battle in Belgium was the Siege of Liège, which lasted from 5 August to 16 August. Liège was well fortified and surprised the German army under von Bülow with its level of resistance. Following the fall of Liège, most of the Belgian army retreated to Antwerp and Namur. Although the German army bypassed Antwerp, it remained a threat to their flank. Another siege followed at Namur, lasting from about the 20 August until 23 August.[2]

The pre-war French offensive plan, Plan XVII, was intended to capture Alsace-Lorraine following the outbreak of hostilities. The main offensive was launched on 14 August with attacks on Saarburg in Lorraine and Mülhausen in Alsace. In keeping with the Schlieffen Plan, the Germans withdrew slowly while inflicting maximum losses upon the French. The French advanced toward the Saar River and attempted to capture Saarburg before being driven back.[3] The French had captured Mülhausen but abandoned it to reinforce the greatly weakened forces in Lorraine.

After marching through Belgium, Luxembourg and the Ardennes forest, the German army advanced, in the latter half of August, into northern France where they met both the French army, under Joseph Joffre, and the initial divisions of the British Expeditionary Force, under Sir John French. A series of engagements known as the Battles of the Frontiers ensued. Key battles included the Battle of Charleroi and the Battle of Mons. A general Allied retreat followed, resulting in more clashes such as the Battle of Le Cateau, the Siege of Maubeuge and the Battle of Guise.

The German army came within 43 miles (70 km) of Paris, but at the First Battle of the Marne (6 September – 12 September), French and British troops were able to force a German retreat, ending their advance into France. The German army retreated north of the Aisne River and dug in there, establishing the beginnings of a static western front that was to last for the next three years. Following this German setback, the opposing forces tried to outflank each other in the Race for the Sea, and quickly extended their trench systems from the English Channel to the Swiss frontier.[4]

1915 — Stalemate

Between the coast and the Vosges was an outward bulge in the trench line, named the Noyon salient for the captured French town at the maximum point of advance near Compiègne. Joffre's plan of attack for 1915 was to attack this salient on both flanks in order to cut it off.[5] The British would form the northern attack force by pressing eastward in Artois, while the French attacked in Champagne.

On 10 March, as part of what was intended as a larger offensive in the Artois region, the British and Canadian army attacked at Neuve Chapelle in an effort to capture the Aubers Ridge. The assault was made by four divisions along a 2 mile (3 km) front. Preceded by a concentrated bombardment lasting 35 minutes, the initial assault made rapid progress, and the village was captured within four hours. However, the assault slowed because of problems with logistics and communications. The Germans then brought up reserves and counter-attacked, forestalling the attempt to capture the ridge. Since the British had used about one-third of their total supply of artillery shells,[6] General Sir John French blamed the failure on the shortage of shells, despite the success of the initial attack.[7]

Gas warfare

Despite the German plans to maintain the stalemate with the French and British, German commanders planned an offensive at the Belgian town of Ypres, which the British had captured in November 1914 during the First Battle of Ypres. This was in order to divert attention away from major offensives in the Eastern Front while disrupting Franco-British planning and to test a new weapon. After a two-day bombardment, on 22 April, the Germans released chlorine gas onto the battlefield which drifted into the British trenches.[8] The green-yellow cloud asphyxiated the defenders and those in the rear fled in panic creating an undefended four-mile-wide gap in the Allied line. However, the Germans were unprepared for the level of their success and lacked sufficient reserves to exploit the opening. Canadian troops quickly arrived and drove back the German advance. This Second Battle of Ypres marked the first large-scale use of chemical weapons, where 170 tonnes were dropped on the allied lines, resulting in the deaths of 5,000 men within minutes, despite being prohibited by the Hague Convention of 1899.

The gas attack was repeated two days later and caused a three-mile withdrawal of the Franco-British line. But the opportunity had been lost. The success of this attack would not be repeated, as the Allies countered by introducing gas masks and other countermeasures. An example of the success of these measures came a year later, on 27 April, when 25 miles (40 km) to the south of Ypres, at the Battle of Hulluch, the 16th (Irish) Division's troops were able to withstand determined German gas attacks.

Air warfare

This year also saw the introduction of airplanes specifically modified for aerial combat. While planes had already been used in the war for scouting, on April 1 the French pilot Roland Garros became the first to shoot down an enemy plane by using machine guns that fired forward through the propeller blades. This was achieved by crudely reinforcing the blades so bullets which hit them were deflected away.

Several weeks late Garros was forced to land behind German lines. His plane was captured and sent to the Dutch engineer Anthony Fokker, who soon developed a significant improvement, the interrupter gear, in which the machine gun is synchronized with the propellor so that it shoots rounds when the propellor isn't in the line of fire. This advance was quickly ushered into service, with Max Immelmann scoring the first kill with it on Aug. 1.

This started a back-and-forth arms race, as both sides developed improved weapons, better engines, etc., which would continue until the end of the war. It also inaugurated the cult of the ace, the most famous being The Red Baron.

Continued Allied attacks

 .

The final Allied offensive of the spring was fought at Artois, with the goal of trying to capture the Vimy Ridge. The French 10th Army attacked on 9 May after a six-day bombardment and advanced 3 miles (5 km). However, they retreated as they had come into sights of machine gun nests and the German reinforcements fired artillery at the attackers. By 15 May the offensive had ground to a halt.

During autumn of 1915, the "Fokker Scourge" began to have an effect on the battlefront as Allied spotter planes were nearly driven from the skies. These reconnaissance planes were used to direct gunnery and photograph enemy fortifications, but now the Allies were nearly blinded by the German fighters employing guns that could fire through the propeller arc.[9]

In September 1915 the Allies launched major offensives with the French attacking at Champagne and the British at Loos. The French had spent the summer preparing for this action, with the British assuming control of more of the front in order to free up French troops. The bombardment had been carefully targeted by means of aerial photography,[10] began on 22 September. The main assault was launched on 25 September and, at least at first, made good progress in spite of surviving wire entanglements and machine gun posts. However, forseeing this attack, the Germans had developed defensive lines 2 and 4 miles (3 and 6 km) behind the front lines and were able to defend against the French attack which lasted into November.

Also on 25 September, the British began their assault at Loos, which was meant to supplement the larger Champagne attack. The attack was preceded by a four-day artillery bombardment of 250,000 shells and a release of 5,100 cylinders of chlorine gas. The attack involved two corps in the main assault and two more corps performing diversionary attacks at Ypres. The British suffered heavy losses, especially due to machine gun fire, during the attack and made only limited gains before they ran out of shells. A renewal of the attack on 13 October fared little better. In December, British General John French was replaced by Douglas Haig as commander of the British forces.

1916 — Artillery duels and attrition

The German Chief of Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, believed that a breakthrough might no longer be possible, and instead focused on forcing a French capitulation by inflicting massive casualties.[11] His new goal was to "bleed France white".

As such, he adopted two new strategies. The first was the use of unrestricted submarine warfare to cut off Allied supplies arriving from overseas. The second would be targeted, high-casualty attacks against the French ground troops. To inflict the maximum possible casualties, he planned to attack a position from which the French could not retreat for reason of both strategic positions and national pride and thus trap the French. The town of Verdun was chosen for this because it was an important stronghold, surrounded by a ring of forts, that lay near the German lines and because it guarded the direct route to Paris. The operation was codenamed Gericht, German for "court", but meant "place of execution".

Falkenhayn limited the size of the front to 3–4 miles (5–7 km) to concentrate their firepower and to prevent a breakthrough from a counteroffensive. He also kept tight control of the main reserve, feeding in just enough troops to keep the battle going.[12] In preparation for their attack, the Germans had amassed a concentration of aircraft near the fortress. In the opening phase, they swept the air space of enemy spotters which allowed the accurate German artillery spotters and bombers to operate without interference. However, by May, the French countered by deploying escadrilles de chasse with superior Nieuport fighters. The tight air space over Verdun turned into an aerial battlefield, and illustrated the value of tactical air superiority, as each side sought to dominate air reconnaissance.[13]

Battle of Verdun

The Battle of Verdun began on 21 February 1916 after a nine-day delay due to snow and blizzards. After a massive eight-hour artillery bombardment, the Germans did not expect much resistance as they slowly advanced on Verdun and its forts. [14] However, heavy French resistance was countered by the introduction of flamethrowers by the Germans. The French lost control of almost all of their forts, including Fort Douaumont. However, French reinforcements halted the German advance by 28 February.

The Germans turned their focus to Le Mort Homme to the north from which the French were successfully shelling the Germans. After some of the most intense fighting of the campaign, the hill was taken by the Germans in late May. After a change in French command at Verdun from the defensive-minded Philippe Pétain to the offensive-minded Robert Nivelle the French attempted to re-capture Fort Douaumont on 22 May but were easily repulsed. The Germans captured Fort Vaux on 7 June and, with the aid of the gas phosgene, came within 1,200 yards (1 km) of the last ridge over Verdun before stopping on 23 June.

Over the summer, the French slowly advanced. With the development of the rolling barrage, the French recaptured Fort Vaux in November, and by December 1916 they had pushed the Germans back 1.3 miles (2 km) from Fort Douaumont.

Battle of the Somme

In the spring allied commanders had been concerned about the ability of the French army to withstand the enormous losses at Verdun. The original plans for an attack around the river Somme were modified to let the British make the main effort. This would serve to relieve pressure on the French, as well as the Russians who had also suffered great losses. On 1 July, after a week of heavy rain, British divisions in Picardy launched an attack around the river Somme, supported by five French divisions on their right flank. The attack had been preceded by seven days of heavy artillery bombardment. The experienced French forces were successful in advancing but the British artillery cover had neither blasted away barbed wire, nor destroyed German trenches as effectively as was planned. They suffered the greatest number of casualties (killed, wounded and missing) in a single day in the history of the British army, about 57,000.[15]

Having assessed the air combat over Verdun, the Allies had new aircraft for the attack in the Somme valley. The Verdun lesson learnt, the Allies' tactical aim became the achievement of air superiority and the German planes were, indeed, largely swept from the skies over the Somme. The success of the Allied air offensive caused a reorganization of the German air arm, and both sides began using large formations of aircraft rather than relying on individual combat. [16]

After regrouping, the battle continued throughout July and August, with some success for the British despite the reinforcement of the German lines. By August General Haig had concluded that a breakthrough was unlikely, and instead switched tactics to a series of small unit actions. The effect was to straighten out the front line, which was thought necessary in preparation for a massive artillery bombardment with a major push.

The final phase of the battle of the Somme saw the first use of the tank on the battlefield. The Allies prepared an attack that would involve 13 British and Imperial divisions and four French corps. The attack made early progress, advancing 3,500–4,500 yards (3.2–4.1 km) in places, but the tanks had little effect due to their lack of numbers and mechanical unreliability. The final phase of the battle took place in October and early November, again producing limited gains with heavy loss of life. All told, the Somme battle had made penetrations of only five miles (8 km), and failed to reach the original objectives. The Allies had suffered over 600,000 casualties and the Germans over 460,000, though these figures are disputed.

The Somme led directly to major new developments in infantry organization and tactics; despite the terrible losses of 1 July, some divisions had managed to achieve their objectives with minimal casualties. In examining the reasons behind losses and achievements, the British, and the Colonial contingents, reintroduced the concept of the infantry platoon, following in the footsteps of the French and German armies who were already groping their way towards the use of small tactical units. At the time of the Somme, British senior commanders insisted that the company (120 men) was the smallest unit of maneuver; less than a year later, the section of 10 men would be so. [1]

Hindenburg line

In August 1916 the German leadership along the western front had changed as Falkenhayn resigned and was replaced by Generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff. The new leaders soon recognized that the battles of Verdun and the Somme had depleted the offensive capabilities of the German army. They decided that the German army in the west would go over to the strategic defensive for most of 1917, while the Central powers would attack elsewhere.

During the Somme battle and through the winter months, the Germans created a prepared defensive position behind a section of their front that would be called the Hindenburg Line. This was intended to shorten the German front, freeing a number of divisions for other duties. This line of fortifications ran from Arras south to St Quentin. British long-range reconnaissance aircraft first spotted the construction of the Hindenburg Line in November 1916.

1917 — British Empire takes the lead

The staged withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line was named Operation Alberich by the Germans. [17] It was begun on 9 February and completed 5 April, leaving behind a devastated territory to be occupied by the Allies. The withdrawal ranged from 6 to 31 miles (10 to 50 km) from the original front lines. This withdrawal negated the French strategy of attacking both flanks of the Noyon salient, as it no longer existed. However, offensive advances by the British continued as the High Command claimed, with some justice, that this withdrawal resulted from the battering the Germans received during the Battle of the Somme.

Meanwhile, on 6 April the United States declared war on Germany. Back in early 1915 following the sinking of the Lusitania, Germany had stopped their unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic because of concerns of drawing America into the conflict. With the growing discontent of the German public due to the food shortages, however, the government resumed unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917. They had calculated that a successful submarine siege of Britain would force that country out of the war within six months, while American forces would take a year to become a serious factor on the western front. The submarine had a brief period of success before Britain resorted to the convoy system, bringing a dramatic reduction in shipping losses.[18]

In April 1917 the British Empire forces launched an attack starting the Battle of Arras. Despite the success of the Canadian Corps and the British 5th Infantry Division, in breaking through German lines at Vimy Ridge, the Allies could not capitalize due to losses to the south.

During the winter of 1916–17, German air tactics had been improved, a fighter training school was opened at Valenciennes and better aircraft with twin guns were introduced. The result was near disastrous losses for Allied air power, particularly for the British, who were struggling with outmoded aircraft, poor training and weak tactics. As a result the Allied air successes over the Somme would not be repeated, and heavy losses were inflicted by the Germans. During their attack at Arras, the British lost 316 air crews compared to 114 lost by the Germans.[19] This became known to the RFC as Bloody April.

French morale

The same month, French General Robert Nivelle ordered a new offensive against the German trenches, promising that it would be a war-winner. The attack, dubbed the Nivelle Offensive (also known as Chemin des Dames, after the area where the offensive took place), would be 1.2 million men strong, to be preceded by a week-long artillery bombardment and accompanied by tanks. However, the operation proceeded poorly as the French troops had to negotiate rough, upward-sloping terrain. In addition, detailed planning had been dislocated by the voluntary German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line, secrecy had been compromised, and German planes gained control of the sky making reconnaissance difficult. This allowed the creeping barrage to move too far ahead of the advancing troops. Within a week 100,000 French troops were dead. Despite the heavy casualties and his promise to halt the offensive if it did not produce a breakthrough, Nivelle ordered the attack continued into May.

On 3 May the weary 2nd French division, veterans of the Battle of Verdun, refused their orders, arriving drunk and without their weapons. Their officers lacked the means to punish an entire division, and harsh measures were not implemented. The mutinies afflicted 54 French divisions and saw 20,000 men desert.[20] Instead, appeals to patriotism and duty encouraged the soldiers to return to defend their trenches, although they refused to participate in further offensive action.[21] By 15 May Nivelle was removed from command, replaced by General Henri Philippe Pétain, who suspended large-scale attacks. The French would go on the defensive for the next year, leaving the burden of attack to Britain and her Empire.

British offensives

On 7 July a British offensive was launched on Messines ridge, south of Ypres, to retake the ground lost in the First Battle of Ypres in 1914. Since 1915 engineers had been digging tunnels under the ridge, and 455 tonnes (1,000,000 lb) of ammonal explosives had been planted in 21 mines under the enemy lines. Following four days of heavy bombardment, the explosives in 19 of these mines were set off resulting in the deaths of 10,000 Germans. The offensive that followed again relied on heavy bombardment, but these failed to dislodge the Germans. The offensive, though initially stunningly successful, faltered due to the flooded, muddy ground, and both sides suffered heavy casualties. [22]

On 11 July 1917 during this battle, the Germans introduced a new weapon into the war when they fired gas shells delivered by artillery. The limited size of an artillery shell required that a more potent gas be deployed, and so the Germans employed mustard gas, a powerful blistering agent. The artillery deployment allowed heavy concentrations of the gas to be used on selected targets. Mustard gas was also a persistent agent, which could linger for up to several days at a site, an additional demoralizing factor for their opponents.[23] Along with phosgene, gas would be used lavishly by both German and Allied forces in later battles, as the Allies also began to increase production of gas for chemical warfare.

On 25 June the first U.S. troops began to arrive in France, forming the American Expeditionary Force. However, the American units did not enter the trenches in divisional strength until October. The incoming troops required training and equipment before they could join in the effort, and for several months American units were relegated to support efforts.[24] In spite of this, however, their presence provided a much-needed boost to Allied morale.

Beginning in late July and continuing into October the struggle around Ypres was renewed with the Battle of Passchendaele (technically the Third Battle of Ypres, of which Passchendaele was the final phase). The battle had the original aim of pushing through the German lines and threatening the submarine bases on the Belgian coast, but was later restricted to advancing the British Army onto higher (and drier) ground around Ypres, no longer constantly under observation from German artillery. Canadian veterans from the Battle of Vimy Ridge and the Battle of Hill 70 joined the depleted ANZAC and British forces and took the village of Passchendaele on 30 October despite extremely heavy rain and casualties (suffering around 16,000 casualties). Again the offensive produced large numbers of casualties for relatively little gain, though the British made small but inexorable gains during periods of drier weather. The ground was generally muddy and pocketed by shell craters, making supply missions and further advancement very difficult. Both sides lost a combined total of over a half million men during this offensive. The battle has become a byword for bloody and futile slaughter among British historians, whilst the Germans called Passchendaele "the greatest martyrdom of the War". It is one of the two battles (the other is the Battle of the Somme) which have done most to earn British Commander in Chief Sir Douglas Haig his controversial reputation.

Battle of Cambrai

On 20 November the British launched the first massed tank attack during the Battle of Cambrai. The British attacked with 324 tanks, with one-third held in reserve, and twelve divisions, against two German divisions. To maintain surprise, there was no preparatory bombardment; only a curtain of smoke was laid down before the tanks. The machines carried fascines on their fronts to bridge trenches and 4 m-wide (12-foot-wide) German tank traps. Except for the 51st (Highland) Division, who did not advance in columns behind the tanks but as a line across the field, the initial attack was a success for the British. The British forces penetrated further in six hours than had been achieved at the Third Ypres in four months, and at a cost of only 4,000 British casualties.[25]

However, the advance produced an awkward salient and a surprise German counteroffensive on 30 November drove the British back to their starting lines. Despite the reversal, the attack had been seen as a success by the Allies as it proved that tanks could overcome trench defences. The battle had also seen the first massed use of German stosstruppen on the western front, which used infantry infiltration tactics to successfully penetrate the allied lines.

1918 — Final offensives

Following the successful Allied attack and penetration of the German defences at Cambrai, Ludendorff determined that the only opportunity for German victory now lay in a decisive attack along the western front during the spring, before American manpower became a significant presence. On 3 March 1918, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed, and Russia withdrew from the war. This would now have a dramatic effect on the conflict as 44 divisions were now released from Eastern Front for deployment to the west. This would give them an advantage of 192 divisions to the Allied 173 divisions. The theory that German forces were also trained in the new assault tactics that had been successfully employed on the eastern front is a complete fantasy since the eastern expanses of Poland and Ukraine saw an utterly different kind of war than the one waged in the West, where neither the trenches or the machine guns had such a paralyizing effect. In contrast, however, the Allies still lacked a unified command and suffered from morale and manpower problems.

Ludendorff's strategy would be to launch a massive offensive against the British designed to separate them from the French and drive them back to the channel ports. The attack would combine the new storm troop tactics with ground attack aircraft and a carefully planned artillery barrage that would include gas attacks.

German spring offensives

Operation Michael [26], the first of the German spring offensives, very nearly succeeded in driving the French and British armies apart, advancing about 40 miles (65 km) during the first eight days and moving the front lines more than 60 miles (100  km) west, within shelling distance of Paris for the first time since 1914.

As a result of the battle, the two Allies finally agreed on a unified system of command. General Ferdinand Foch was appointed commander of all Allied forces in France. The unified Allies were now better able to respond to each of the German drives, and the offensive turned into a battle of attrition.

In May the American divisions also began to play an increasing role, winning their first victory at Cantigny. By the summer, 300,000 American soldiers were arriving every month. A total of 2.1 million American troops would be deployed on this front before the war came to an end. The rapidly increasing American presence served as a counter for the large numbers of redeployed German forces.

Final allied offensives

In July Foch initiated a planned offensive against the Marne salient produced during the German attacks. This attack was successful in eliminating the salient by August. A second major offensive was launched two days after the first ended at Amiens to the north. This attack would include Franco-British forces, but was spearheaded by Australian and Canadian troops [27] along with a mass of 600 tanks and supported by 800 aircraft. The assault proved highly successful, leading Hindenburg to name 8 August as the "Black Day of the German Army".[28]

The German army's manpower had been severely depleted after four years of war, and its economy and society were under great internal strain. The Hundred Days Offensive beginning in August proved the final straw, and following this string of military defeats, German troops began to surrender in large numbers. As the Allied forces broke the German lines at great cost, the German Imperial Monarchy collapsed, and the two near-dictatorial commanders of the army, Hindenburg and Ludendorff, stepped aside. Battles were still raging when the German Revolution put a new government in power that quickly signed an armistice which stopped all fighting on the Western Front on Armistice Day (11 November 1918).[29]

Consequences

The war along the western front led the German government and its allies to sue for peace in spite of German success elsewhere. As a result the terms of the peace were dictated by France, Britain and the United States, during the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. The result was the Treaty of Versailles, signed in June 1919. The original terms of the treaty would cripple Germany as an economic and military power, so the military delegation refused to sign. Instead, it was agreed to by a delegation of the new German government.

The Versailles treaty returned the border provinces of Alsace-Lorraine to France, thus limiting coal required by German industry. It also severely limited the German armed forces by restricting the size of the army to 100,000 and disallowing a navy or air force. The navy was sailed to Scapa Flow under the terms of surrender but was later scuttled as an act of defiance by its crews. The west bank of the Rhine would be demilitarized and the Kiel Canal opened to international traffic. The treaties also drastically reshaped Eastern Europe.

Germany in 1919 was bankrupt, the people living in a state of semi-starvation, and having no commerce with the remainder of the world. The allies occupied the Rhine cities of Cologne, Koblenz and Mainz, with restoration dependent on payment of reparations. Among the German populace, the myth arose that the German army had not been defeated, which would later be exploited by Nazi party propaganda to partly justify the overthrow of the Weimar Republic (the Dolchstoßlegende).

After the First World War the Treaty of  Versailles was signed, defining the frontiers of the European countries, the German territories and Eastern Prussia. Germany was banned from owning military forces, but Secret Societies began to appear throughout the country.....   In 1919, a German named Kaspar Haushofer founded a secret society, to parallel  the THULE-GESELLSCHAFT  (which acted only on the political-economic level) the  BRÜDER DES LICHTS, (the brothers of light), whose designation was changed  that same year to VRIL-GESELLSHAFT.    Its basic objective was the establishment of a relation between the UFO observations that they were being registered since the medieval age in Europe, and the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia.   The Vril members were convinced they were 'descendants of aliens" from the Aldebaran system, whose people began the colonization of the Universe there are 500,000 years ago. A few thousand, landing in the region of Mesopotamia established a "superior race".   Late in 1919 the Vril contacted a famed medium, Maria Orsic, to support them in their research of extraterrestrial life.   According to some documents captured by the allies after the occupation of Berlin in 1945, the "medium" received "telepathic messages of alien origin” which described how to build a flying machine able to reach the "other side", with a "divine technology".   Three years later, the society, with the support of Dr. W. Schumann, professor of the Munique Technique University, began the construction of a flying machine to reach the other side.   In the summer of 1922 the machine appeared be ready to go. It was an object in the shape of a flying saucer, 6 meters in diameter with 2 meters in height that worked with electromagnetics.   Nobody knows if that machine worked, all that is known is that is that, some weeks later, it was dismantled.

France suffered heavy damage in the war. In addition to loss of life, the industrial north-east of the country had been devastated by the war. (Once it was clear that Germany was going to lose, Ludendorff had ordered the destruction of the mines in France and Belgium.[30] His goal was to cripple the industries of Germany's main European rival.) France would later build a massive series of fortifications along the German border known as the Maginot Line, banking on these structures to prevent future German aggression.

The war in the trenches left a generation of maimed soldiers and war widows. The unprecedented butchery had a lasting effect on popular attitudes toward war, resulting in an Allied reluctance to pursue an aggressive policy toward Adolf Hitler (himself a decorated veteran of the war). The repercussions of that struggle are still being felt to this day.

Notes

One Torpedo Was Enough    On May 1, 1915, this ominous warning appeared in the major newspapers along the Atlantic Coast.   Notice! Travelers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or any of her allies,  are liable to destruction in those waters and that travelers sailing in the war zone on ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk. Imperial German Embassy, Washington, D.C.   The Cunard British Steamship company had four luxury passenger liners, R.M.S. Transylvania, R.M.S. Tuscania, R.M.S. Orduna, and the R.M.S. Lusitania. The R.M.S. Lusitania was the biggest and most luxurious vessel afloat at the time. Captain William Turner, the skipper of the ship, scoffed at the warning in the newspapers. Any civilized nation would never attack an unarmed passenger ship, he said. And we are just too fast for any submarine, we can outrun any submarine that Germany builds. So the R.M.S. Lusitania left pier 54 in New York City, bound for Liverpool, England on May 1, 1915. This would be her 202 crossing and would also be the final one! They crossed the Atlantic Ocean without incident, and it continued to be a wonderful voyage. Then the ship entered the Celtic Sea, which flows between Ireland and Wales. Captain Turner was very pleased with the way things had gone. Smooth sailing as I predicted, he gratefully exclaimed, soon we will be back home! He ordered one of the four boiler rooms shut down, in order to save on fuel. He also ordered the pilot not to zig zag, but to steer a straight course for England. As they passed the lighthouse at Old Head of Kinsale .. it happened! The lookout, 18 year old Leslie Morton, stationed on the bow of the ship shouted, "Torpedoes coming in on the starboard," (right side). He had spotted thin lines of foam racing toward the ship. It was only one torpedo, but that would be enough to send the proud Lusitania to a watery grave!   Kapitän-Leutnant Walter Schwieger was captain of U-Boat 20, a German attack submarine. He was ordered to patrol the Celtic sea and attack any ship belonging to England or her allies. He had met with great success May 5, 1915 he sunk the Earl of Lathom, on May 6, 1915 the Candidate and the Centurion were both sunk. Now on May 7, 1915, the U-20 was after the biggest prize of all, the Lusitania. Although one boiler room had been shut down, it was still too fast for the German sub to catch. But then a strange thing happened, the ship changed course and came toward the submarine. The German skipper waited until the Lusitania was only 750 yards away. At that close range, there was no way the ship could escape. At 2:10 p.m. May 7, 1915, a single torpedo slammed into the mighty British Ocean liner, the R.M.S. Lusitania. A large explosion blew a hole in the side of the ship, followed by another much larger explosion. This blew water, coal and other debris upon the upper decks. Then, listing immediately to starboard, the liner began to sink very rapidly at the bow. The ship had four large funnels, and it broke in two between the third and fourth funnel. (oddly enough, this is the same place where the Titanic broke in two, between the third and fourth funnel!) Panic rapidly grew among the passengers and also the crew. The ship was listing (leaning) so sharply to one side, that many of the lifeboats could not be reached. And if reached, they could not be untied because of the sharp angle of the deck. Women were crying and screaming and some of them fell to the deck in a dead faint! The "floating palace" the pride of the Cunard British Shipping Company, the colossal R.M.S. Lusitania was sinking very fast.   Many women and children were put into some of the available lifeboats, but some were overcrowded and sank as soon as they were lowered into the water. Many people just jumped into the ocean, afraid the ship would pull them under as it sank. As the whole bow (the front half) of the ship went down, it did suck one lady (Margaret Gwyre) down one of the funnels. Before she could drown, a boiler exploded and blew her back up the funnel! She was covered with ashes and soot, but she survived and later was rescued!   Next the stern (back half) went under and 1,195 men, women and children (several were babies) went with her! The time was now 2:28 p.m. This all happened in just eighteen minutes! The Lusitania was slightly smaller than the Titanic, but they both were the largest and most luxurious passenger ships of their time. The Titanic was 882 1/2 ft long and 92 1/2 ft. wide, while the Lusitania was 787 ft. long and 88 ft. wide. The Titanic had 2340 people aboard and the Lusitania had 1959 people aboard. The Titanic carried only 20 lifeboats, yet the Lusitania carried 48 lifeboats. The Titanic lost 1,595 souls, and only 745 were rescued. The Lusitania lost 1,1995 souls and only 764 were rescued. (As can be seen by these figures, sometimes having enough lifeboats does not make any difference!)   Germany and England had been at war for nine months, while the United States was supposed to be neutral. However, we were supplying England with everything she needed. Food, clothes, farm equipment, guns and ammunition, it made no difference! We filed a protest with Germany, as 128 Americans went down with the ship. President Woodrow Wilson almost declared war, but the American public was not ready at this time. "Why would you sink an unarmed steam ship that carried only passengers?" he  asked the Kaiser (Emperor of Germany.) "You have violated the rights of humanity by torpedoing the Lusitania without warning."   Germany claimed that England had deliberately exposed the ship so it would be sunk. This would so enrage the United States that it would declare war on Germany. And although it was a  passenger liner, Germany claimed that it was carrying war supplies for the enemy. Of course this was vigorously denied by the British government.  It was an innocent victim!   The absolute truth would not be revealed for many years. When the Lusitania was loaded at pier 54 in New York City, it was loaded with many more items than just passengers! Meat, medical supplies, copper, cheese, oil, and machinery were included on the packing list. But she was also being secretly loaded with munitions for England for the war.   The famous underwater explorer, Bob Ballard, was able to confirm this. Recently, he spent several days on the bottom of the Celtic sea (298 ft. down). He found cases upon cases of ammunition, clearly stamped "made in the U.S.A." Other types of war supplies were also discovered, all made in U.S.A. Should Captain William Turner be blamed for the loss of his ship? He was warned by Germany with the newspaper ads. He was warned by England to sail a zig-zag course. (During World War ll, a high ranking Navy skipper was court-marshaled because his ship was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine. He was supposed to zig zag, but instead was sailing a straight course!) Even today....89 years later, there is still a big controversy over the sinking of the R.M.S. Lusitania!

The First World War and its Consequences The outbreak of the war in 1914 prompted enormous rallies and parades by the German-Americans. Almost without exception, the approximately 500 German-language newspapers advocated American neutrality. "German-American Literary Defense Committees" were organized in a number of cities. The New York association "American Women of German Heritage" called for action against the anti-German agitation. Collection points are set up by Germans for Germany, where "gold for iron" is donated for the benefit of the German homeland. But despite its numerical strength, the politically unorganized German ethnic group proved not be up to the task of combating the anti-German incitement in the press, which was under the control of economics and high finance. The German Emperor, listening to poor advice, unwittingly supplied the agitators with ammunition when he overestimated his influence in the USA and announced: "Three million German-Americans vote according to my wishes."   Wilson officially declared America to be neutral. "Well, had he gone mad?" writes Joachim Fernau. "A neutral America which would have had to discontinue its supplies shipments to the Allies would have come to the edge of ruin! The entire country was already in war production mode! If the President failed to see it, high finance did not!   "The war party (the mighty coalition of politics and high finance) decided to take a desperate measure to teach the President better. The First Lord of the British Admiralty, Mr. Winston Churchill, had been notified.... The British passenger steamship 'Lusitania' with 1,000 passengers, among them 128 Americans, was studded with cannons and stuffed full of ammunition to right beneath the passenger cabins! And this weapons transport had been 'leaked' to the German secret service!..." It was the year 1915. On February 4, the German Foreign Office declared the waters surrounding England a war zone, and newspaper notices from the German Embassy warned the passengers of the 'Lusitania' accordingly. On May 7, a German torpedo launched within the English war zone hits the ammunition stores of the passenger ship. "This incident strengthened Theodore Roosevelt's war party in the United States over the peace party of Jennings Bryans, who stepped back as Foreign Minister," states the book Politisches Geschehen des XX. Jahrhunderts.   Längin describes with impressive vividness the incredible, almost overnight downfall of the Germans that occurred with America's entry into the war. "The Germans are turned from 'Jerry' into 'kraut' into bloodthirsty Huns... A crusade of annihilation begins in the 'Land of the Free', and the world's oldest democracy falls victim to its hatred... The press is saturated with allegations of German atrocities. Organized denouncers make more than three million reports to the police. There are mass dismissals of German workers [incentive for them to go into military service instead?! ed.], monuments of Goethe and Schiller are razed or covered up. Eventually, teaching in the 'tongue of the Huns' is prohibited. The chorals of the Reformation must be translated into English, and Mozart and Wagner are banned from the concert halls. The German Theater in New York must close down... German shepherds [i.e. the dogs; trans.] are killed, German books are burned, German companies set afire... sauerkraut changes its nationality and becomes 'liberty cabbage', and the Frankfurter sausage is turned into a 'hot dog'. The word 'kindergarten' is abolished."   This insanity culminates in the prayer which the American Congress jointly prayed "in pharisaical self-adulation", in order, as Wilson put it, "to make the world safe for democracy" - a prayer of which we quote only the conclusion here, for the sake of brevity: "We entreat Thee, bare Thy mighty arm and beat back the massive pack of hungry wolfish Huns, from whose fangs drip blood and slime. We entreat Thee, let the stars in their courses and the winds and waves fight against them... And praise be to Thee for evermore, in Jesus Christ. Amen."   The Germans were torn in their feelings and loyalty. While their hearts still beat faster at every German victory, their pious "leaders" had taught them well that their loyalty now belonged to their new homeland.   "In order to make the American population ready for war," writes H. J. von Leesen, "the British set up a special propaganda office under Sir Gilbert Parker, financed by the British secret service... Atrocity propaganda played a preeminent role... supported by Lord Northcliffe, the owner of the London newspapers Times and Daily Mail. Allegedly 75,000 speakers in 5,000 American cities gave such anti-German propaganda speeches to audiences totaling more than 300 million listeners."   Some ten million German-Americans surrendered to this concentrated campaign of hate. They submitted out of fear and mute despair. "America's entry into the war took place within only a few hours," writes Richard O'Connor. "In this short time, the German-Americans disappeared forever as a political factor."   True to the German tradition of adaptability (the Germans fell gullibly for the propaganda aimed against them even in those days!), most of the German-Americans vied with each other to prove their American patriotism. Newspapers who until shortly before had still stood in for the German cause now suddenly struck an anti-German note. Even the German National Association declared shortly thereafter: "We, as American citizens of German blood, declare wholeheartedly that we shall stand together against the inner and outer enemy."   As so many times before in their history, Germans once again bleed en masse for foreign interests. Seen proportionally to the number of its inhabitants, the city "Hermann" on the Missouri made the greatest blood sacrifice of all American cities. "With stamina such as only Germans are capable of," the Baden Catholics of St. Nazianz manufactured more than 300,000 replacement parts for the American aircraft industry, as "sign of their loyalty"!   Germans became the most successful American fighter pilots - such as Edward Rickenbacher, Frank Luke and Joseph Wehner. John Joseph Pershing, the great-grandson of the German Lutheran preacher Friedrich Pförschin, became Commander-in-Chief of the American expedition corps.   The German-American novelist Kurt Vonnegut recounts that his parents were so shamed by the anti-German hatemongering that they refused to speak German with him and to share German literature, German music or even the family's own chronicle with him. The result was that later on he felt "purely American in cultural respects, but German-American by the standards of the dog breeder's association!"   In order to escape hateful attacks, countless German-Americans changed their names. Braun is changed to Brown, Müller to Miller, Schmidt to Smith, Becker to Baker. As a rule the double n, as in Hollmann, disappears and becomes the Americanized Hollman! Therefore the ancestry of most German-Americans is no longer apparent from their names.   After the end of the war the Germans were nearly wiped out as a culturally independent group. As Wilbur Keegan said at a Schurz Memorial Festival in Chicago: "The German element in America has fallen from the highest heights to such a depth that not even the lowliest still shows it any respect. No further retreat is possible, save into slavish submission. Men who otherwise will march towards a loaded cannon and look death fearlessly in the eye, shudder when they are recognized to be a German."   In 1919 the Steuben Society was founded with the aim "to thoroughly Americanize the relics of formerly independent Germanness." Once more, associations and clubs revived, especially in the field of sports. Heritage and ethnic costume clubs also became active, at least as tourist attractions. But once again, dissent arose amongst them (as though it had been deliberately sown) when Catholics came into conflict with Protestants or the "successful" intellectual and economic circles strove to distance themselves from their German heritage.   Even if not much of the rich German tradition was permitted to survive, there is one product that would continue to own its German origin. The largest breweries, such as Schlitz, Papst or Anheuser-Busch, retained their leading positions. With 94 breweries, the largely German city of Milwaukee proudly called itself "the Beer Capital of the World". Cincinnati also has a proud beer tradition, with eight breweries as early as 1840, and 36 by 1860. A master brewer named Austerlitz, formerly an NCO in the Austro-Hungarian army, also became famous - though less for his brew than through his son Fred, who made a name for himself in Hollywood, as Fred Astaire.   Prior to the outbreak of World War Two, the United States again had more than 1,000 German clubs, among them the "American-German Alliance" led by Fritz Kuhn from Munich. Certain circles subjected Kuhn to hateful persecution because he openly professed his support for the Third Reich. In 1939 the Alliance had more than 100,000 members, including a considerable number of Ukrainians who decidedly preferred Germany to life under Comrade Stalin.   Once again the United States became the target nation for political emigrés. Approximately 105,000 of them emigrated from Germany and Austria, some 75% of them Jews. Jews had already been emigrating to America since the 18th century, and family dynasties such as the Seligmans, Warburgs, Belmonts, Strauss, Guggenheims, Loebs and Schiffs had amassed mighty fortunes. Albert Einstein as well was taken in by Princeton University. Ultimately, the dedicated "pacifist" Einstein was the one who urged Franklin Roosevelt, early in the war, to construct the American atom bomb.