John Mosier's The Myth of the Great War

[R.M. Schultz]

Again, from the German point of view:

1] The terms of Wilson's 14 Points amount to being a tie.

2] The Germans believed they had fought the whole world to a tie.

3] Thus, the Germans believed the 14 Points would be honoured.

[viriato]

Hi R. M. Schultz

Very good post! Still I would like to make a few corrections:

1-The treaty with Turkey you mentioned is not the St. Germain but the Sèvres treaty.

2-Italy was awarded too some almost pure Slovene regions in the Isonzo/Karst regions and the town of Zadar in Dalmatia and the Pelegruza island in the Adriatic See overwhelming populated by Croats.

3-Tansylvania had in fact a Romanian majority although slim. As to the spoils of former Austria-Hungary this would deserve an entire thread on its own!

[R.M. Schultz]

Thanx to viriato for corrections!

Transylvanian situation is actually more complex. In 1919 the largest ethnic group in Transylvania was the Romanians, with about 45%, Magyar at about 40%, and Germans at 15% (living in the "Seven Cities"). A majority of Transylvanians (Magyar + German) overwhelmingly favoured incorporation under the new Hungarian state, but by slicing the population into thirds, the Allies justified giving the province to Romania.

During the Middle Ages, Transylvania had been almost completely Hungarian. Romanian immigration took place because, after Transylvania was liberated from the Turks, the neighbouring Romanians fled there to get away from the Turks. During the nineteenth century immigration accelerated because Hungarian governed Transylvania was prosperous while Romanian governed Wallacia was not. Thus, most Romanian Transylvanians preferred good government under Germans and Magyars and were disappointed when they were awarded to the Comic Opera government of King Ferdinand.

Best general book on the subject is Kaplan's "Balkan Ghosts."

[Beowulf]

VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

• Alsace-Lorraine was, in 1918, 87.4% German.

Alsace-Lorraine had been German from time immemorial, and still is. What sort of pompous ass can call the restoration of these areas to Germany in 1871 a "wrong"? They had only been a part of France since the Bourbon King Louis XIV looted them from a Germany made weak after the 30 years war. In fact, had Germany won WWI, there could have been a German "Point VIII" requiring the return to Germany of Franche Comte, all of Lorraine, Belgium, and the western part of Flanders (which to this day speaks Flemish.) This due to the "wrong" inflicted on Germany by France in the person of the expansionist Bourbon "Sun King." The cession of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany in 1871 was seen as a liberation if you were to go by the opinion of most of those living there (which of course was unimportant to the "Big Three.") Bismarck and William I were in fact being quite reasonable in only requiring the German-speaking areas to be returned in 1871. If they had been as churlish as the French were from 1871 on, they would have demanded all of Lorraine and Franche Comte at the time. Elsass-Lotharingen should have been returned to Germany in 1815 at the Congress of Vienna. I wonder if this was brought up at the time.. (back to researching.)

[Anthony EJW]

Alsace-Lorraine had been German from time immemorial, and still is.

The earliest recorded documents, from the Roman Empire, say that the border between Gaul and Germania is the Rhine.

If either France or Germany had wanted to be fair, they should have held a plebistate and drawn up national boundries on the results of that. But neither did.

Out of curiosity, is Alsace Larraine is still German, how is the movement to reunite with Germany going? I'm not well read on current French affairs.

[Beowulf]

There are actually movements for independence. Google for Elsass-Lotharingen on the web.

[R.M. Schultz]

I think perhaps the fact that Mosier's book is totally anti-BEF is probably what goads British historian's about Mosier.

Yes! and isn’t it wonderful to read an historian writing in English who has not been blinded by British Imperial propaganda! Now — did you actually read and consider Mosier’s book, or is this just knee jerk jingoism on your part? Did you consider his census of graveyards in France? His actually measuring the distance of shell holes behind Verdun? Are you not swayed in the least by his though knowledge of French and German sources? Or are your illusions just too precious to part with?

Austria-Hungary would have utterly collapsed much earlier than it did were it not for German reinforcements.

Austria-Hungary’s problem was that it’s Slavic elements could not be trusted to face the Russians, against the Italians they did fine! They proved a reliable ally right up until the end, delivering hammer-blows against the Italians at Asiago and Caporetto. The Italians, despite eleven battles of the Isonzo, could make no progress against the Austrians until after they had appealed for an armistice on 4 October 1918.

The French army had recovered from the mutinies by 1918, and were able to effectively attack, taking 139,000 PoWs and 1,880 guns between 18th July to the 11th November.

While Petan had saved the French from total collapse, they were only able to make headway after the German spring offensives had been spent.

The French contributed something like a sixth of the troops involved
at St Mihiel. What does that say about the US Army's requirement for
French assistance?

What exactly is your point? The Germans evacuated St Mihiel, they weren’t kicked out.

Fruitless? I don't seem to recall the Marne being a German victory, nor Verdun.

The Marne at best was a tactical French victory at the tail end of a hugely successful campaign that left the Germans in possession of all of Belgium and the lion’s share of industrialized northern France. More probably the Marne was actually not a battle at all, but represented a German decision to deliberately shorten their lines. They had no problem seizing and holding the high ground from the North Sea to the Swiss border for the next four years.

Verdun too may be counted a German success. French casualties (as Mosier goes to great lengths to prove) were far in excess of German losses, and the Germans only broke off the battle because the B.E.F. launched the Somme Offensive, presumably because they too wished to be bled white in suicidal assaults without any tactical finesse.

They were, indeed, ultimately failures. The Germans failed to take one strategic objective during their offensives, and in the process lost nearly one million men. By territory taken the offensives would seem to have been pretty successful, and you would have thought German moral would have been sky high after this- but in the event the reverse applied.

The Germans realized that this was their last shot at winning the war and when this failed they were understandably discouraged. At that point, the war was not lost but a drawn contest, Wilson’s fourteen points were essentially the terms of a draw, and so the Germans accepted this offer.

Likewise, it cost the Germans a great deal to defend it- they lost around 400,000 men as prisoners and 6,500 guns between 18th July and 11th November. The BEF alone took 29,000 machine guns. Germany could no longer afford such loses, and the German army was beginning to fall apart … How was, say, the breaching of the Hindenberg Line by Allied forces in September singularly inept? What is your analysis of the storming of St Quentin Canal?

Yes,the failure of the spring offencives led to a deterioration of German morale and gave the Imperialist Powers a chance to push the Germans back for the first time in the war. This does not represent any kind of Allied success as much as it does a German contraction in the face of the Spring’s over-expansion.

The main German defensive line that they had spent two years building had been breached by the end of September 1918. Just who was going to build a new one when the German army couldn't halt the Allied offensive?

Winter was approaching and these wind-fall offensives would soon spend themselves. Given this breathing space the Germans would have shortened their lines, dug in and fortified, rotated their exhausted troops with fresh ones from the Eastern Front, and presented the Imperialist Powers with a virtually impregnable front in the spring. Had not the notoriously mercurial Ludendorff suffered a loss of nerve that fall, the whole situation would have been different.

Given the loses they had suffered, and could not replace, I don't see how Germany could have reversed the situation. Indeed, Ludendorff was replaced, but it doesn't seem to have helped much.

The numerical advantage the Imperialist Powers enjoyed on the Western Front at the end of 1918 was actually slimmer than it had been in 1915 when the Germans had no difficulty holding against repeated French and British Imperial offensives. The Germans need not have reversed the situation to hold off the Imperialist Powers indefinitely. Again, it was the political failure of the High Command not any kind of Allied success that brought about the end of the war.

The armistice terms that the Allies offered (and the Germans accepted) included the evacuation of all occupied territories (including territory taken from Russia after Brest Litovsk) by the German army and of all districts on the left bank of the Rhine. It also included the handing over of a large amount of material (i.e., 5,000 guns, 25,000 machine guns, 1,700 aeroplanes, 5,000 motor cars etc) and warships.

The Armistice signed at Compiègne was supposed to be based on the Wilson’s Fourteen Points. The Versailles Diktat represented a betrayal of each of these points.

On the 30th October Pershing wrote to the Supreme War Council, urging 'unconditional surrender,' despite what Wilson thought.

Pershing had to take his orders from Wilson and was over-ruled. Again — see Mosier's book! The record is clear!

The earliest recorded documents, from the Roman Empire, say that the border between Gaul and Germania is the Rhine.

We are not talking about the physical geography of “Gaul and Germania,” we are talking about what people live there! At the time of Caesar Turkey was Greek, England was Celtic, and the Lithuanians lived somewhere in the central of Asia. Should we return to those boundaries?

If either France or Germany had wanted to be fair, they should have held a plebiscite and drawn up national boundaries on the results of that. But neither did.

Yes! And a plebiscite in Austria to see if they wish incorporation into the Reich, and one in Ireland to see if the British should get out! India too! Why — the sun never sets where there ought to have been plebiscites!

Out of curiosity, is Alsace Larraine is still German, how is the movement to reunite with Germany going? I'm not well read on current French affairs.

Do you know any Alsatians? Well I do and they are very careful to be Alsatian, not “French” or “German.” They have always expected that when the wind changed they would be shuttled back and fourth and so they make it a point not to stand out as one thing or the other and thus avoid persecution. Go to Alsace! Try the food, drink the beer, listen to the talk in the taverns and then ask yourself: “Am I in Germany or France?”

[Anthony EJW]

There are actually movements for independence. Google for Elsass-Lotharingen on the web.

I can only read english, so most of those sites arn't very helpful.

I had originally thought, however, that the people of Alsace wanted to be Alsacians, and didn't want to be under France or Germany?

[Potyondi]

Mosier's "The Myth of the Great War" is a revisionist account of WW1 that asserts that all previous accounts were distorted by Allied propaganda, faulty historiography, bias and selective use of facts. Mosier shows this is wrong, by use of anti-Allied propoganda, faulty historiography, bias and selective use of facts.

Mosier deftly explains how there was no Battle of the Marne, but the Germans won it anyway. (He doesn’t mention why they didn’t just finish the French off at this point, but I digress). He also shows that Verdun and the Somme were unquestionably a German victories based on his research into casualty figures. Admitadly, there are a few minor discrepancies in his casualty figures, like only counting those as “dead” those listed in German unit records; i.e. assuming that all “missing” are “alive in French PoW camp” when most of the missing were “blown to little unrecognizable bits all over the battlefield.”

All in all, Mosier presents a figure of only 669,263 German battle deaths for the whole theatre (sourced from German Reichsarchiv data), undoubtedly proving German battlefield superiority and that the French and especially British were useless and incompetent. Of course, he does slightly contradict himself by quoting 1,621,034 German war dead in his last chapter. Little things like where Germany lost these other one million men might not be discussed, nor indeed that finalised Reichsarchiv figure released in the late 1930s states that total German dead were 2.1 million; thus contradicting both. But as can be plainly seen, these are only minor points. Mosier keeps up this unbiased and objective view throughout the book.

Mosier states in the preface book will focus on the western front- the critical theatre- stating that Allied hopes of decisive victory in the east being "entirely delusionary.” Fortunately, several chapters are devoted to other theatres to show just how great the Central Powers were. (For example, Chapter 13 details the destruction of Rumania, while Chapter 15 records the Italian collapse at Caporetto. Of course, some small battles are missed out, like the Italian victory at Vittoria Veneto the following year that only broke Austria Hungary, nor is the capitulation of Germany's other allies that year.)

Indeed, there are a few small events that are missed out that might impede Mosier’s points somewhat. For example, when discussing how superior German weapons were to Allied ones, Mosier doesn’t mention the British Stokes- the best mortar of the war. Nor the Kindermond, were German reservists were used up at First Ypres in the same fashion that Mosier blames British and French forces of using. While his book covers the entire war, and as such can’t mention everything, I would at least of hoped that he would have taken a few of these samples, and shown why they didn’t apply.

Finally, the books ends with how the Americans hauled the Allied chestnuts out of the fire. The great German offensive of 1918 opens, and it's successful everywhere (there is certainly no question of the troops burning out or outrunning their supply lines), until finally being stopped at Belleau Wood. Mosier asserts that, "Belleau Wood was a crucial engagement." (On the next page he also states that, "Belleau Wood was an insignificant engagement." I would have hoped that such a ground breaking study could at least have been checked to make sure it didn’t contradict itself?)

So it turns out I’ve been living a lie- fifty years of painstaking academic research is all British propoganda, and the British army was totally useless and that Haig was indeed a butcher and an incompetent, and that’s why Britain lost the war and why I now live in a German vassal state.

[Potyondi]

It was pointed out to me by the author of the above post that I hadn't credited him for his writing, which I completely meant to do (you know I'm telling the truth Limey ) but forgot. So I'll do it now.

Source of above: http://onlinewarfarepact.org/ff/forum/s ... eadid=1833
Author: Limey

[Anthony EJW]