The Road to 11 November: War and Politics in 1918 | Prof David Stevenson

[@PapaCubScout]

Excellent talk. Thank you very much.

[@alexmorgan2296]

Exceptional. Thank you indeed.

[@shoofly529]

Enjoyable lecture esp, the German view, Thanj you for this

[@DarkFire515]

Fascinating lecture as usual from the WFA.

[@davidcross7272]

Great lecture . Loved the details never noticed that the Americans weren't at the signing of the Armistice before .

[@IanCross-xj2gj]

The Americans weren't Allies, they were Associates. That might explain why they weren't represented at the Armistice Negotiations.

[@Canadian_Skeptical]

Great explanation !!

[@SloeWalker-313]

Beginning at 2:01of the professor's talk was there not a transposition of numbers in the slide and identification of the railway wagon in which the armistice was signed? We see on the slide and the professor notes the carriage being identified as "2491 D." However, the physical carriage is labelled "2419 D" as it appears between Marshall Foch and the officer standing to his left.

[@14rnr]

Thank you Sir.

[@Rocky-xx2zg]

From what I read, Matthias Erzberger was blamed for the Armistice in 1918. Yet, he was told to sign regadless of the demands from the Allies. Am I mistaken?

[@IanCross-xj2gj]

You are correct. The German High Command wanted to disassociate from the process so they could claim that the politicians stabbed the Army in the back.

[@IanCross-xj2gj]

You are correct.

[@johnwilsonwsws]

This (1:05: 24 ) is completely unsatisfactory as it conceals the central role of the First Quartermaster General Erich Ludendorff and Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg in consciously promoting the "stabbed in the back" myth to deflect responsibility from the German High Command for the disaster. Their political strategy was to have a civilian government, especially the socialists, take the blame. 1:05: 24 "the idea begins to spread in Germany that the German Army has not really been defeated, that there's been some kind of fix that the war has been ended by the revolution. This is the German poster highlighting what's called in Germany the Dolchstosslegende, the stab in the back myth. Here is a German red revolutionary stabbing in the back the heroic German Soldier." Historians repeat this myth uncritically all the time. ---------------- Wikipedia's article "Stab-in-the-back myth" documents this well: While it notes incidental uses of the concept in February 1918 by a Protestant Court Chaplain and on 2 November by a member of the Progressive People's Party it goes on ... "... the widespread dissemination and acceptance of the "stab-in-the-back" myth came about through its use by Germany's highest military echelon. In Spring 1919, Max Bauer - an army colonel who had been the primary adviser to Ludendorff on politics and economics - published Could We Have Avoided, Won, or Broken Off the War?, in which he wrote that "[The war] was lost only and exclusively through the failure of the homeland."[24] The birth of the specific term "stab-in-the-back" itself can possibly be dated to the autumn of 1919, when Ludendorff was dining with the head of the British Military Mission in Berlin, British general Sir Neill Malcolm. Malcolm asked Ludendorff why he thought Germany lost the war. Ludendorff replied with his list of excuses, including that the home front failed the army. Malcolm asked him: "Do you mean, General, that you were stabbed in the back?" Ludendorff's eyes lit up and he leapt upon the phrase like a dog on a bone. "Stabbed in the back?" he repeated. "Yes, that's it, exactly, we were stabbed in the back". And thus was born a legend which has never entirely perished.[26] The phrase was to Ludendorff's liking, and he let it be known among the general staff that this was the "official" version, which led to it being spread throughout German society. It was picked up by right-wing political factions, and was even used by Kaiser Wilhelm II in the memoirs he wrote in the 1920s.[27] Right-wing groups used it as a form of attack against the early Weimar Republic government, led by the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which had come to power with the abdication of the Kaiser. However, even the SPD had a part in furthering the myth when Reichspräsident Friedrich Ebert, the party leader, told troops returning to Berlin on 10 November 1918 that "No enemy has vanquished you," (kein Feind hat euch überwunden!)[27] and "they returned undefeated from the battlefield" (sie sind vom Schlachtfeld unbesiegt zurückgekehrt). The latter quote was shortened to im Felde unbesiegt (undefeated on the battlefield) as a semi-official slogan of the Reichswehr. Ebert had meant these sayings as a tribute to the German soldier, but it only contributed to the prevailing feeling."

[@robertward949]

When doing history by statistics. Many historians by trade, by education or simply by being lazy. Assume that history and historical events can be explained by a mistake, an action or lack of an action. Ze Germans had as dinner, for two years, only the option of different varieties of turnip. Even worse, no way to alleviate that fact save a black market, no matter intelligence, ambition, ability or cunning. In ww2 Germany got if not actually, as close to as the english language can handle, pulverized.

[@bexhill8777]

same old propagation/propaganda.....