War Without End 1: The Illusion Of An Equitable Peace

Like magicians, Secret Elite historians created the illusion of war’s end in November 1918. It was over, that war to end all wars. Or so they would have us believe. Consequently, one hundred years later we have been successfully drawn into the myth that the First World War was fought between August 1914 and November 1918. Students are still taught that the First World War came to an end when an Armistice was signed in Marshal Foch’s railway carriage in the forest of Compiegne in Northern France on 11 November, 1918. Though the guns fell silent at 11 a.m. that day, and the historical strap-line that the First World War raged between 1914-1918 remains carved in stone, war against Germany continued well beyond that date. The brutal war to destroy her absolutely had been deliberately started in 1914 and unnecessarily prolonged beyond 1915 by the hidden powers in Britain backed by their American allies. Consequently, they had no moral qualms about continuing the disintegration of German society after the armistice had been signed. The instrument through which they acted was, ironically, the continuation of the tightly controlled blockade on German imports of food and other supplies essential to the civilian population. The very act that would have ended the war in 1915 was ruthlessly applied after the armistice had been signed and caused widespread starvation and death in Germany and Austria throughout 1919 and beyond. It might be some consolation if the establishment’s denial of this historical fact embraced a sense of guilt or embarrassment which clashed with the myth that the Allies continued the war to save civilisation. Not so. Such sentiments never found sway with Imperial Britain’s ruling class. Their tactic is not to apologise, but to ignore.

In Britain, 11 November 1918 is still celebrated as if it brought closure to the horrors of world war. The theatre of commemoration has marked the Armistice for its annual service of remembrance for those sacrificed in the First World War. In the summer of 1919, Prime Minister, Lloyd George, gave Sir Edwin Lutyens, who was already working with the Imperial War Graves Commission, two weeks to design a temporary memorial to serve as a ‘saluting base’ for the Peace Day Parade in London on 19 July. Lutyens’ simple design of an empty coffin on a high column surmounted by a laurel wreath was constructed in timber and plaster. But ordinary people grasped the appropriateness of the monument and on that day its base was covered in flowers brought by the mourning general public. For weeks after, there were enormous queues waiting to place their wreaths alongside all of the others, in salute to the men whose lives had been forfeited and would never come home. [1]

If the people grasped the appropriateness, politicians like Lloyd George grasped the opportunity to focus public attention on a memorial and deflect scrutiny from the truth about the war. On 11^th November 1920, King George V unveiled a permanent  stone memorial in Whitehall. Lutyens called it a “Cenotaph”, which broadly translated from ancient Greek as an “empty tomb”, built at the centre of government administration to honour those buried elsewhere. It was a masterstroke of lasting propaganda.

Remembrance Day services continue to be observed annually at war memorials in every village, town and city in Britain on the Sunday closest to that date. Remembrance is more than important. It is vital. But we must clarify what should be remembered. The great lie of November 11 is matched by the lies on those war memorials that Britain and her Empire fought in a bitter struggle to save the world from evil Germans; by the lies that millions of young men willingly laid down their lives or were horribly maimed for the greater ‘Glory of God’ and to secure and protect ‘freedom’ and ‘civilisation’. In reality, they were sacrificed; they were the unwitting victims who died for the benefit of the bankers and financiers, the secret cabals and power-mongers on both sides of the Atlantic. Remembrance is sullied by the triumphant militarism which attends these services led still by royalty, religious leaders and the political class. The subliminal message mocks Wilfred Owen’s anti-war poem, ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’. [2] The great lie is perpetuated; violence is seen as a means of resolving disputes while the horrors, realities and true causes of war remain buried deep.

Be assured, no matter the hypocrisy that surrounds Remembrance Day, war did not end with the Armistice. That is merely one of the many lies about WW1 which are still peddled as fact. Though fighting on the Western Front came to a standstill, the assault on German men, women and children continued unabated. Indeed, it became ever more extreme through a ruthless and cynical continuation of the blockade on all food supplies to Germany.

Hostilities on the Eastern Front between Germany and Bolshevik Russia had terminated unofficially in October 1917, and officially in March 1918 with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. By the latter months of 1918, the Allies had made some gains but the underlying stalemate on the Western Front continued its weary, debilitating waste. The Imperial War Cabinet in London, [3] critical of the recent performance of senior British commanders like General Haig, was still planning advances in 1919 and 1920. [4] They saw no immediate end to the struggle. Some thought a seven year war possible, but Germany had no reserves with which to continue. In the light of a growing number of exhausted and disgruntled troops and the fear of revolution in Germany, perhaps even the spread of Bolshevism, the Kaiser instructed Field Marshal Von Hindenburg to withdraw to a defensible line between Antwerp and the river Meuse. [5] Indeed, being fully aware of Woodrow Wilson’s address to Congress on 8 January 1918, [6] the German government believed that the American president would guarantee an honourable outcome. Wilson had stated: ‘It is our wish and purpose that the processes of peace, when they are begun, shall be absolutely open and they shall involve and permit henceforth no secret understandings of any kind. The day of conquest and aggrandisement is gone by … What we demand in this war … is that the world be made fit and safe … for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression.’ [7]

What followed were the famous Fourteen Points by which President Wilson defined the new world into which all would be peacefully transformed. These included an end to secret treaties, the absolute freedom of navigation on the high seas, free trade and the removal of economic barriers and absolute guarantees that nations would reduce their armaments to the bare necessities of self defence. The sovereignty of small nations and subservient colonies was to be determined through a balance of rightful claims and self-determination. Sympathy and support for Russia’s political development was expressed in a plea that she be welcomed into the ‘society of free nations’ and that Russia be given every assistance in determining her own future.

Belgium merited special consideration. Her sovereignty as a free nation was to be clearly asserted and Germany had to withdraw from Belgian territory to restore confidence in justice and international law. Alsace and Lorraine, former provinces of France which had been ceded to Germany after the Franco-Prussian war in 1871, were to be ‘freed’ and the invaded portions restored to France. Detailed readjustments to Italy’s borders, safeguards for the peoples of Austria-Hungary, territorial agreements for the Balkan states and the ‘Turkish portion of the Ottoman Empire’ and an independent Poland were all included in Wilson’s grand statement. Words like assurance, integrity, guarantees, autonomous development and rightful claims gave the Fourteen Points an implied sense of natural justice as did the final ambition of a ‘general association’ of nations for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike’. [8] The President appeared to have conjured a solution to the world’s problems. It was a mirage, not a miracle.

Based on the apparent altruism of Wilson’s statement to Congress nine months earlier, the recently appointed German chancellor, Prince Max von Baden sought an armistice. Baden had been selected by the Kaiser on September 30, 1918 in anticipation of agreeing an equitable peace. He had previously spoken out against the unrestricted use of submarine warfare and had a reputation for moderation, [9] which lent hope to the view that his appeal to President Wilson would carry some weight. Von Baden wrote directly to Woodrow Wilson accepting the programme set forth ‘in his message to Congress of January 8th as a basis for peace negotiations’, and requested an immediate armistice. [10]

Max von Baden’s telegraphed message was forwarded to the U.S. President on 5 October 1918, [11] as was a similar peace overture from Austria-Hungary, [12] but Wilson said he would not negotiate as long as the German army remained on foreign soil. [13] He stated that the good faith of any discussions would depend on the willingness of the Central Powers (Germany and Austria) to withdraw their forces everywhere from invaded territory, though the President did not stipulate a deadline. [14] What followed was totally devoid of good faith.

1. Ellen Leslie MA GradDipCons (AA) in blog: BUILDING STOREYS, posted on Sunday 11 November 2012.
2. Wilfred Owen, Dulce Et Decorum Est, is the best known English anti-war poem from the First World War. It essentially attacks the old lie that it is a great and glorious thing to die for one’s country. http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen1.html
3. The Imperial War Cabinet comprised the prime ministers of Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland and South Africa, represented by Jan Smutts.
4. Minutes of the Imperial War Cabinet, 32B, August 16 1918, CAB 23/44A/13.
5. Ex-Kaiser William II, My Memoirs: 1878-1918, pp. 268-9.
6. President Wilson’s Message to Congress, January 8, 1918; Records of the United States Senate; Record Group 46; Records of the United States Senate; National Archives.
7. https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=62&page=transcript
8. There are many sources for the exact wording. The Yale Law School site at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/wilson14.asp can be accessed at this address.
9. http://www.firstworldwar.com/bio/maxvonbaden.htm
10. Erste deutsche Note an Wilson – Friedensersuchen (The First German Note to Wilson – Request for Peace), in Erich Ludendorff, ed., Urkunden der Obersten Herresleitung über ihre Tätigkeit 1916/8 (Records of the Supreme Army Command on its Activities, 1916/18). Berlin: E.S. Mittler und Sohn, 1920, p. 535.)
11. C. Paul Vincent, The Politics of Hunger, p. 61.
12. David Lloyd George, War Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 1934.
13. The Times, 10 October 1918, p. 7.
14. Robert Lansing to Swiss Charge d’Affaires at Washington 8 October 1918.