Crown council at Spa

On 14 August 1918 a crown council met under the chairmanship of Emperor Wilhelm II at Spa, the Belgian spa town that housed German General Headquarters. Six days after the defeat at Amiens, the leaders of the Reich for the first time recorded in a signed protocol that the war could no longer be won by military means and that preparations had to be made for an understanding with the enemy. When in 1919 the German government published documents on the origins of the armistice, it began the whole story of the peace efforts with precisely this meeting. At the same time, however, it was decided not to hurry and to wait for a “suitable moment”, which never came.

The talk at the Hotel Britannique

8 August, the day which General Erich Ludendorff, First Quartermaster General and the de facto head of the Supreme Army Command, later called “the black day of the German Army”, shook headquarters. As Ludendorff wrote in his memoirs, as soon as he had grasped the situation he resolved to meet the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs as soon as possible. On 13 August four men talked in the room of Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg at the Hotel Britannique: Hindenburg, Ludendorff, Chancellor Georg von Hertling and Paul von Hintze, who had been in charge of German diplomacy for a month.

Hintze remembered that in mid-July at Avesnes he had asked Ludendorff outright whether he was certain of finally defeating the enemy in the current offensive, and had heard: “I can answer that with a decided yes.” Now, before the meeting, the general took him aside and admitted that he no longer had that certainty. According to Ludendorff’s account, at the meeting itself he explained that it was no longer possible to force the enemy to make peace by an offensive, and that the defensive alone was unlikely to achieve this either, so the war would have to be ended by diplomatic means. Hindenburg judged the military situation more optimistically. Hintze drew the conclusion that peace negotiations were unavoidable and that Germany would have to adopt a very conciliatory position.

The crown council

The next morning the council met under the Emperor’s chairmanship. Besides Wilhelm II, Hertling, Hindenburg, Ludendorff and Hintze, it included the Crown Prince Wilhelm, Adjutant General Hans von Plessen and the chiefs of the Civil and Military Cabinets, Friedrich von Berg and Baron Ulrich von Marschall. The Chancellor described the domestic situation: the public was weary of the war, food was short, and clothing was in even worse supply. Ludendorff demanded stricter discipline at home and the punishment of Prince Karl Max Lichnowsky, the former ambassador in London, whose memorandum on Germany’s guilt for the outbreak of the war the Allies were distributing among soldiers at the front.

The most important contribution was Hintze’s on the external situation. The enemy, he said, was surer of victory than ever, because he was convinced that time was on his side. The neutrals had had enough of the war. Austria-Hungary was declaring that it was at the end of its strength and could hold out at most until the winter, Bulgaria was demanding ever greater deliveries and subsidies, and Turkey was waging its own war in the Caucasus, thwarting German plans. Since the Chief of Staff had concluded that the enemy’s will to fight could now only be broken gradually by a strategic defensive, and not by a victorious offensive, the government had to draw the political conclusions. Ludendorff noted that Hintze was visibly moved and had tears in his eyes. The Crown Prince supported Ludendorff’s and Hintze’s assessments and demanded the strictest discipline on the home front.

The Emperor received these arguments calmly. He agreed with the description of the situation and, as recorded in the protocol, declared that “one must prepare to seek a suitable moment for an understanding with the enemy”. The neutrals were to act as mediators. According to Ludendorff, Wilhelm II was thinking especially of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. He also ordered the creation of a propaganda commission, which was to weaken the enemy’s belief in victory and strengthen the spirit of the German people. Hertling summed up that diplomatic feelers should be put out at the right moment, and that such a moment might come “after the next successes in the West”. Hindenburg added that the army would manage to hold on to French soil and in this way eventually impose its will on the enemy. According to the editors of the 1919 documents, in the original record the Field Marshal had only “hoped” that this would “still” be possible, and the firm version was written in pencil, probably by Ludendorff.

Emperor Charles at Spa

On the same day Emperor Charles I arrived at Spa with his foreign minister, Baron István Burián, and the Chief of the General Staff, Arthur Arz von Straußenburg. It was the first meeting of the two emperors since the May meeting at the same place. Earlier, the German representative at Austrian headquarters, General August von Cramon, had reported that Charles considered it necessary to conclude peace within 1918. The talks held on 14 and 15 August revealed a deep difference of opinion. Burián wanted the Central Powers to come forward as soon as possible, in the form of a direct appeal to all the belligerent states. The Germans thought such a step premature, because the army first had to establish itself on a new line or achieve some success, and they considered mediation by the neutrals a better form. Burián reserved the right to prepare a proposal of his own. Arz told Ludendorff that the Austro-Hungarian army would not survive the coming winter, and the emperors also failed to agree on the Polish question.

Time lost

After the meeting Hindenburg and Ludendorff returned to their headquarters at Avesnes. On 21 August Hintze and Vice-Chancellor Friedrich von Payer explained the gravity of the situation to the party leaders in Berlin, and Hintze announced peace efforts. In practice, however, Germany waited. Hintze later wrote that his authority to take steps towards peace had been limited, because the Supreme Army Command was not yet ready to give up its existing war aims. Burián, irritated by his ally’s delay, sent Berlin a draft Austro-Hungarian peace note on 21 August. Meanwhile the Allies gave no respite, and battle after battle pushed the Germans back towards the Siegfried Line. The awaited “success in the West” did not come, and a month and a half later it was Ludendorff who demanded an immediate request for an armistice.