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Propaganda postcard of General Paul von Hindenburg as Colossus astride East Prussia and Russian Poland. Hindenburg commanded German forces in East Prussia.
Map of the Western Front on October 4, 1918. From The History of The A.E.F. by Shipley Thomas.
Detail showing the British sector of the Western Front from a map of the Allied offensives of 1918, from July 18 and the Second Battle of the Marne to the Armistice on November 11. From The Memoirs of Marshall Foch by Marshall Foch. The 1st and other armies to the south are French.
Postcard map of East Prussia and Polish Russia with a message and postmark, Vienna, August 20, 1915. From a series that asks, 'Do you know the high times?'
Map of the Allied offensives of 1918, from July 18 and the Second Battle of the Marne to the Armistice on November 11. From The Memoirs of Marshall Foch by Marshall Foch.
"The High Command insists on the immediate issue of a peace offer to our enemies in accordance with the decision of Monday, September 29, 1918.In consequence of the collapse of the Macedonian front, and the inevitable resultant weakening of our reserves in the West, and also the impossibility of making good the heavy losses which have occurred during the battles of the last few days, there is no prospect, humanly speaking, of forcing our enemies to sue for peace. The enemy, on the other hand, is continuing to throw fresh reserves into the battle." ((1), more)
"At 5.30 a.m. on October 4th the general attack was renewed. The enemy divisions on the front from Fresnes-en-Woevre to the Argonne had increased from 10 in first line to 16, and included some of his best divisions. The fighting was desperate, and only small advances were realized, except by the First Division on the right of the First Corps. By evening of October 5th the line was approximately Bois de la Cote Lemont-Bois du Fay-Gesnes-Hill 240-Fleville-Chehery, southwest through the Argonne." ((2), more)
"There was nothing left to capture in this region but the last strongholds of the Hindenburg Line. On October 5th, these were assaulted. The British Fourth Army, crossing the Scheldt between Crévecœur and Le Catelet, captured the plateau of Beaurevoir-Montbrèhain, and thereby completed for its sector of attack the conquest of the renowned German position. In contrast to this success, the French First Army, closely held to its mission of 'supporting at all costs the right of the British Army,' encountered the strongest sort of resistance east and northeast of Saint-Quentin." ((3), more)
"Further south Horne's, Byng's and Rawlinson's armies had by a combination of concentrated onslaughts on narrow sectors of the Siegfried Position followed by leverage to widen the penetrations and so link up, smashed through the entire width of the main German fortifications by October 6th. Their success had been extraordinary and only achieved by considerable skill and determination . . . plus mist — which if not so thick as upon the first morning of the British crossing of the canal, or upon the morning of March 21st, had nevertheless made their progress possible. Even so the Siegfried Line had been won only at immense cost, and by the time the Fourth Army had breached the final defences — the Beaurevoir Line — they had exhausted their strength." ((4), more)
"Early in October, 1918, Polish deputies in the Vienna parliament joined their counterparts in Berlin in demanding a united and fully independent Poland, and on October 7, the Regency in Warsaw called for a Polish national ministry and a representative assembly, chosen on broad democratic principles, to write a constitution. Polish politicians in Galicia journeyed to Warsaw to participate in setting up a provisional government and Polish soldiers disarmed loyalist Hapsburg troops in the province. Bit by bit, Poles acquired control of former Russian Poland expelling the administrators and soldiers of the Austrian and German occupation." ((5), more)
(1) Beginning of a statement by German Commander Paul von Hindenburg to the Imperial Chancellor on October 3, 1918. Hindenburg goes on to say that, 'The German army still stands firm', but that it is 'imperative to stop the fighting in order to spare the German people and their allies unnecessary sacrifices.' Germany's ally Bulgaria, which had held the Macedonian Front for over two years, had agreed to an armistice that took effect on September 30th. This isolated Turkey (which was in retreat in Syria, Mesopotamia, the Caucusus Mountains, and Persia), at the same time the Austro-Hungarian Empire was breaking apart.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. VI, 1918, p. 351, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(2) Excerpt from American Commander-in-Chief General John J. Pershing's 'final report' on the beginning of the second phase of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive on October 4, 1918. The first phase had begun on September 26 and had fallen well short of Pershing's goals.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. VI, 1918, p. 341, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(3) Excerpt from the Memoirs of Allied Commander-in-Chief Ferdinand Foch on the continued breaking of Germany's Hindenburg Line, its last and strongest line of defense. Crèvecœur-sur-l'Escaut and Le Catelet are south of Cambrai and north of St. Quentin. The British Fourth Army was at the southern end, the right, of the British line.
The Memoirs of Marshal Foch, translated by Col. T. Bentley Mott by Ferdinand Foch, page 416, copyright © 1931 by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., publisher: Doubleday, Doran & Co., publication date: 1931
(4) From north to south, the British commanders mentioned were Henry Horne, First Army, Julian Byng, Third Army, and Henry Rawlinson, Fourth Army. To the north the Belgian Army Group under Albert, King of the Belgians, was struggling with the ground conditions. The combined, well-constructed, multi-line German defense system was referred to by the Allies as the Hindenburg Line, by the Germans as the Siegfried Zone. Germany's Operation Michael, the first of five offensives in 1918, had begun on March 21 in fog that had helped confound the British defenders.
1918, the Last Act by Barrie Pitt, page 253, copyright © 1962 by Barrie Pitt, publisher: Ballantine Books, Inc., publication date: 1963
(5) What would become Poland at the end of the war was, in 1914, parts of three empires: Polish western Russia, part of northern Austria-Hungary, and part of East Prussia in Germany. In October, 1918, Poles demanded an independent nation unifying ethnic Poles, based on Russian Poland, but incorporating Poles in the lands of the swiftly-disintegrating Austro-Hungarian Empire. Warsaw, Russia's third largest city, would be the capital. Ignoring the struggling and seemingly failing Bolshevik regime in Russia, the Poles would need to contend with Ukraine for its boundaries. Galicia was northeastern Austria-Hungary. On the Russian side of the Carpathian Mountains, it had been the site of much of the fighting between Russia and the Central Powers. In the beginning of October, the governments in Vienna and Berlin were making peace overtures as they realized the war could no longer be won.
The Passing of the Hapsburg Monarchy, 1914-1918 2 Volumes by Arthur James May, page 782, copyright © 1966 by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, publication date: 1966
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