\chapter[The Great War: 24,500 casualties per day]{The Great War: 11,500 dead and 13,000 wounded per day for three and a half years}

\chapterauthor{Jean-Pierre FLÉCHARD}

\begin{flushright}
\enquote{\emph{C’est le tango des joyeux militaires}

\emph{Des gais vainqueurs de partout et d’ailleurs}

\emph{C’est le tango des fameux va-t-en-guerre}

\emph{C’est le tango de tous les fossoyeurs}}

\enquote{This is the tango of the merry soldiers

Happy winners from everywhere and elsewhere

This is the tango of the famous warmongers

This is the tango of all gravedigger!}

\textbf{Boris Vian}

~

\enquote{\emph{Celle, mon colon, que j’voudrais faire}

\emph{C’est la guerre de 14-18}}

\enquote{The one, my man, that I would like to do

It's the war of 14-18}

\textbf{Georges Brassens}

~

\enquote{\emph{Armons-nous et partez}}

\enquote{Let's arm ourselves and you leave}

\textbf{Anonymous}
\end{flushright}

Two French municipalities stand out: one is the only one not to have erected on its main square a monument to the dead of the war of 1914-1918, because its 15 mobilized all returned alive from the front,
the other, Gentioux, in the Creuse, has a monument to the dead that has never been officially inaugurated, in fact, it represents a schoolboy pointing to the inscription \enquote{Cursed be war!}, 
all the others have a war memorial, which reveals better than the dryness of figures the scale of the massacre.
In this field, the plaque dedicated to the dead of the 1914-1918 war, in the hall of the town hall of Bezons, bears the inscription \enquote{war to war, hatred to hatred}.
No French commune, with one exception, has escaped the gigantic butchery, which, out of 7.8 million mobilized for more than four years, or nearly 30\% of the French working population, has left 1.4 million dead on the battlefield and sent back to their homes more than a million invalids.

\section[The influence of the military-industrial lobby]{The influence of the military-industrial lobby, the international powder cartel}

From 1904, antagonisms were entrenched, national passions were exacerbated, crises multiplied and worsened, either over Morocco or over the Balkans, until 1914 when the Sarajevo attack unleashed the dreaded catastrophe, the European war.

The general situation and the balance of power were altered in Europe, not only by the Franco-British entente, but by the defeats that Russia, at that very moment (1904-1905) was suffering in the Far East.
Wilhelm II and his Chancellor Bülow tried to take advantage of the weakening of Russia to break the Entente Cordiale.

\subsection{The question of Morocco provoked a violent Franco-German conflict (1905-1906).}

Despite the continued development of German force, Wilhelm II, like Bismarck, was haunted by the fear of encirclement.
The agreement of France and England, coupled with an alliance with Russia, agreements with Italy and Spain, seemed to him to be a threat to German expansion plans.
Pushed by his advisers, Bülow and Holstein, he undertook a major diplomatic offensive, targeting both France and Russia.

On France, Germany exercised a brutal action, bellicose in appearance, by opposing like a veto to its Moroccan policy: the kaiser's speech in Tangier, then the resignation of Delcassé had the effect on French opinion of a new Fachoda, a national humiliation.
Conversely, William II lavished friendly words on the tsar, who was angered by defeat and revolution; he thus led him to the Björkoe meeting, where a secret pact of German-Russian alliance was signed, a prelude to a great continental league of which Germany would be the head.

This policy did not produce the expected results. The Pact of Björkoe, incompatible with the French alliance, remained a dead letter.
The Algeciras Conference (1906), convened at the request of Germany to settle the Moroccan question, rejected most of the German proposals, entrusted France and Spain with the police of the Moroccan ports.
The Entente Cordiale, far from being broken, became narrower; much more, it expanded into the Triple Entente, after England and Russia had, by the agreement of 1907, settled all their Asian disputes.
In Germany the haunting of encirclement grew, the European atmosphere became stormy. A second peace conference in The Hague (1907) failed to stop the arms race, on sea and land.


\subsection{Austro-Russian antagonism festered in the Balkans (1908-1909).}

The political or national questions that arose in the BalKans or Central Europe were even more serious than colonial disputes, 
because they put at stake the existence of the Turkish Empire, the existence of Austria-Hungary itself, and in turn the the foundations of European balance.

Of these issues, the most serious were the question of Macedonia, astill Turkish province but of mixed population and coveted by Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia; 
the question of Bosnia, Turkish province ruled by the Austrians, but populated by Serbs, and where the Serbian nationalism was beginning to spread; 
the question of the Detroits — Bosphorus and Dardanelles — that Russia, locked in the Black Sea, wanted to open to its war fleet. 
After its failures in the Far-east, Russian politics, under the leadership of Minister Isvolsky, returned to its traditional objectives in the Balkans.

However, in 1908, a Balkan crisis broke out, provoked by the Turkish Revolution:
the Young Turk National Party seized power and forced Abd-ul-Hamid to accept a constitution (the sultan, having tried to recapture power, was deposed the following year).
To put an end to the Yugoslav agitation, Austria, led by a bold minister d'Aerenthal, decreed the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Bulgaria also took advantage of the crisis to proclaim itself independent. As for Isvolsky, despite all his efforts, he could not obtain from the powers the opening of the straits.

The annexation of Bosnia — a violation of the statute established in Berlin in 1878 — resulted in a European crisis.
War almost broke out between Austria and Serbia, whose national aspirations were aimed at the annexed provinces.
Russia, dissatisfied with its failure, supported the Serbs, until the day when the threatening intervention of Germany forced it to yield and Serbia, and to recognize the fait accompli (1909).
Nothing seemed to be able to resist the German force.


\subsection{To settle in Morocco, France had to cede part of the Congo (1911).}

In Morocco, after new incidents (about Germans deserting the Foreign Legion), Germany had concluded with France an economic agreement (1909). But this agreement worked badly.
When, to unblock the sultan and the Europeans besieged by rebels, French troops entered Fez (1911), Germany declared the status of Algeciras violated and, to obtain compensation, sent a warship to Agadir (southern coast of Morocco).

This time it encountered strong resistance. England vetoed any establishment of Germany in Morocco.
But the French government (Caillaux) was in favour of a peaceful solution; the Franco-German negotiations, although interspersed with drums of war, resulted in an agreement:
in exchange for freedom of action in Morocco, France ceded part of the French Congo to Germany (1911).

Instead of producing appeasement, this agreement only exacerbated Franco-German passions and antagonism.
Germany, in order to intimidate its opponents, increased its armaments. In France, after so many alerts, we no longer wanted to be intimidated:
Minister Poincaré, a supporter of a policy of firmness, strengthened, through new agreements, France's ties with Russia and England (1912).


\subsection{From Morocco the crisis spread to Tripolitania and then to the Balkans (1911-1913).}


From 1911 to 1914, crises followed one another and Europe, as if caught in a fatal spiral, was blindly heading towards catastrophe.

The immediate consequence of the establishment of France and Spain in Morocco was the establishment of Italy in Tripolitania (1911).
But the Tripoli expedition spawned an Italo-Turkish War (1911-1912), during which the Italians occupied Rhodes and the Dodecanese Islands.

In turn, the Italo-Turkish War spawned a war in the Balkans. A Balkan league — Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Montenegro — had been formed under the aegis of Russia.
Weakened Turkey was attacked by the coalition and defeated everywhere; the Bulgarians were stopped only 30 kilometers from Constantinople, in front of the lines of Chataldja (1912)

The collapse of Turkey finally revived all European and Balkan rivalries.
Austria, master of Bosnia, did not want at any price a Greater Serbia, to which its Serb subjects would necessarily be attracted.
To remove Serbia from the Adriatic, it created a principality of Albania. On the other hand, the partition of Macedonia gave rise to a second Balkan war (1913):
the Bulgarians, by a sudden attack, tried to crush the Serbs; they failed and were themselves defeated by a Serbia-Greece-Romania coalition.
The Treaty of Bucharest gave Silistria to the Romanians, Thessaloniki to the Greeks, Monastir with much of Macedonia to the Serbs. The Turks kept in Europe only Constantinople and Adrianople.

This pacification was not sustainable. No agreement was possible between Austrian policy and Serbian national demands. Russia's relations with Austria and Germany continued to worsen.
All the powers, worried, intensified their armaments (military laws of 1913 in Germany and France). We had reached the point where each of the antagonistic groups, confident in its strengths, was determined not to back down from the other.


\subsection{After the Sarajevo bombing, the Austro-Serbian War led to Russian intervention and general war.}

On June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo, Bosnia, the Archduke, heir to Austria and his wife were murdered. The murderer was a Bosnian, but the attack had been prepared in Belgrade. 
(It was later known that at the head of the plot was an officer of the Serbian General Staff, the colonel Dmitrievich, leader of a powerful secret society, the Black Hand.)

Long eager to attack Serbia, Austria had was hitherto retained by Germany. This time it obtained its support. In secret meetings, in Potsdam (5-6 July), in a Council in Vienna (7 July), the risk of a European war was weighed and accepted.
 William II, it is true, considered war unlikely (the tsar would not support regicides) and expected the neutrality of England with which he was about to conclude a colonial agreement.

Suddenly, on 23 July, Austria presented an ultimatum to Serbia, whose demands were deliberately unacceptable. Despite a very conciliatory response (and a call for arbitration), there was a Austrian-Serb break-up on July 25 , and  declaration of war on Serbia on 28 July.

But already the location of the conflict, demanded by Germany, proved impossible. Russia, determined not to let Serbia be crushed, began its military preparations.
In vain the English government, very peaceful, multiplied the offers of mediation. Germany rejected them at first, and then only answered them when English neutrality began to appear doubtful (29-30 July). Too late.
Austrian intransigence played into the hands of the military staffs eager to act. Russia decided on July 29 the partial mobilization, on July 30 the general mobilization.
Germany retaliated on July 31 with a double ultimatum, to Russia and France, followed on August 1 by a declaration of war on Russia, then on August 3 by a declaration of war on France.

As soon as the conflict began, the Triple Alliance broke up while the Triple Entente asserted itself. Italy invoked the purely defensive character of the Triplice to remain neutral.
The English government, very divided and hesitant, initially undertook only to defend the French coast of the English Channel (2 August).
The violation of Belgian neutrality by German troops decided it to break up with Germany (4 August) and to commit itself thoroughly:
\enquote{Just for a piece of paper!} cried German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg (alluding to the treaties that guaranteed Belgian neutrality).

In parallel with the great politico-military maneuvers, the great European industry has not failed to organize itself to make governments and peoples bear the weight of its expansion.
There, nationalism and patriotism are no longer in order, only the cash drawer counts. A true internationale is thus organized, extending its ramifications to all future belligerent countries.

Two examples will suffice:

The International Organization of Powder, Explosives and Ammunition Manufacturers:

{
\renewcommand{\labelitemi}{--}
\renewcommand{\labelitemii}{}
\begin{itemize}
\setlength\itemsep{-0.25em}
\item Nobel Trust (Great Britain), subsidiaries:
\begin{itemize}
\setlength\itemsep{-0.25em}
\item England 7
\item Germany 5
\item Japan 1
\end{itemize}
\item Rhein-Siegener (Germany), 3 factories
\item Kôln Hottweiler powder factory (Germany)
\item Various German arms and ammunition factories
\item French Dynamite Society (France)
\item Société Générale pour la fabrication de la dynamite
(France)
\item Franco-Russian Dynamite Company (France)
\end{itemize}
}


The steel industry:

{
\renewcommand{\labelitemi}{}
\renewcommand{\labelitemii}{}
\begin{itemize}
\setlength\itemsep{-0.25em}
\item UNITED HARVEY STEEL COMPANY
\item Vickers \& Armstrong (Great Britain)
\item Krupp \& Stumm (Germany)
\item Schneider-Le Creusot (France)
\item Societa degli alti forni Fondiere Acciane di Terni (Italy)

\item Participations through Krupp and Schneider in participation
\begin{itemize}
\setlength\itemsep{-0.25em}
\item Skoda \& Pilsen (Austria)
\item Poutiloff (Russia) (share, complementary to Voss)
\end{itemize}

\item Trade agreements to limit competition:
\begin{itemize}
\setlength\itemsep{-0.25em}
\item Le Creusot – Krupp
\item Armstrong — Krupp
\end{itemize}
\end{itemize}
}


They obviously maintain links with arms manufacturers, in particular:

{
\renewcommand{\labelitemi}{}
\renewcommand{\labelitemii}{}
\begin{itemize}
\setlength\itemsep{-0.25em}
\item Deutsche Waffen-und-Munitions Fabriken in Berlin
\item Waffenfabrik
\item Doellingen Workshops
\item Subsidiaries:
\item 1) Germany: Mauser: 1,985,000 M
\item Düren (metallurgy): 1,000,000 M
\item 2) Belgium: National Factory of Weapons of War of Herstal:
3,000,000 shares
\item 3) France: French company for the manufacture of ball bearings:
total capital
\end{itemize}
}

\begin{table}
\caption{Financial situation of the two main belligerents in 1914}
\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{|l|r|r|}
\hline
&                                                        GERMANY &                           FRANCE \\
\hline
Population &                                         67 million &                          39.6 million \\
\hline
National wealth &                                400 billion &                          325 billion \\
\hline
National revenues &                              52.5 billion &                          36.5 billion \\
\hline
Average national wealth per capita &      5,970 F &                                 8,207 F \\
\hline
Average national income per capita &       783 F &                                    946 F \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{center}
\end{table}

\begin{table}
\caption{Production (million tonnes) in 1914}
\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{|l|r|r|r|}
\hline
&                                COAL &                               STEEL &                      CAST IRON \\
\hline
Germany &                  191 &                                       18 &                            12 \\
\hline
Austria-Hungary &          15 &                                        5 &                               4 \\
\hline
France &                       41 &                                       4 &                                9 \\
\hline
Great Britain &              35 &                                          4 &                             5 \\
\hline
Russia &                     292 &                                         9 &                              11 \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{center}
\end{table}

Thanks to these two internationals, which are only the most obvious example, imitated as they were by the suppliers of the stewards, the vehicle manufacturers, the manufacturers of clothing, etc.,
the war would prove to be an excellent deal for big international industry, which would use its influence to make it last as long as possible, stirring up nationalist passions through a press financed by them openly or covertly.


\section{The great butchery}

The European war has taken on the proportions of an immense cataclysm.
It has spread to the whole world; but it was in France that it reached its maximum intensity and caused the most devastation; and it was in France that the German force finally had to capitulate.

The coalition of the Central Empires (strengthened in October 1914 from Turkey) seemed far inferior to a coalition that encompassed France, the Russian and British empires, Belgium, Serbia (and even Japan).
But England had only a small army; the Russian army, very numerous, was poorly organized; everything depended on the resistance that France would offer to the powerful German army.


\subsection{Germany is trying to overwhelm France and seems on the verge of success.}

Germany's plan was to throw itself into France with almost all its strength, quickly put it out of action, and then turn against Russia.
Undoubtedly, it did not have as in 1870 a great numerical superiority, but it counted on the superiority of its technical preparation, its reserve formations, its heavy field artillery, its siege artillery (guns of 420), finally on the surprise effect that its maneuver in Belgium would produce. 
The French army possessed a superior equipment of light artillery, the 75; but it lacked almost completely heavy artillery; his infantrymen in red trousers were target; they had been trained in a reckless tactic of excessive bayonet offensive.

The first major battle, known as the Battle of the Borders, took place from 20 to 23 August. Both opponents had taken the offensive.
The German General Staff, commanded by de Moltke, wanted to turn the eastern fortifications and overflow the left wing of the French army: for this purpose he forced the fortified camp of Liège and threw 5 armies out of 7 into Belgium.
The French General Staff, commanded by Joffre, wanted to paralyze the enemy maneuver with a lightning attack in Lorraine and the Ardennes.
But the French offensive, which ventured into difficult terrain, was broken at Morhange in Lorraine (20 August), in the Ardennes (22 August).
The Franco-English left wing, attacked at Charleroi and Mons and threatened with envelopment, managed to evade and retreat (23 August).

The German victory resulted in the loss of Belgium and the invasion of France. The Germans, haunted by the fear of the snipers, took terrible repressive measures (sack of Leuven and Dinant).


\subsection{The German plan failed on the Marne, then on the Yser.}

However, the goal, the annihilation of the French forces, was not achieved.
By a rapid advance, the Germans endeavour to wrap the opponent's wings, or to corner him on the Swiss border.
But in Lorraine, from 29 August, they were held in check; the other French armies retreated methodically,
until the day when the reckless advance of the German right (von Kluck) provided the governor of Paris, Gallieni, with the opportunity for a flank attack (5 September).

At Joffre's call, all the French and English armies then resumed the offensive (6 September).
After several days of struggle, the Germans, threatened to see their right wing broken and cut in two, retreated to the Aisne where they retreated.
The victory of the Marne resulted not only in the withdrawal of the Germans, but in the collapse of their initial plan; it also had great moral significance and restored to France confidence in itself.

Seeking to outflank each other on the western side, the two adversaries eventually extended their lines to the sea.
After the capture of Antwerp (9 October), the Germans again attempted to strike a decisive blow by seizing Calais;
but all their assaults were repulsed before Ypres and the Yser by the Allied forces, placed under the direction of Foch (October-November).
Thus, contrary to predictions, the 1914 campaign ended in the west without decisive results.

It was the same on all fronts.
In the east, the Russians, who had invaded East Prussia to release France, suffered a disaster at Tannenberg (29 August), but they defeated the Austrians at Lemberg in Galicia (September).
Bloody battles without result took place in Poland around Warsaw (November-December). At sea, the Germans did not dare to risk great naval battles; they were limited to commerce raiding, then to submarine warfare.
Finally, if they could not prevent the Allies from conquering their colonies, the Turkish alliance allowed them to ambush in the straits and threaten Egypt.


\subsection{Movement warfare is followed by trench warfare}

Both exhausted, the armies came to a standstill face to face, in improvised entrenchments that formed a continuous line — 780 kilometers from the North Sea to the Swiss border. Thus the war turned into trench warfare. 

On both sides, work was made to constantly strengthen defensive organizations. — networks of barbed wire, shelters dug underground or concreted, succession of lines at depth, barrages, flanking machine guns.
Weapons suitable for close combat, grenades and bomb launchers, defensive weapons abandoned since the Middle Ages, steel helmets, were put back into use.
But on both sides they also worked to perfect the offensive means to pierce the opposing lines: heavy artillery especially and aviation developed in colossal proportions.
We worked hard to find new machines, capable of producing a lightning surprise effect: the Germans made use in 1915 of flaming liquids and asphyxiating gases, the French and the English built from 1916 tanks or tanks, mounted on steel tracks.
To manufacture this enormous war material, it was necessary to multiply the war industries: the war took more and more a scientific and industrial character.

As a result, it also became an economic war. England, master of the seas, blocked German ports and hindered German supplies (especially food products).
Germany retaliated by inaugurating the blockade by submarines (torpedo of the large English liner Lusitania, May 7, 1915, more than 1100 victims).


\subsection{The war continued in 1915 and 1916 without decisive results.}

From year to year, the war continued, expanded, intensified without leading to more decisive results than in 1914.
The Allies had the superiority of the population, but, for lack of preparation, method and especially for lack of a single direction, they could not take advantage of it at first (England did not establish compulsory service until 1916).

The year 1915 was marked by the entry into the war of Italy against Austria, Bulgaria against Serbia and the Allies. It was above all the year of eastern setbacks:
while the Anglo-French failed in their attempts to force the Dardanelles by sea and land, the Austro-Germans managed to break through the Russian front of Galicia, to push back the Russian armies, to occupy all of Poland, Lithuania and Courland;
then, reinforced by the Bulgarians, they crushed the Serbian army and conquered Serbia (October-December); 
an Allied relief expedition landed too late at Thessaloniki, but remained there despite the opposition of King Constantine and rallied the remnants of the Serbian army.
On the Western Front, the multiple French offensives (Vauquois, Les Éparges, Battles of Champagne and Artois) only resulted in decimating the numbers (400,000 men killed or prisoners). 
The Italian army came to rest in the lines of Trisonzo, on the road to Trieste.

The year 1916 was marked by the entry into the war of Portugal and Romania on the side of the Allies. It was especially the year of Verdun, the greatest battle of the war by its duration and its relentlessness:
Returning to their 1914 plan, the Germans (Falkenhayn) wanted to strike a decisive blow on their main opponent, the French army;
they attacked in front of Verdun (21 February), but their furious efforts, prolonged for five months, broke against the stubborn resistance of the French, commanded by General Pétain.
Military supremacy appeared to be on the verge of passing to the Allies, who in turn took the offensive on the Somme and Galicia.
Germany in distress handed over the supreme command to the victors of the Russians, Hindenburg and his deputy Ludendorff. They managed to stop the Allied offensive and conquer almost all of Romania.

At sea, the British and German fleets clashed at the Great Battle of Jutland without decisive results (31 May 1916).

\subsection{In 1917, submarine warfare and the Russian Revolution jeopardized the Allied cause.}

Despite its conquests, Germany was exhausted by the blockade.
To impose peace on the Allies, it resorted to desperate means, such as excessive submarine warfare (January 1917).
The new submarine war, depriving the neutrals of the right of free navigation, had an almost immediate effect: the entry into the war of the United States against Germany, at the call of President Wilson (April 6, 1917).
But the United States had only a small army, and its intervention in Europe seemed difficult, if not impossible.

Moreover, Germany thought itself saved by the Russian Revolution. The misconduct of the war had ended up discrediting tsarism.
Suddenly the revolt broke out on March 11, 1917, and Nicholas II had to abdicate (March 15). The Russian Revolution soon took on the character of a social revolution:
Supported by the soviets, committees of delegates of the workers and soldiers, the Bolsheviks, Lenin and Trotsky, seized power and maintained it (November 7). All of Eastern Europe was plunged into anarchy.
After unsuccessfully proposing a general armistice, the Bolsheviks concluded the Brest-Litovsk Armistice with Germany (December) and began peace negotiations. Germany seemed to have won the game in the east.

In the west, the German army, initially cautiously held on the defensive, had been brought back by Hindenburg to strong positions against which a new French offensive, even more reckless than the previous ones, broke (Battle of the Aisne, 16 April). 
With troops brought back from the east, the Austro-Germans were able to break the Italian front at Caporetto (October) and invade Veneto as far as Piave.

Signs of weariness were manifested in all the belligerents (secret negotiations, mutinies, defeatism). But in France, the coming to power of Clemenceau revived energies and put an end to any policy of compromise.
The new head of the army, Pétain, knew how to inspire trust and avoid unnecessary killings.

\subsection{In 1918, the Great Battle of France ended with the defeat of Germany.}

In March 1918, Germany imposed the Treaties of Brest-Litovsk on Russia and Bucharest on Romania.
Then, for the third time, it resolved to concentrate all its forces in the west and strike a decisive blow on the Allies before the Americans entered the line.

The German offensive that began on March 21 lasted until July 18. Led by Ludendorff, it resulted in great tactical successes, but not a decisive victory.
Thanks to a new method — absolute secrecy of preparations, intensive and brief artillery preparation, massive use of toxic shells — Ludendorff had solved the problem of breakthrough.
On three occasions, in Picardy (21 March), Flanders (9 April), and the Aisne (27 May), the English and French fronts were broken. The Germans approached Amiens, Calais, Paris, which they bombarded without truce by planes and long-range guns (120 km).

The situation was critical for the Allies. They finally decided to entrust the single command to the French General Foch (26 March). The United States hastened its troop shipments (nearly 10,000 men a day in June).
Pétain developed new offensive and defensive methods (attack without artillery preparation, mass use of light tanks and aircraft). In June, a fourth German offensive on Compiègne was quickly halted.

The reversal of the battle took place from 15 to 18 July: it was the second victory of the Marne, a decisive event of the war.
Stopped in their offensive in Champagne, then suddenly attacked from the flank, the Germans, as in 1914, had to retreat from the Marne to the Aisne.
The victory of the Marne marked the beginning of a great Allied offensive. Foch did not give the bewildered enemy time to pull himself together and replenish his reserves.
By a methodical widening of the battle, he multiplied his attacks on all points of the front; the Germans were constantly forced to retreat under threat of envelopment.
Successively, all their defensive positions, the formidable Hindenburg Line itself, were forced (September-October). The Allies returned to Saint-Quentin, Laon, Lille.

At the same time, in Macedonia (15 September) and Palestine (18 September), decisive victories forced Bulgaria (29 September) and Turkey (30 October) to lay down their arms.
Austria-Hungary broke up and, defeated by the Italians at Vittorio-Veneto (27-30 October), abandoned the struggle (3 November).
To avoid a total disaster, Germany, in the midst of a revolution, accepted all the conditions imposed by the armistice of 11 November; by the 9th, William II had fled to Holland.

This is only the visible part of the operations, the appetite for conquest, the thirst for profit, the secret war goals and behind-the-scenes maneuvers have been its characteristics.
But under the great patriotic impulses hides a more sordid reality, that of the fierce defense of special interests.

Only one example among others illustrates the sordid reality: the fate of the Briey-Thionville basin.

\subsection{A sanctuary of international capital: the Briey-Thionville basin.}

The cannon merchants, the main ones being Schneider in France and Krupp in Germany, were closely united in a kind of international trust whose secret purpose was to increase the immense fortune of its members by increasing war production on both sides of the border.
To this end, they had powerful means to sow panic among the population of both countries, in order to persuade each that the other had only one goal: to attack it.
Many journalists, parliamentarians, were paid handsomely by them to fill this role.
Moreover, an important French munitionnaire, de Wendel, a deputy moreover, had as a cousin another German munitionnaire, Von Wendel, sitting in the Reichstag.
They were in the front row, in every country, to buy consciences and make their patriotic cries of alarm heard.

All this fine team – cannon dealers, journalists, parliamentarians – easily managed to launch the two peoples into a crazy arms race that nothing had to stop, until war. 

Their respective heads of state, far from holding them back, encouraged them.
And in particular our President of the Republic, Raymond Poincaré, a Lorrain, raised in the idea of revenge and ready to any lie, to any package, to reconquer Alsace and Lorraine. 

It was for these different reasons that the German and French soldiers would cut each other's throats.

They had been taught to hate each other, while the ammo makers and the staffs, fraternally united, followed with satisfaction, in the rear, the unfolding of the drama they had jointly unleashed.

To deepen this immense deception and show that patriotism and the defense of the territory are only empty words used to cover the most abominable fiddling, it is necessary to tell the story of the Briey basin, because it is characteristic, symptomatic and, on its own, should disgust the peoples to take up arms.

The iron mines of Briey-Thionville straddled the borders of Luxembourg, France and Germany. The Franco-German family Wendel owned them. 

This basin was of paramount importance for the course of the war. Mr. Engerand, in a speech delivered to the Chamber of Deputies after the conflict on January 31, 1919, said: \enquote{In 1914, the Briey region alone accounted for 90\% of all our iron ore production.}

Poincaré himself once wrote: 
\enquote{The occupation of the Briey basin by the Germans would be nothing less than a disaster since it would put in their hands incomparable metallurgical and mining wealth whose usefulness can be immense for that of the belligerents who will hold them.}

However, an extraordinary fact happened: as early as August 6, 1914, the basin was occupied by the Germans without any resistance.

Even more extraordinary: the major general in charge of the defense of this region, General Verraux, later revealed that his instruction (contained in an envelope to be opened in case of mobilization) formally ordered him to abandon Briey without a fight.

The truth, known long after, was the following: an agreement had been made between some members of the General Staff and French munitionnaires to leave the basin in the hands of the Germans so that the war would be prolonged 
(the Germans would not have been able to continue it without the iron ore) and the profits of the gun merchants would be increased.

And long live the self-defense in the name of which we were gutted everywhere on the battlefields!

But this story — how edifying! — is not over.

During the whole conflict, there was not a single French offensive against Briey! However, it was not for lack of warnings.

Indeed, in the midst of the war, the Director of Mines sent the following note to Senator Bérenger:
\enquote{If the region of Thionville (Briey) were occupied by our troops, Germany would be reduced to the approximately 7 million tons of poor minerals it derives from Prussia and various other states:
All its manufactures would be stopped. It therefore seems that it can be said that the occupation of the Thionville region would immediately end the war, because it would deprive Germany of almost all the metal it needs for its armaments.}

The French General Staff and the President of the Republic were warned a lot of these facts. 
Complete files on this case were even supplied to Poincaré by the deputy Engerand.

Poincaré refused to intervene. The General Staff refused any offensive on Briey's side.

In the absence of an offensive, of retaking the ground, we could have bombed Briey to make the facilities unusable. 
On the contrary, secret agreements were made between the French and German general staffs so that trains filled with ore heading to Germany would not be bombed under any circumstances.

By the way, let's say that, of course, these same staffs had also decided not to destroy their respective headquarters... 
These two gangs of mobsters \enquote{played fair}.

French airmen, however, disobeyed the orders received and dropped a few bombs on Briey's facilities. They were severly punished.

Through what means did the bombing bans had been given? By a certain Lieutenant Lejeune — all-powerful, although a simple lieutenant — who, in civilian life, before the war, 
was engineer attached to the mines of Joeuf and employee of M. de Wendel.

\emph{Galtier-Boissière}:

\enquote{So as not to harm very powerful private interests, and to avoid to violate the secret agreements concluded between French and german metallurgists, 
were sacrificed, in ineffective military enterprises, hundreds of thousands of human lives, except on one point: 
Briey-Thionville, from which, for four years, Germany in peace drew the means to continue the struggle.}

But Wendel's Franco-German family was making a profit!

This is just one example, among many, of the collusion of ammo makers and governments of countries at war.

And yet, the human toll has been very heavy:


\begin{table}
\caption{Human toll of the 14/18 war}
\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{|l|r|}
\hline
Mobilized &                       62,110,000 \\
\hline
Deaths &                           8,345,000 \\
\hline
Injured &                         20,000,000 \\
\hline
Civilian deaths &                 10,000,000 \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{center}
\end{table}

\begin{table}
\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{|l|r|r|}
\hline
 &                               Mobilized &                      Dead \\
\hline
Russia &                        12,000,000 &                    1,700,000 \\
\hline
France &                         8,400,000 &                    1,350,000 \\
\hline
British Empire &                 8,900,000 &                      900,000 \\
\hline
Italy &                          5,600,000 &                      650,000 \\
\hline
USA &                            4,350,000 &                      115,000 \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{center}
\end{table}



These figures are self-explanatory. That's more than 5,000 deaths per day on all fronts throughout the war

\section{Post-war}

\subsection{Defeated Germany signs the Treaty of Versailles.}

The armistice of 11 November was tantamount to a capitulation of Germany.
It forced it to give its fleet, part of its equipment of war and to evacuate the left bank of the Rhine that the Allies occupied.
The French received an enthusiastic welcome in Alsace-Lorraine.

Peace was settled by the inter-allied conference in Paris that opened in January 18, 1919 under the presidency of Clemenceau.  27 States were represented. 
Actually all the important decisions were taken in small committee by the President of the United States Wilson, the British First Minister Lloyd George and Clemenceau. 
As soon as 8 January 1918, President Wilson had formulated in 14 points his programme for peace; 
this programme, which served as a basis for the work of the conference, aimed at the establishment of a new international order,
 founded on the right of peoples to self-determination and through organization of a general society of nations. 
But if the masses were enthusiastic for such a program, leaders and diplomats were skeptical. For Clemenceau, the main problem was to break the German force.

After difficult negotiations, the Treaty of Versailles, imposed on Germany, was signed on June 28, 1919. 
The Treaty established a Society of nations, first open to the Allies and neutrals and responsible for resettle disputes through arbitration.
Germany was to return Alsace-Lorraine to France, Posnania to Poland (with a corridor giving to access to the Baltic) and accept that the fate of Schleswig, the Polish Prussia, upper Silesia was settled by plebiscite.
Besides it renounced all its colonies; it undertook to repair all damage to France and its allies. 
France, whose territory had been ravaged, received, in compensation for its mines destroyed in the North, the property of the saar mines (the territory itself was placed for fifteen years under international control).
As garantees against Germany, it obtained: 
1. the reduction of the army German to 100,000 men; 
2. the temporary occupation of the left bank of the Rhine by Allied forces for a period of five to fifteen years; 
3. a promise of Anglo-American assistance in case aggression (promise cancelled as a result of opposition from the American Senate).

Back in the United States, President Wilson was unable to obtain the ratification of the treaty. 
The United States refused to join the Society of Nations and concluded a separate treaty with Germany (1921).

\subsection{Austria-Hungary and the Turkish Empire are dismembered.}

The Treaty of Versailles was supplemented by the Treaties of Saint-Germain with Austria, Neuilly with Bulgaria, Trianon with Hungary, Sèvres with Turkey.
These treaties enshrined the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary and the Turkish Empire and considerably altered the territorial status of Central and Levant Europe.

Austria and Hungary, separated from each other, became small states, one reduced to its German provinces, the other to territories of Magyar population.
Their Slavic provinces were divided between resurrected Poland, the new state of Czechoslovakia, and Serbia transformed into a United Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes — or Yugoslavia.
Transylvania was given to Romania which became a large state of 500,000 km2. Italy received Istria with Trieste and Trentino; it disputed with the Yugoslavs the possession of Fiume and the Dalmatian coast.

Bulgaria was losing all access to the sea. Greece received Thrace with Adrianople, and, in Asia, the port of Smyrna. 
Turkey was reduced to the territory of Constantinople in Europe and Asia Minor or Anatolia. The straits came under international control, Egypt under the English protectorate;
 the other Turkish provinces in Asia were to be organized into free states and placed provisionally under the tutelage of a mandatory power of the League of Nations.
 
All these treaties were difficult to implement, especially with regard to the demarcation of the new borders. 
One could foresee that pacification would be long, painful, interrupted by new crisis. But the world was putting its hope in the League of Nations. We know what happened to it.

\rauthor{Jean-Pierre Fléchard}

\section{A few works}

~~~\, ALLARD Paul, \emph{Les dessous de la guerre révélés par les comités secrets} (The backstage of the war revealed by the secret committees), Paris, 1932

DELAISI Francis, \emph{Le Patriotisme des plaques blindées} (The Patriotism of Armored Plates). Taken separately from the paper La Paix par le droit, Nîmes, 1913

FERRO Marc, \emph{La Grande Guerre} (The Great War), Paris, 1968

GAMBIEZ, SUIRE, \emph{Histoire de la Première Guerre mondiale} (History of world war one), Paris, 1968

GIRARDET Raoul, \emph{La Société militaire dans la France contemporaine} (The military Society in contemporary France), Paris, 1953

JOLY Bertrand, The De Wendel Family Archives

MAYER A., \emph{Politics and Diplomacy of Peace Making. Containment and Conterrevolution at Versailles}, New York, 1967

MEYER, DUCASSE, FERREUX, \emph{Vie et mort des Français} (Life and death of the French), Pans, 1959

OLPHE-GALLLARD G, \emph{Histoire économique et financière de la guerre 1914-1918} (Economic and financial history of the 1914-1918 war), Paris, 1925

RENOUVIN Pierre, \emph{La Crise européenne et la Première Guerre mondiale} (The european crisis and World War One), Paris, 1962

RENOUVIN Pierre, \emph{La Première Guerre mondiale} (World War one), Paris, 1965

TANNERY, Finance and national defense, \emph{Revue des questions de Défense nationale} (National Defence Issues Review), may 1939

TOUTALN J., \emph{La Question du bassin de Briey} (The Question of the Briey Basin), Taken separately from the paper L’Aide morale, no date (1916?)

VALLUY, DUFOURCQ, \emph{La Première Guerre mondiale} (World war one), Paris 1968
