[Catfish]

Hello,

this is a translation of the final consideration of J. Schroeder. I am far from perfect in translating. If you do not understand s.t., or can make a better proposal to express it, please feel free to corrrect me ! (if anyone reads this at all). Words in [brackets] are own comments to explain s.t. when i thought it necessary. As well i will split this up into several passages.

In my opinion this explains the often mentioned zig-zag course of Kaiser William the 2nd's politics, and points out the Kaiser was not an ignorant war monger, or a tyrant. This belongs to the propaganda that built up during the war, and has never been put down since.

I may add that the contents does not necessarily describe my own opinion, however i found this well researched, which is probably due to the fact that there is a new german archive, the Bundesarchiv, where the documents of the former GDR, and those of the BRD have finally found a common place where everyone can study it.

"Final consideration
The conflict surounding the u-boat war in WW1 surely belongs to the most complicated, lengthy and hardest disputes ever to be dealt with between politics and military. [Kaiser William 2nd never had the command about the german military, the only military branch he had command of was the naval department of the surface fleet].
It came to no surprise that shortly after the outbreak of the war and during its course, the u-boat command and more and more high-ranking members of the Navy, demanded an unconditional operation of the U-boat weapon against enemy and neutral sea trade.

This meant a complete turning away from the original naval operational plan, which goal it had been to fight one decisive naval battle [surface ships] against England. However this underlying original plan was lacking its fundaments: On one hand it was not necessary for England to face a naval battle, due to its choice of the far blockade of the german coast which crippled the german sea trade. On the other hand the Kaiser initially wanted to avoid any decimation [decimation not in the roman sense of the word to kill a tenth portion] of his fleet, and forbade all greater action.
So the u-boats remained, and represented the only offensive weapon of the Navy. It was only an unintentional attendant symptom of this compromise solution, that from the aspect of naval strategy the u-boat war against enemy trade traffic as the actual goal of the naval warfare, became the focus [/was envisaged ?].

Furthermore the grade of ruthlessness, which determined the behaviour of a lot of participants in the dispute between politics and military, has to be emphasized. Especially has to be named Admiral of the fleet von Tirpitz, who did not hesitate to reveal military secrets of the german u-boat weapon to foreign countries, only to distract from the failure of his own fleet politics [evidence is given in the main part of the book]. With the exposure during the Wiegand-interview Tirpitz announced the upcoming first u-boat offensive move for the end of the year of 1914, and did considerable military and at the same time political damage to the Kaiserreich [Kaiser's Empire]. Tirpitz and his abetters also tried with success, to put false colours on and diffame the opponents of the so-called unrestricted u-boat war in their own country, especially Kaiser Wilhelm II and chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg.
They [Tirpitz and his abetters] created a mass movement for this kind of warfare, which meant an unconditional sinking of enemy, but also neutral shipping that supported the enemy; and during fall 1916 they knew they had the support of the commanding officers of the OHL [Oberste Heeres Leitung = Supreme army command], Ludendorff and von Hindenburg, and also from the political parties as well as major parts of the press and the public opinion, as well they had support from a strong lobby in the economic, cultural and scientific parts of the society. The members of this movement reacted like hypnotized and with blind faith at the Navy's promises.They showed an almost fanatic belief, and vehemently critcized the cautious kind of warfare by the Reichsleitung [head of the Reich], and not secretly, but publicly. Thus was missing an effective political concept of propaganda [1], like it was to be found in the other belligerent states: The censorship could not, or did not want to, prevent those critics of the own government.

That, in january 1917, the Reichsleitung ordered the unrestricted U-boat war, was not because of the strong opposition within the own country, and not because the military would had enforced their will upon the politics (thus turning around Clausewitz's axiome of the primacy of politics over the military). This statement astrays. The primacy of politics remained intact well into 1917, and the military could not act against the declared political will of the Reichsleitung. It has also be shown, that the pretended "surrender" of Bethmann-Hollweg, the chancellor's statement he would join the view of the OHL, never existed - on the contrary.

[Chancellor] Bethmann-Hollweg was in the frontline in the controversy against the military, but only the support of the Kaiser ensured his success for a long time. It is not alone the power of self-assertion of the chancellor, but the uncompromising eventuation of the Kaiser for political concerns, that the plans of the military could be defeated again and again. If the Kaiser had failed until 1914, to safeguard his constitutional role as a connective link between politics and military, he saw himself, during the war, where every decision about the guidance of the U-boat war was also an important political one, confronted with a special challenge. And [this time] he definitely stood his ground against this challenge.

[1] see: Jeffrey Verhey, War and mental mobilization: War Propaganda, in: Kruse, "A world of enemies", part VI, p. 181 f."

Sometimes hard to translate because the author uses endless sentences, !"§$%&/!!



It becomes clear that Germany's unrestricted U-boat war was the reason for the USA to enter the war at all. Following the documents of the foreign office the reason for the unrestricted U-boat war was the Entente's rejection of Germany's 3rd offer for peace.
President Wilson represented humanitarian politics, and would not enter a war voluntarily. As well he clearly saw the british "far blockade" as a warfare against the law of the nations, as well as english civilian ships transporting ammunition and troops to provoke an international incident, and thus being able to again point the finger at Germany for its atrocities against civilians.

And while the passenger ship "Lusitania" indeed carried ammunition, was listed as a troop ship in its freight papers, and was even warned by the US and Germany, its final sinking then was an accident. President Wilson was now really furious, and even thought of joining Germany against the Entente, to "... free the seas from starving out civilians, and british arrogance." And since almost a third of the US population consisted of germans or german descendents, there was some fear of a civil war if the US would try to join the war on the Entente side.
Problem was the german government did not explain/communicate clearly enough to the US, that Germany did in fact not lead a total, unrestricted war. This was due to the several factions within the german government and the military, but also due to that it would have been impossible to publicly explain a restricted war to the german population, who was suffering badly from the british blockade, but as well it would only have been a german admission of weakness for the Entente nations.

Greetings,
Kai