21st Century realities ; The place of the Aircraft Carrier in the 21st century

THE PLACE OF THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER IN THE BALANCE OF POWER EQUATION OF THE 21^ST CENTURY

The 21^st as it appears, seems to be the most fluid and unpredictable century in the history of modern man. There is no century in contemporary history that has seen the spate of changes the world has witnessed within the last fifteen years of the opening of the 21^st century. Events and changes are occurring at such a dizzying place and regularity that the long-range bet is no longer a profitable proposition.

The same is happening in the realm of technology and strategic assets particularly in the military realm. In the 20^th century, assets that had both strategic and tactical value could be counted on to last at least half a century before they began to decline in relevance, but that is not so any more as technology to both enhance and counter the value of any asset are springing forth at an amazing pace , sometimes both simultaneously.

During the last years of WW2, the United States held such an overwhelming advantage on the High Seas that it would have been thought impossible that any nation could counter her power and influence for another 100 years. But then in this technologically driven age, it isn’t safe to bet against the future.

But then the nuclear weapon and the nuclear powered submarine showed up to counter the power of a fleet that boasted over 28 main fleet carriers and over 71 escort carriers, excluding the light carriers.

The fact was that the US finished the war with over 114 ships that could launch and recover aircraft including the main fleet carriers of the Essex class, light carriers and the escort carriers, not to talk of the thousands of accompanying warships of all classes.

 It was an awful deployment of sea power that in the days of Rome could have kept the US in control of the high seas for at least 300 years like Great Britain at the beginning of the 18^th century.

The game changer however has been technology, of which no single nation has a monopoly of, no matter how hard you try to conceal it. Post world war two era quickly turned from the capital ships particularly the Battleships to the  deployment of submarines particularly the nuclear powered submarines with both ballistic and cruise missile capacity with both conventional and nuclear capability.

The aircraft because it had the operational capability of the submarine has also remained a strategic weapon of choice. That was why while many nations turned from the Battleships, the aircraft carrier remained relevant acting more as a mobile platform for deploying air power from the sea, from anywhere in the world.

The fate of the aircraft carrier is however tied to the ability of its air crews to deliver offensive power through the application of air power. Thus the aircraft carrier is a sure winner against those nations that lack the power to parry air strikes by either retaliatory strikes or the anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles that are proving more deadly and capable with each passing day.

The Russians are building more progressively deadly anti-aircraft missiles in the class of the BUK that are proving more and more deadly to planes flying in the interceptor role. The planes that have the ‘capacity’ to evade these missiles are getting prohibitively expensive both to build and operate.

And one of the cardinal rules of war is that a prohibitively expensive asset is a liability on the long-run, a lesson clearly grasped from Adolf Hitler and his miracle weapons that ultimately drained Germany of vital resources towards the end of the second world war and ultimately deprived Germany of the capacity to build the basic weapons that had been most effective previously.

1942, marked the beginning of Germany’s turn to miracle weapons that consumed an unreasonable amount of the nation’s resources and drained her energy leaving her vulnerable to the nations that concentrated on the basic and easily mass-produced weapons of war.

You may not believe this but the facts are there to prove it, 1942, was the beginning of Hitler’s obsession with wonder weapons and that was also the year the tide turned against Germany. The wonder weapons only served to nurse false hopes that became the basic undoing of Germany surrounded with enemies that were content to use the tried and proven assets with which they ultimately humiliated Germany.

The law of diminishing returns climaxes in this greatest of ironies, which only the most discerning can apprehend. IT IS A FACT OF LIFE THAT THE MORE DIFFICULT A PROBLEM APPEARS IN THE NATURAL, THE EASIER IT IS TO SOLVE IN REALITY, if you know how to handle it. Like they say ‘the bigger they come the harder they fall’.

The fact remains that highly complex solutions should never be rushed to a field of conflict, because they are highly vulnerable to basic counter measures e.g., ‘David and Goliath’.

Hitler’s wonder weapons were all neutralized by the Allies one after the other applying the most rudimentary elements effectively. Allied destruction of Germany’s oil supplies effectively eliminated the fuel hungry Tiger tank and brought Hitler’s 1944 offensive in the Ardennes to an abrupt halt.

 The V-1 and V-2 Rockets were eliminated when their bases were overrun by the Allies and the Me 262 jets were put out of action when the Allies destroyed their overextended runways as It became obvious that they required extended runways and the Russians on the other hand used the humble shovel to dig trenches that effectively stopped the Tiger tanks in the battle of Kursk in July 1943.

 

In the Pacific war in 1945 as the war against Japan drew to a close, the Essex class carrier, the USS Franklin managed to deploy about 50 miles off the coast of Japan to inflict the daily dose of airstrikes that had become the lot of Japan in the closing days of WW2.

It was on record that the Franklin set a record by that record- closeness to the shore of Japan as it acted with impunity. A single Japanese ‘Val’ with two 250 pound bombs closed the day for the Franklin when the fire that bomb started made the Franklin the most heavily damaged US warship that survived the war.

The USS Bunker Hill suffered the same fate as the Franklin in a two plane strike. Though both planes survived the war, they could neither launch nor recover aircraft and that effectively put them out of action as far as the war was concerned. The point is this, that the strategic and tactical value of an aircraft carrier is not tied to its being afloat, but to its ability to launch and recover aircraft.

Once it cannot launch or recover aircraft it has no tactical or strategic value over and above any other warship. And that is one thing I say that a hit by a single missile either ballistic, anti-ship or intelligently guided cruise missile can be cheaply or realistically accomplished on a modern day aircraft carrier regardless of the tonnage.

The idea is not to sink the ship but to render it incapable of launching or recovering aircraft, in that way its usefulness as an offensive asset is completely neutralized. On the other hand the aircraft carrier is still very useful against poor nations that are bereft of missile technology.

However in the contemporary age the aircraft carrier is still very useful as a command and control center and as a floating sea base in support of forward operations as long as it is not deployed too near the shores of a missile capable nation. However its usefulness as a weapon of intimidation is still very much relevant for those nations who can be intimidated by its immense size and firepower.

The next writing will be centered on why the ‘Peace of 1945’ must be preserved at all costs no matter whose ‘Ox is gored’.

Civilization has no other choice as a WW3 is no longer a realistic choice or option. No sane person starts a war he cannot win or survive. Thanks for remaining on Deck.

THE ERA OF THE CAPITAL SHIP IS OVER ; PHASE ONE ON SERIES TITLED 21ST CENTURY REALITIES

THE ERA OF THE CAPITAL SHIP IS OVER

This article is meant to draw the attention of naval planners to the fact that recent trends in both guided missile and cruise missile technology are sounding the death knell for the age of the capital ship which began in 1906 when the British Royal Navy laid down the first Dreadnought class battle ship.

I have spent over 37 years of my life studying the conflicts of the world in the last 100- plus years beginning in 1914 till date seeing the evolving technologies in both military and naval warfare and seeing how that nations that were smart enough to not only observe trends but ‘see’ into the future were the nations that not only ruled the waves but also sailed the crest of the future.

The Royal Navy, the German Imperial Navy and the US Navy were the only navies in 1906 which were discerning enough to see that the age of the battleship from 1914 and beyond was going to be ruled basically by the ships that could adapt to faster speed, heavier gunnery, thicker armor and ultimately a change from steam powered propulsion to heavy fuel, ultimately diesel powered propulsion.

These innovations gave birth to the Dreadnought class of battleships which dominated the oceans until 1940, when the aircraft carrier came into being as the new master of the waves.

Who led the way was always determined by who could see into the future. The British Navy in WW2 kept its hold on the Mediterranean Sea in 1940 up till the invasion of Sicily simply because HMS Ark Royal and HMS Eagle were involved in the sea patrols of the Mediterranean.

These handful of carriers and accompanying submarines and destroyers acting in tow kept the Mediterranean Sea safe for the British Navy even though the Italian Navy which was bristling with battle ships and cruisers with its home port nearby couldn’t challenge the British for the control of the Mediterranean because the few attempts it made to challenge British naval power met with humiliating losses from war planes operating from the British aircraft carriers, particularly the HMS Ark Royal.

                                                                                               

Even the destruction of the German battleship the Bismarck the most powerful in the world at that time in 1941, even though credited to the old battleships the HMS King George and the HMS Rodney  as  the Bismarck steamed towards the French port of Brest trying the escape the wrath of the Royal Navy after it had sunk the HMS Hood, was actually made possible because a late carrier strike by aircraft dropping torpedoes   from HMS Ark Royal had jammed its steering gear and the rudderless ship could only move in circles with a jammed rudder making it possible for the two British battleships to catch up with her and finish her off.

To discerning naval observers, it was becoming clear that the Aircraft carrier was becoming the prince of the waves. This observation was not lost on the Japanese naval chiefs as they schemed on how to scuttle the American Navy in Pearl Harbor in 1941. The realization then was that capital ships were becoming vulnerable to air power particularly the aerial torpedo which could be launched at a distance even by a single plane.

 It took further down the war before Admirals on both sides of the conflict realized that the aircraft carrier was now the main battle station in the high seas, able to strike at ships, planes, land and sea based targets. In one of the most audacious deployments of the carrier strike groups in WW2, Admiral William Halsy's Third fleet sailed to Formosa off the China Sea attacked and destroyed over 600 Japanese land based planes in late 1944 as the US planned to invade the Philippines

Here carrier based planes decimated land based fighters in an aerial battle on a scale hitherto unprecedented in WW2. Thus the aircraft carrier finished WW2 as the master of the waves and has held sway over the seas for the last half a century and more.

However the strategic equation is about to change once more as we enter the 21^st century and the age of the precision guided cruise missile. To be candid the cruise missile, particularly the long range missile with artificial intelligence capability and the armed drone is about to sweep the piloted aircraft from the skies as a an 'economical' weapon of choice in conducting a strike especially in the offensive role.

Spending billions of Dollars on investments in aircraft technology including the stealth characteristics to me is pointless when an artificially guided cruise missile either ground to air or air to air can bring it down. The cruise missile is no respecter of stealth technology. To start with the cruise missile with artificial intelligence is cheaper, pilot less, and can be sent on missions with pin point strikes that even the stealth fighter cannot abort and at no human cost at all.

To compound matters the cruise missile of today with improvements in GPS positioning systems and its own in-house guidance system can target even a moving target such as a ship or aircraft carrier. The speed of the carrier strike groups in WW2 were its greatest assets and best defenses.

 The faster the carrier groups could sail, the more difficult it was to target them. That was why modern day aircraft carriers and submarines are fitted with nuclear power plants that can propel them indefinitely.

 Today the greatest defense of a carrier is its high speed and infinite propulsion. However high speed drones are in vogue today that can hover over even a mobile target for hours while serving as a command and control center for targeting a moving ship or a land- based target.

 Even the contemporary cruise missile has the capacity to alter or correct its course as long as its in-built radar can lock on the target as well as obtaining assistance from a remote command and control center which a drone hovering above can easily provide

With today’s technology, a WW2 PT boat of the type President Kennedy rode in 1942 off Guadalcanal if equipped with today’s cruise missiles with the appropriate guidance system could have taken on a battle ship or even an aircraft carrier of that era.

Precision guided weapons make it very unwise today and highly unprofitable on the long-run to deploy mobile assets with massive tonnage on the battlefield. All you will be doing is creating a good and tempting target platform for the precision guided weapons.

In my own thinking a flurry of low cost , nimble and agile mobile precision guided weapons platforms such as a destroyer equipped with intelligent weapons and air to air, ship to air missiles can hit any target any where today in the world.The practical thing to do would be to invest in concealment, preponderance in numbers and precision.

Nothing frustrates in a conflict with an adversary like the knowledge of the fact that no matter how many of his mobile assets you take out of action, it is of no consequence to him on the long run and will not diminish his firepower or capacity to fight. That was basically why the Soviet Union overcame Germany in WW2 in spite of Germany's qualitative edge in terms of technology and advancement.

The Soviets focused on assets that were easy to mass produce, easy to maintain , whose losses meant little to them and this took off a lot of burden off the officers who were required to deploy these assets., so they could operate without coming under undue pressure.

 Vietnamese guerrilla leader Ho Chi Minh told the French in 1956 during the French Indo-China war that ‘you will kill ten of my men and I will kill one of your men, but on the long run you will quit’. On the long run Ho Chi Minh truly won because the French could not sustain the predicted casualty level indefinitely.

No rational minded person will want to start a conflict if he cannot figure out how he can win on the short or long-run.

 As an Admiral today I will rather have thousands of mobile assets even in the class of the Coast Guard cutters or destroyers cluttering the high seas with innumerable batteries of precision guided missiles that can hit any target on the land and sea than a single 100,000 tons platform that is so massive that it can be targeted from anywhere in the world with hundreds of warheads, and with the more depressing knowledge of the  fact that the loss of one single such platform can alter the course of the conflict. To start with such a visible platform is an open invitation to attack.

That to me is a completely unacceptable risk and an unworthy investment especially when you consider the psychology of war fare. Nobody will want to find an enemy that is elusive in presence, has preponderance in numbers, the destruction of whose assets no matter how many is negligible in consequence, has unlimited capacity to cheaply replace his assets and more importantly is evicereal like the true masses of uncountable battle rats that can overwhelm even a king’s palace.

Such a nation or state is one most people will try to avoid in conflict or warfare.

That was the psychology that the United States and the Soviet Union employed in defeating the Germans in WW2. While the Germans began in 1942 to invest in the high class heavy weight 70 ton Tiger tank which was expensive to build, consumed a formidable amount of fuel, slow and sluggish in movement, could break down easily and had a rear burner that was extremely volatile, and more importantly difficult to replace.

The American simply turned out the simple to build , cheap to maintain and high speed Sherman with although a smaller gun, 76 mm compared to the German’s 88mm on the Tiger, in such huge numbers that even though outclassed by the Tiger in one-on-one fighting simply swamped the Germans by virtue of their numbers and preponderance on the battlefield.

 The Russians achieved the same result with the T-34 that shared the same vital statistics with the American Sherman

The Germans won the technological race but the Russians and Americans won the war and that was all that mattered ultimately. I guess the logic involved in the confrontation between the Sherman tank and the Tiger tank still holds relevance even in naval warfare today.

Had President Roosevelt spread the deployment of American warships all across the West coast instead of concentrating them in Pearl Harbor, or kept the entire fleet on Patrol in the Pacific there would never have been the attack on Pearl Harbor. In conclusion, I would like to add that the battle ‘rats’ approach to conflict management is difficult to defeat. 

The key is therefore to spread the risk, diminish the strategic and tactical importance of any particular and singular asset and multiply the ability to widely and preponderantly overwhelm the opposition no matter the circumstances.

Holding the preponderance in opportunity to react no matter the circumstances is vital to one’s long term security. Pinning your hopes on a highly expensive fixed or mobile asset that cannot be affordably mass produced and replaced is to create a psychological vulnerability that is highly unnecessary.

Phase two on this blog would focus on the true place of the aircraft carrier in the 21st century navy in terms of strategic placement and deployment.

TIME NOW TO STOP THE SLIDE TO WW3, UKRAINE IS COMING UP ONLY AS A CAUSAL BELLE !

For students of history in the 20th century, it is pretty obvious that history is hell bent on repeating itself unless discerning world leaders can read the trend and take appropriate action accordingly. Unfortunately as the world ruminates on the sad events that triggered the great war of 1914, we are watching a repeat of the kinds of events beginning in 1936 that inexorably led to the Second World War, when the Nazi Dictator began a dangerous gamble in Europe that eventually led to a global conflict from which the world is yet to fully recover from.

The world is once more confronted by a set of events albeit reminiscent of another long-past era that is boiling up and which can explode if not when handled. The fact remains that NATO as it is today had its roots in the desire of the Western European Bloc that escaped Soviet occupation after WW2 to protect itself from a feared Soviet invasion after World War 2 on account of the huge armies that the Soviet Union had built in the course of the war and which could easily by 1948 overrun the rest of Europe if the Soviet leadership  was willing to risk another war.

The British , French, Belgians , Dutch, Italy and the new West German State that emerged in 1949 saw sense in the wisdom of collective security together with the United States serving as a hedge against any adventurism by the Soviet leaders into Western Europe. Even at the height of its power NATO could scant contain the Soviets if they chose to invade and that is where American nuclear deterrent came in handy and that ultimately led to the nuclear arms race between Russia and America that dominated the second half of the 20th century. Detente became acceptable when the two super powers finally attained the status of [MAD]  mutually assured destruction in the late sixties and early seventies.

That state of affairs kept Europe in peace until the early eighties when the sheer burden of the unequal struggle with the United States and Western Europe led to an implosion that saw the USSR disintegrating in 1989 despite the heroic efforts of Mikhail Gorbachev to save the union through Glasnost and Perestroika. The Soviet Union came off unhinged and NATO declared victory in the 45 year old Cold War. That notwithstanding even though Russia the sole heir to the assets and liabilities of the now dissolved Soviet Union was in a seriously weakened state and gasping for breathe to survive, The West still felt obliged to maintain the Defensive alliance that was formed out of fear of the now defunct Soviet Union.

The Soviet created military alliance known as the Warsaw pact was dissolved in 1991alongside its economic and political pact known as COMECON. NATO however remained and in fact began an East- ward expansion leading to the genuine psychological fear in Russia that NATO's new vision was to see Russia permanently crippled as a great power.That to me was begging the question of whether NATO had not deviated from its vision of protecting Europe to becoming a threat to European security. The question of the Eastern expansion of the alliance to incorporating the component states of the defunct Warsaw Pact and finally to including the former states of the old USSR was to me a very dangerous and unwholesome provocation to Russia which was still desperately trying to find its feet.  

The NATO gamble in expanding  to the East could have succeeded if the West was sure that Russia as a giant could never find its feet again as it seemed to appear for about two decades. But then the rise of nations like China, India, Brazil, Indonesia , Mexico and growth else where furnished ground for the huge rise in energy prices as well as demand for natural gas in Europe and elsewhere of which Russia is well endowed. With huge earnings pouring down its coffers , it was only natural for the now revived giant to seek a restoration in its fortune especially as its nuclear stock pile, the largest in the world for that matter was still intact.

The dynamics of resurgence in Russia today is not limited to Putin as an individual, because the nationalist sentiments that Putin has stirred in his second coming has resonated with the average Russian and that is why he has continued to enjoy record support not only in Russia but among Russian speaking people in Eastern Europe. The idea taking root in Russia today is that our time has come again and obviously the desire to settle scores again was becoming very obvious among the Russian populace. The Russian people have also never forgotten that none of the old Soviet Republics worked harder to unsettle the union than Ukraine.The fact also remains that in 24 years of independence Ukraine has not been able to find its feet economically.

Ukraine's umbilical cord still remained tied to Russia up till 2013, and that is why the ousted Ukrainian leader still looked to renewing its economic dependence on Moscow . The decision to cut that umbilical cord was a decision Ukraine alone ought to take without the rancorous interference of the West as was orchestrated during the Maidan uprising late last year. In other words it was a tragic mistake for Europe and America to come forward boldly to offer their 'surgical knife' to Ukraine to sever a relationship and a dependence syndrome on Russia that had spanned over three hundred years. Naturally Russia was bound to react and that they have done unabashedly ,sparking this latest round of needless confrontation.

A decision by Ukraine to severe ties with Russia ought to be Ukraine's only and ought not to be influenced by a riotous mob as was seen in the disturbances that racked the country late last year until this year. The decision of the West to boldly 'help' Ukraine severe ties with its past master was not only unwise but needlessly provocative and has brought the world to the brink of a new Cold war as it is today. The situation in Ukraine is evocative of the conflict that persisted between The United States and the Soviet Union over Cuba in the sixties and seventies .

 The United States felt Cuba belonged in its sphere of influence , considering their historic ties especially when America fought the Spanish-American war just to free Cuba at the turn of the 19th century only to have the Soviet Union make attempts to use Cuba as a staging ground for targeting the US with short -range nuclear missiles. It was completely unacceptable to the Kennedy Administration in the early sixties and America was ready to go to war to press its point .

In the same way Western dabbling in the affairs of Ukraine and its Russian speaking people to me is needlessly provocative. Let the Ukrainian people and Russia settle their differences themselves without outside interference for the sake of world peace. In any case, NATO is not under any obligation as it is to intervene in Ukraine militarily as emotional as the events may look. Secondly NATO must desist from its provocation of Russia by its eastern expansionist tendencies. Hard choices are often times needed to keep the peace without the evocation of any sentiments no matter how idealistic they may appear. What Russia is doing today is what the United States has done countless times in the past to protect its 'vital interests'.

Blood, Fire and Steel : The Armistice of 1918 and the ensuing Issues that have arisen till date.

Meanwhile the Allied peace terms presented to the German delegation were stiff. The Germans were required to evacuate Belgium, Northern France and Alsace – Lorraine, in fact all territories acquired since the war began.

 German troops in East African together with the German Colonies were to surrender, the German forces in Eastern Europe were to withdraw to the prewar boundaries while the treaties of Brest – Litvosk and Bucharest were to be annulled and the Germans were to repatriate all prisoners of war and a substantial quantity of their war materials.

These included 5,000 artillery pieces, 25,000 machine guns, 1,700 aircraft, 5,000 locomotives and 150,000 … cars alongside the ongoing Allied block side. The German delegation pleaded for respite to save the nation from being overrun by Bolshevik forces.

In view of this, the Allies mitigated their terms concerning the blockade, a reduction in the quantity of arms to be handed over and a permission for the German forces in Eastern Europe to remain for the time being. While the negotiations were going on, the Allied advances continued albeit slowly because of the German destruction of the railways and supply routes.

 By November 11 the Allied lines actually ran through Sedan, Mezieres and Mons to Ghent. Foch’s forces this time numbered a Franco – US force of 28 divisions and 60 French in the south ready to strike through Metz into northeastern Lorraine. By this time also US forces in France had risen to over 42 divisions. The Allies were actually on the verge of commencing a fresh offensive when the German delegation capitulated and yielded to the Allied peace terms.

 By 5:00 am on November 11, the German delegation signed the Allied peace terms in Foch’s railway carriage at Rethondes. At 11:00 am the same day the war came to an end. In the dying days of World War 1, Mathias Erzberger a civilian led the German delegation that signed the armistice.

  A myth soon spread in Germany that these men were traitors who signed away an undefeated Germany and worse still Ludendorff who superintended the whole process of the armistice came to join with the Nazis and other proponents of this theory that the armistice was a stab in the back by civilian collaborationists to undermine Germany’s military effort.

This turn of events and the branding of these men as November criminals was to let loose a tide that would soon culminate in the outbreak of another conflict 20 years later when Adolf Hitler’s Socialists and workers party will use this event as an excuse  to seek revenge and  a fresh expansionist policy for Germany in Europe.

The peace of 1918 as the armistice came to be known played a key role in re-shaping the map of Europe as it is today and in bringing forth a number of nations in western and Eastern Europe whose very existence came to depend on the terms of the armistice being honored and upheld.

 The latter challenge of the armistice and its terms of settlements by totalitarian regimes in Germany, Italy and Russia were to lay a foundation for another round of discord, wars and privations leading to yet a further redrawing of the map of Europe in 1945.

The unresolved issues arising from the political settlement of 1918, persisted till 1945 and continues to be the bedrock for agitations in Europe up till today, and these center around the legitimacy of the big powers Great Britain, France, Italy and the United States to determine the fate, boundaries and political realities of defeated Germany and the annulment of the treaty of Brest – Litvosk.

Whereas Russia benefited enormously from the Germany defeat, it took another round of conflict and war with Poland for Russia to come to terms with the idea of an independent Poland, the respect for the independent states that made up the USSR and the quest for political independence for the Slav – succession states that emerged from the Austro – Hungarian empire.

 The defeat of the Ottoman Turks changed the political power base of the Middle East, Arabia and Mesopotamia as the British and French gained an upper hand in the region. World War 1 had truly come to an end but four nations were not entirely satisfied with the terms of settlements that spawned a whole new set of nations; these were Germany, Russia, Japan and Italy.

The US the main proponent of the peace proposals that saw to the end of the conflict and the beginning of this new world order was soon to retreat to its home base far across the Atlantic after the failure of the US Senate to ratify Wilson’s proposals concerning the League of Nations which was Wilson’s main platform for upholding the new order.

It would soon become obvious that Britain and France alone were not sufficiently powerful enough to defend the new world order and the world would soon simmer on the verge of conflicts that would soon again implode into a new world war that severely tested the ability of the existing world order to withstand the challenges of the dissatisfied nations. 

Demonstration Against the Versailles Treaty

On June 22, 1919, the government of Weimar Germany, under international pressure, accepted the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty held Germany solely responsible for World War I, and accordingly imposed harsh conditions on Germany. A fundamental revision of the “Dictat of Versailles,” as the peace treaty was referred to in Germany, became the pressing goal of a wide cross-section of German society. Mass demonstrations and rallies against the Treaty of Versailles, like this one in Berlin, were the order of the day.

AFTERMATH OF WORLD WAR 1 (The Russian Revolution)

The war hit Russia hardest, as by 1917 amongst the comity of belligerents, Russia lost its will to fight. After three years of warfare, mobilizing 10% of its population and losing about half of that number in battle, the home economy stretched to its limit and its internal transportation and supply system in shambles, food shortages widespread and fuel in short supply, the patience of the Russian people snapped.

On March 12^th 1917, the parliament at Petrograd and Soviet (workers and soldiers council) came together to form a provisional government. Three days later Tsar Nicholas II abdicated his imperial throne and titles. The new regime included two key figures Aleksandra Kerensky and Pavel Malenkov who as leading ministers and statesmen pledged to keep Russia in the alliance on the side of Britain and France in the war.

Nicholas II, the Last Russian Emperor

Nicholas II was an autocrat but a weak ruler. He was forced to abdicate in 1917. Nicholas is shown second from the left. Next to him are his four daughters: Tatiana, Olga, Marie, and Anastasia. At right is his hemophiliac son, Alexis. The family, including Nicholas’s wife, Alexandra (not pictured), was later killed by Bolsheviks.

The commitment of Russia to remain in the war on the side of the Allies however met with stiff resistance from the local Soviets and leftist parties which pressured the government to adopt a policy of a free Russia renouncing the right to dominate other nations and territories.

 When Prince Gorgy Lvov, the Prime Minster declared his willingness to follow the revolutionary demand of no annexations, no indemnities, on May 15^th Malenkov stepped down as foreign minister.

Russia’s democratic moves, especially appealed to President Wilson in his campaign to make the world safe for democracy as opposed to militarism and imperialism.

 Russia’s ability however, to continue in the war deteriorated rapidly as the morale of its troops sagged, partly as a result of the political crisis at home. The Petrograd Soviets had called for the abolishment of court – martial’s and issued a declaration of soldiers’ rights.

The decision of the new provisional government was a bitter disappointment to the hopes of the German government that had been subtly campaigning for Russia’s withdrawal from the war through both a secret program of internal subversion and collaboration with the Finns, Baltic peoples, poles, Ukrainians and Georgians and support for Russian’s revolutionary groups.

As part of the plan, the German government had sought to collaborate with Lenin the leader of the most radical group of Marxists whose antiwar disposition was well known, even though Lenin had been arrested and detained in Kharkov in Poland. The Austrian government was persuaded to release Lenin on grounds that he was an ally of Austria in the fight against Russia. As a result he was released into Switzerland.

Lenin Addresses Crowd in 1917

Vladimir Ilich Lenin was the first dictator of the USSR. Lenin led the Bolshevik takeover of the provisional Russian government in what was known as the October Revolution of 1917. (The revolution took place on November 6-7 according to the modern calendar adopted in 1918. According to the Julian Calendar, which was used in Russia up to that time, the revolution took place in October). The first Soviet leader hoped the revolution would set off other socialist revolts in Western countries.

Another Russian émigré and socialist Alexander Helphand had convinced the German government to invest in the revolutionary movement in the hope of engendering Russia’s withdrawal from the war. As a result, the German government set aside a sum of 2 million marks to be spent in internal subversion in Russia in March 1915.

These efforts had been stepped up particularly shortly after Germany’s first victories over Russia in order to help ease Russia out of the war. The communist therefore had German government help in subverting and undermining the Russian provisional government. After the provisional government determined to continue with the war, Lenin was released and sent to Russia aboard a secret special train prepared by the Germans to help to fan the flames of Bolshevik revolution.

This he achieved as the Russian army was already a disillusioned bunch of disgruntled men. In a series of deft moves, the leftist segments of the polity namely the communists and socialists had infiltrated the army with their propaganda campaign against the unjust capitalist war to a point of threatening a coup d’état.

This internal disorder so weakened the provisional government that by the time the government was trying to revalidate its mandate in a fresh election by December, the communists led an uprising that succeeded in bringing down the government and transferring power to Lenin. On November 8^th 1917, I.V Lenin made a speech denouncing the war and proclaiming a message of liberation for the working class and peasants calling for an armistice and an end to the war.

Women's Battalion in Petrograd

Promising women an equal share of power in the new government, the Petrograd Soviet formed a women’s battalion. As part of the military reforms introduced by Soviet military and political leaders, the battalion played an active role in the October Revolution.

Hulton Deutsch

The trio of Lenin, Leon Trotsky and Karl Radek thereby hoped to inflame revolutionary passion among the other belligerents but met with little success. The Bolshevik regime however signed the Brest – Litvosk armistice terms on Dec. 15 1917 in order to shore up the support base of its own regime and seek reprieve from the burden of the war.

RUSSIA’S WITHDRAWAL FROM THE WAR

The Brest Litvosk peace compounded issues for the Allies as the two front wars had become a one front war in which Germany was expected to gain an upper hand. Allied assurances had failed to persuade Russia to remain in the war and the Bolsheviks were determined to maintain their pledge of peace, bread and land.

In the humiliating treaty signed by a government that was desperate for peace in order to consolidate its hold on power, the communist government signed away in real terms, 34% of Russia’s population, 32% of Russia’s farmland 54% of Russia’s industrial plants, 89% of Russian coal mines plus almost all of its cotton and oil.

This reversal of Russia’s fortunes in the east raised German hopes of all–out victory before the United States could make a significant impact. The impasse in this case forced the Allies to think of the possibility of intervention in Russia with anti – revolutionary forces sympathetic to the aspiration of Britain and France.

 The Russian collapse forced the British, French, and Americans and eventually the Japanese to send small units of troupes called military advisers to liaise with the white forces (or counter – revolutionary) forces who were opposed to the Bolshevik government.

As a result a mixed contingent of British, French and American forces totaling 28,000 men were docked at Murmansk. An Anglo – French force occupied Arkhangelsk together with 4,500 Americans under British command. In April 1918, Japanese forces occupied Vladivostok.

 American forces were also stationed in Siberia to keep an eye on the Japanese and make contact with Czech legionaries who numbering over 30,000 were released by the provisional Russian government to help fight the cause of Czech independence. The legionnaires whilst initially declaring neutrality however resisted Bolshevik attempts to disarm them and eventually sought to take over the control of the Trans – Siberian railway line 6,000 miles long.

Kerensky Salutes his Troops

Aleksandr Kerensky (left) was the socialist leader of the provisional government in Russia after Emperor Nicholas II was deposed in February 1917. Kerensky’s term as head of government was short, however. The Bolsheviks, whom he had tried to suppress, seized power in October, and Kerensky fled to Paris.

The Allies also invariably got tangled in the brewing war between the Reds and the Whites for the control of Russia with the Reds controlling Moscow, Petrograd and most of the inner regions while the Whites under Admiral Aleksandra Kolchak controlled Omsk and General Anton Denikin in Odessa.

The Versailles Debacle

The Paris peace conference opened on January 18, 1919 on an optimistic note. Over 27 nations were involved and many of the demands made proved politically impossible to accomplish and the Great Powers had a hectic time trying to achieve order out of chaos.

Each of the Great Powers had over ten delegates with an accompanying team of experts, historians, economists, geographers and eventually, the conference was bogged down with too many delegates and contrasting issues. To create sense and order, the five leading powers created a council of ten, comprising their heads of states and foreign ministers. Even then, decisions were eventually taken by an informal meeting of the French, British and American leaders.

Wilson insisted that issues touching on the League of Nations be addressed first in order to ensure that the institution gains recognition as a legitimate platform for settling international disputes as common debates and haggling of personal interests had became the dominant feature of the conference. The French were suspicious about the whole basis of the league hoping it would become an umbrella body for protecting the new European order.

The British and Americans however were not willing to make any long term commitment to defending the new order being fashioned out. The British view was not a league of nations determined to repel an aggressor as much as a league of nations working to devise strategies to ensure that war never breaks out.

The league covenant provided for a plenary assembly of all members and a council of the great powers while outlining a system of sanctions against aggressive nations. The British view of sanctions tended to be moralistic in view rather than aggressive. To compound things, participation in military sanctions was made voluntary. The covenants also made provisions for the settlement of boundary disputes establishing the peace – making credentials of the league.

With the rejection of a Franco – Italian initiative far tougher stands on security alongside an international force equipped to enforce decisions, French newspapers scorned the league as a toothless debating society. With Germany’s exclusion from the league for the meantime, German newspapers cast the league as a league of victors.

 The French strongly argued that the league set up an international force to permanently occupy the Rhineland stressing that the security of France and Belgium lay in a security fence around the Rhineland from where German forces hand invaded French four times in the last hundred years, 1814, 1815, 1870, 1914.

The duo of Britain and American strongly resisted any attempts to dismember Germany or detach the Rhineland believing that, that would only be sowing the seeds of a new conflict in creating a new Alsace Lorraine. An Anglo – American offer to support France in case of a future German aggression met a muted response in France when Germany might well have overrun France as indeed happened   twenty years later.

 

Paris Peace Conference

After defeating Germany in World War I, the victorious parties found it difficult to agree on the price Germany should pay in war reparations. Leaders from the United States, Britain, France, and Italy met at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and drafted the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty mandated a number of restrictive and compensatory measures for Germany, including massive demilitarization and financial reparations. Representatives at the conference included, left to right, British prime minister Lloyd George, Italian foreign minister Giorgio Sonnino, French premier Georges Clemenceau, and U.S. president Woodrow Wilson.

UPI/THE BETTMANN ARCHIVE

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The French eventually on March 17^th, 1919 settled for a mixed bag of compromise, the guarantee treaties, safeguards involving German disarmament, demilitarization and Allied occupation of the Rhine.

The issue of the war debts set an emotional tone to the debates with the French insisting that Germany and not her victims should pay the cost of reconstruction and that French debts to the Allies should be waived in the light of her hefty contribution to the war effort; especially as France was indebted to her citizens to a tune of 26 billion dollars as against the 3.6 billion dollars owed to Britain and America.

In the light of the refusal of the US to forgive British and French war debts, and an insistence on the part of France that Germany bear all the burden of reconstruction because the exact figure concerning the damages and German reparations could not be immediately resolved, a commission to resolve these issues was set up while Germany was immediately taxed 20 billion gold marks which was to be paid immediately without any concern for her immediate economic needs.

The final draft treaty consigned the Saar to joint control of the Allies for 15 years pending a plebiscite to determine its future, loss of the German colonies, limited army and navy and no air force and submarines.

 Germany was to deliver 20 million tons of coal per year to France and Belgium. Alsace – Lorraine to France, most of upper Silesia and West Prussia to Poland including a corridor to the Baltic that partitioned Germany and league of nations control of the free part of Danzig (to grant Poland access to the sea).

Prohibition of an Anchluss (union) between Austria and Germany and abrogation of the treaty of Brest – Litvosk and finally article 231 demanded that Germany accept full responsibility for the war as an act of aggression by Germany and her allies.

The treaty met with stiff opposition from the German people even though its term were milder than the Brest – Litvosk treaty and left Germany intact and unoccupied. The German delegation pleaded for the mitigation of the terms without any success.

Demonstration Against the Versailles Treaty

On June 22, 1919, the government of Weimar Germany, under international pressure, accepted the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty held Germany solely responsible for World War I, and accordingly imposed harsh conditions on Germany. A fundamental revision of the “Dictat of Versailles,” as the peace treaty was referred to in Germany, became the pressing goal of a wide cross-section of German society. Mass demonstrations and rallies against the Treaty of Versailles, like this one in Berlin, were the order of the day.

However to obtain the lifting of the sanctions and blockade and to prevent further revolutionary upheavals and further allied military advance. The German delegation made up of mainly suited civilians rather than the military hierarchy whom the allies had intended to punish on the June 28 1919 affixed their signatures to the final treaty.

German extremist groups immediately denounced the treaty and those who signed it as traitors, conspirators brandishing them as the November criminals. They were particular irked with the war guilt clause which revisionist historians tended to see as undermining the legitimacy of the entire Versailles treaty and it came to be a powerful element in the emergence of the anti-Versailles parties and politics that was to soon emerge in Germany.

The Allied delegations in any case were not any happier or even fulfilled concerning the terms of the treaty. Many were apathetic as to whether the fundamental issues that touched on peace in Europe had been dealt with. British economist Maynard Keynes expressed his deep reservations as to the policy of reparations and its likely effect on the German people and economy.

Marshall Ferdinand Foch’s comments were the most prophetic in dimension. He was quoted as saying that “this is not peace but a truce for 20 years. French premier Clemenceau had to summon his entire political prowess to win its ratification in the French parliament and even then he lost the presidential election that followed.

The most astonishing response came from the United States whose president Wilson single handedly dictated the peace terms in his fourteen point peace initiative that became the basis for the conclusion of the armistice with German on Nov 11 1918. He was also singularly responsible for the imposition of the institution of the League of Nations on the European nations, prescribing its covenants and structures.

Political groups in America and in the Congress however felt uncomfortable with the constraints placed on the US in fulfilling its obligations under the league covenants for a nation whose foreign policy was fashioned around not intervening in European affairs, nor allowing European affairs to weigh heavily on American domestic policy.

 Among these groups of isolationists were nationalists republicans, some democrats, Monroe doctrines exponents, regionalists, xenophobes and tariff protectionists. The concern of the American politicians was over the obligations and capacity for foreign interventions the league would impose on the U.S. The fear was centered on article 10 of the league covenant and its potentials for getting the US involved in foreign quarrels.

As a measure of conciliation, the senate committee on foreign relations led by Senator Henry Cabot lodge proposed ratification subject to 14 reservations, which Wilson unwisely rejected insisted on an all or nothing approach without taking into consideration the strength of Republican opposition.

Woodrow Wilson in the White House

In the presidential election of 1912, Theodore Roosevelt, who was unhappy with some of President William Taft’s policies, entered the presidential race as head of the new Progressive Party. As a result, the Republican Party vote was split between Taft and Roosevelt, and Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson won the election. During his two terms in office, Wilson carried out significant reforms to laws governing tariffs, trusts, labor, agriculture, and banking.

To overcome Senate objections, Wilson embarked on a national speaking tour to mount support for the treaty only to be brought down by a debilitating stroke in October 1919 and on November 19, the Senate voted against the treaty.

A further compromise vote scheduled for March 19 1919 also failed to carry the day because the president instructed his followers to reject any compromise and in the event the 49 – 35 vote fell short of the constitutional 2/3 majority required to ratify the treaty.

The failure of the United States to ratify the Versailles treaty also meant that the US had failed to recognize the League of nations which was one of the offspring’s of the treaty alongside the security guarantee given to France which was the pillar of the new world political order which the European statesmen had so skillfully crafted to create a balance of power on the European scene.

The League of Nations thus became a toothless bulldog imposing sanctions and penalties that it lacked the muscle to enforce. The result was a feeling of betrayal on the part of France and a resolve to deal more firmly in issues concerning Germany.

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