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The Spa Conferences (First World War) were a series of talks held by leaders of the German and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Spa, Belgium in 1918. They were chaired by German Emperor Wilhelm II with the assistance of the Reich Chancellor and co-chaired by the Emperor-King Charles I when he was present. They brought together ministerial officials and high-ranking military personnel from both the empire and the dual monarchy. According to the German imperial government, these conferences were intended to define the policy pursued by the empire and its Quadruple[Note 1] Alliance partners. In particular, they aimed to divide the conquests of the Central Powers' armies into territories to be annexed by the empire and the dual monarchy, while defining the zones of German and Austro-Hungarian influence within those conquests.
The military leaders of the Reich carefully weighed the choice of Spa as headquarters of the OHL. At the beginning of 1917, Erich Ludendorff considered establishing the headquarters of the OHL in Spa, but he chose Bad Kreuznach, which at the time was better served by telephone and telegraph, allowing the supreme command to wage war virtually in real time.[2]
While OHL strategists prepared the offensives planned for the beginning of 1918, the question of moving the German high command in Spa was raised again. The city had numerous hotels able to accommodate the staff services of the German army in the countryside.[1] It was also connected to the railway network and benefited from greater proximity to the front, which members of the general staff could therefore reach more easily.[1]
Installation in Spa
Château de la Fraineuse, the official residence of Wilhelm II.
The installation of the general staff services and its main officials began in February. On March 8, 1918, Hindenburg and Ludendorff arrived on site. The two military leaders lived in town, each having settled in a requisitioned villa. However, the next day, the Dioscuri went to Avesnes-sur-Helpe, the command center of the army groups promised to be engaged in the offensives planned for spring.[1]
They were joined by Wilhelm II on March 12 and the emperor moved to the Villa Neubois, with the Château de la Fraineuse being used as his official residence.[1]
Spa and its region quickly brought together the services of the general staff of all the armies of the Reich in the field. The operation section began their preparations for the installation at the Grand Hôtel Bretagne on February 8, 1918. The other services were scattered throughout the region, such as the air force command was located in Verviers, while the town of Avesnes served as a forward command post. Finally, the Valenciennes Museum of Fine Arts was regularly used for officer training.[3][1]
During the four main conferences of 1918, German and Austro-Hungarian civil and military officials took part in the talks. Each of the parties involved tried to assert their points of view during sometimes tense exchanges.
The four conferences were chaired by Wilhelm II, the German Emperor. During the German-Austro-Hungarian meetings of May 12 and August 14th and 15th, Wilhelm II shared the presidency with Charles I, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. This co-presidency allowed the House of Habsburg to maintain the appearance of an alliance between partners placed on an equal footing by maintaining, in defiance of the reality of the balance of power, the fiction of an Austria-Hungary still able to weigh on the general policy of the Quadruple.[4][Note 3]
Officially co-chaired by the two emperors, the conferences of May and August allowed the German Emperor to demonstrate the predominance of the Reich in the alliance linking it to the dual monarchy. During the conference of August 14th and 15th, Wilhelm II presented himself to Charles I in an Austro-Hungarian uniform, while Charles wore a German uniform.[Note 4] During these meetings, the monarchs set the guidelines for relations between the two empires, establishing the general terms of the agreements in principle between the two monarchies, which their advisers had to further specify during subsequent negotiations.[5][6][3]
Civilians
Stephan Burián von Rajecz, Austro-Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, here in Hungarian hussar uniform, assists Emperor Charles I in defending the interests of the dual monarchy in the face of German demands.
The Reich government was represented by the Reich Chancellor, Georg von Hertling. He was assisted by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Richard von Kühlmann, followed by Paul von Hintze, who succeeded von Kühlmann on July 9th. Occasionally, there were Prussian ministers and close advisers to the Chancellor and the Secretary of State present.[7][8]
Stephan Burián von Rajecz, Austro-Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, assisted Charles I during the German-Austro-Hungarian meetings of May 12th and August 14th.[9][10]
Military
The civil leaders of the two empires were not the only ones summoned to these conferences. Indeed, from the end of 1916, the Dioscuri, effectively exercising a "dictatorship" over the Reich, attended all government meetings organized by the chancellor at the request of the emperor. Thus, Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff were present at all four meetings; the two German strategists were sometimes assisted by their main collaborators: Paul von Bartenwerffer, Erich von Oldershausen, and Detlof von Winterfeldt.[11][8]
The Austro-Hungarian Chief of Staff, Arthur Arz von Straußenburg accompanied his Emperor on August 14th. This was the only one of the four conferences attended by a high-ranking Austro-Hungarian soldier.[12]
The Conferences
Several conferences were organized in Spa by the German government; historiography retains four main ones, summoned in May, July, August and September of 1918. During two of them, only representatives of the German and Prussian governments were invited; the other two were joined by Emperor-King Charles I.
The four conferences can be classified into two groups: the German imperial governmental conferences, which brought together the political and military leaders of the Reich, and the last two official meetings of Emperor Wilhelm and Emperor-King Charles I, which were theoretically on an equal footing equality.
Thus, the conferences of July 2nd and 3rd, and September 29th, as well as the August 13th, the first day of the conference in August, were similar to the councils of the German imperial crown, in which the Dioscuri, the main organizers of the Oberste Heeresleitung participated.
In addition to these German government conferences, two German-Austro-Hungarian meetings took place on May 12 and August 14-15.
Relatively closely spaced in time from each other, they nevertheless took place in completely different political and military contexts: the May conference resulted in the dual monarchy being placed under supervision. The July meeting was held while the Reich still hoped to impose its peace conditions on the Allies. In fact, a final offensive was planned to be launched in Champagne on July 15th, 1918. The August conference was held when the German and Austro-Hungarian armies had exhausted the means of their respective empires, in men and equipment, and showed themselves incapable of confronting the Allied breakthroughs, present or future. The September conference was held against the backdrop of the Bulgarian armistice and victorious Allied offensives on all fronts held by the Reich, the Dual Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire: while Allied troops exploitedtheir victories in Macedonia, the Allied troops deployed on the Western Front pushed back exhausted German units towards the borders of the Reich.[13][14][8]
Each of the conferences was the subject of careful preparation by the civil and military German officials convened in Spa.
In preparation for the May 12 conference with Emperor Charles and his Foreign Minister, Reich officials held numerous preliminary meetings. The German objective, to secure the double monarchy's vassalization to the Reich, necessitated extensive negotiations in the days preceding the conference. These negotiations took place at the Reich Chancellery and the German Foreign Ministry headquarters, involving members of the German and Prussian governments on one side, and Hindenburg and Ludendorff on the other.[9]
While the conference only brought together German political, economic and military officials, the preparation only brought together the military and political leaders of the Reich: the Chancellor, the Secretary of State (or his deputy), the German Minister of War and the Dioscuri. Thus, the conference of the 2 and 3 of July, intended to definitively oust Secretary of State Richard von Kühlmann, was planned the day before during a meeting between the Reich Chancellor, the Minister of War and the Dioscuri, who then informed the Chancellor, Georg von Hertling, of their refusal to take into account the opinions of the Secretary of State, who was then promised to be ousted.[15]
Main axes
Constant affirmation of German war aims
Each conference, unilateral or bilateral, constituted the opportunity to formulate the German war aims: the control of Belgium, of Poland, the vassalization of Austria-Hungary and the constitution of a Mitteleuropa, a vast European economic power under complete political and economic control of the Reich.[16]
The achievement of war aims constituted a cornerstone of German foreign policy until the final weeks of the conflict. Indeed, the four main conferences confirmed the imperialist and expansionist policy of the Reich and its allies. Those in favor of seeking a compromise, not only with the Allies, but also with the members of the Quadruple, were in fact systematically dismissed by Paul von Hindenburg and his colleague Erich Ludendorff, who then exercised a military dictatorship in the Reich.
On May 12, Wilhelm II and the Dioscuri took Charles I through a veritable "path to Canossa". Then, on July 3, the Dioscuri obtained the resignation of Richard von Kühlmann, who had just taken an official position in favor of a compromise peace with the Allies, and his replacement by Paul von Hintze, leader of the Pan-Germanists. Later, on September 29, in a context marked by the Bulgarian defection and the rapid reconquest of Serbia by the Allies, the political and military leaders of the Reich, then militarily defeated and economically strangled by the Allied blockade, were convinced of the need to open negotiations with the Allies to put an end to hostilities. These same officials, however, continued to defend keeping the provisions obtained during the peace negotiations signed by the members of the Quadruple with Russia, Ukraine and Romania.[17][18][9]
Furthermore, it appeared to German officials that the war must allow the integration of the Reich and the dual monarchy into Mittleuropa. Thus, from the middle of 1916, German political leaders aspired to complete the process of political alignment of the dual monarchy with the Reich,[Note 5] thus completing the edifice aimed at strictly controlling the dual monarchy, reducing it to the rank of "another Bavaria".[Note 6] Despite the fierce opposition of the Emperor-King Charles I, the process of placing the dual monarchy under strict supervision came to an end. In fact, the conference in May, convened thanks to the revelation of The Sixtus[Note 7] affair sanctioned the adoption of this political, military and economic supervision.[19][20][21][Note 8]
However, despite this consensus on the objectives pursued during the conflict, the exposition of these war aims also allowed each member of the German government to defend positions that were sometimes divergent with those of other German imperial authorities: the satelliteization of certain territories appeared satisfactory for some, mainly the military; while the representatives of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs were in favor of the privileged use of commercial weapons as a means of controlling the territories thus anchored to the Reich.[16]
The conferences also provided the opportunity for members of the civilian government to explain to the military the deterioration of the internal situation of both the Reich, and Austria-Hungary, just as it allowed the military to expose certain aspects of exhaustion to civilians.[22][23]
Thus, during the council of the German crown meeting on August 14, Chancellor Georg von Hertling presented at length the internal situation of the Reich, then engaged since the summer of 1914 in the world conflict. He insisted in particular on the brigandage which raged in the countryside, the bands of plunderers seizing the harvests of helpless peasants; the food situation was also generating high inflation while the Germans could no longer buy anything, due to shortages.
In addition, the moral crisis experienced by the front quickly reached the country, notably through letters from soldiers to their families, informing them of the reality of the military situation and the absurdity of the orders given by the command. The dissemination of Allied propaganda in the Reich, facilitated by epistolary exchanges between the front and the rear, also contributed to demoralizing German units.
Finally, during the month of September 1918, Erich Ludendorff, the main leader of the German general staff, was affected by the diplomatic failures suffered during the multiple attempts to open negotiations with the Allies. According to the neurologist who examined him at the request of his collaborators, but without his knowledge, during the month of September 1918, he suffered from severe depression.[24][25][26][22]
The dual monarchy was also experiencing a worrying internal situation at the beginning of 1918. In fact, the civilian populations were suffering a severe shortage, despite the rationing put in place since the loss of Galicia at the end of the summer of 1914. This rationing contributed to straining relations between Austria and Hungary, despite the renewal of the Ausgleich the previous year.[27][28]
Accompanied by Emperor Wilhelm II, the negotiators mandated by the Reich set the conditions for which they affirmed their readiness to get out of the conflict, sometimes in agreement with their counterparts from the dual monarchy placed under strict political and military control.
From the Allied success of August 8, 1918, the conferences aim was to a define a clear political line not only among Reich officials, but also with the leaders of the dual monarchy. Rejecting any idea of negotiation with the Allies until August 1918, the German government then considered opening negotiations with a view to concluding a compromise peace; misinformed by Erich Ludendorff, the Reich government agreed August 13 on the concessions that he is ready to grant to his interlocutors from the opposing camp: the only evacuation of the Longwy- Briey[Note 9]steel basin is then simply envisaged by the German government, the other territories occupied by the Reich and its allies are then not mentioned.[29]
The last two conferences, that of the 13th, 14th and 15th of August and that of September 29, are marked by the rebellion of members of the civil government against the DioscuriHindenburg and Ludendorff, the military neglecting the seriousness of the internal situation in the Reich; Chancellor Georg von Hertling, supported by his ministers, multiplied initiatives towards the army command to impose an end to the conflict, without success. Alongside these internal exchanges, German leaders must take into account the increasingly insistent desire of their Austro-Hungarian counterparts to withdraw from the conflict as quickly as possible and at any cost.[22][25]
Only the continued deterioration of the military situation from August 8, 1918 pushed OHL military officials to request the opening of armistice negotiations. So, from the middle of August, German military leaders were experiencing moral despondency, but, by leading an orderly retreat allowing the installation of units on solid defensive positions, they still hoped to succeed in forcing the Allies to open negotiations with a view to peace in Western Europe, guaranteeing the positions conquered during the conflict, in the Balkans and in Russia. Finally, during the last conference, that of September 29, the hopes of Paul von Hintze and the members of the von Hertling cabinet were swept away by the confessions of Erich Ludendorff: he abruptly announced to them that the imperial army was no longer able to sustainably and effectively contain the multiple Allied offensives and to control the internal situation, characterized by the first Allied incursions into the Reich.[Note 10] The military obtained the resignation of Chancellor Hertling, hostile to any negotiation with the Allies and any internal reform before the end of the conflict, as well as the appointment of Max of Baden to the post of Reich Chancellor. He was charged with both the opening of negotiations with a view to the armistice and the implementation of political reforms, intended to transform the authoritarian Bismarckian Reich into a parliamentary monarchy.[30][31][32][24]
↑Inseparable from each other in the eyes of German public opinion, these two soldiers were likened to the Dioscuri of mythology by war propaganda.
↑By 1918, the dual monarchy was totally exhausted by the prolonged conflict. A year earlier, in April 1917, a report by Ottokar Czernin had already highlighted the Austro-Hungarian situation, which was considered worrying at the time.
↑This show of friendship masked major differences over the conduct of the war at that point in the conflict
↑From the 1900s onwards, the dual monarchy could no longer undertake anything successfully without the support of the Reich.
↑The Kingdom of Bavaria enjoyed a special status within the Reich, but this status nevertheless placed it in a subordinate position to the Kingdom of Prussia.
↑Ottokar Czernin, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, revealed the existence of secret talks with France, causing a huge scandal and renewed tension between the Reich and the dual monarchy.
↑The details of the customs union between the Reich and the Dual Monarchy were negotiated in Salzburg between 9 July and 15 October 1918, when the talks were finally suspended.
↑This industrial area, located in Meurthe-et-Moselle, has been occupied by the Reich since August 1914.
↑Allied long-range artillery fire and increasingly frequent air raids hit Reich territory.
Fischer, Fritz (1970). Les Buts de guerre de l'Allemagne impériale (1914-1918)[Griff nach der Weltmacht]. Translated by Migeon, Geneviève; Thiès, Henri. Paris: Éditions de Trévise.
Kennedy, Paul Michael (1989). Naissance et déclin des grandes puissances: transformations économiques et conflits militaires entre 1500 et 2000[The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers]. Translated by Cochez, Marie-Aude; Lebrave, Jean-Louis (63ed.). Paris: Payot, coll. Petite bibliothèque Payot.
Laparra, Jean-Claude; Hesse, Pascal (2011). L'envers des parades: le commandement de l'armée allemande, réalités et destins croisés, 1914-1918. Paris: Éditions SOTECA. ISBN978-2-916385-77-8.
Soutou, Georges-Henri (1989). L' or et le sang: les buts de guerre économiques de la Première Guerre Mondiale. Nouvelles études historiques. Paris: Fayard. ISBN978-2-213-02215-4.
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