The armistice

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X is Poland. Y is a League of Nations (a general association of nations).

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Source A is critical of Clemenceau because Keynes presents him as narrow-minded and bitter. Saying that he had 'one illusion - France' suggests that Clemenceau cared about nothing except French interests, and 'one disillusion - mankind' suggests he was a cynic who trusted no one, not even his own colleagues. By calling his aim a 'Carthaginian peace', Keynes accuses Clemenceau of wanting to destroy Germany just as Rome destroyed Carthage, rather than make a fair peace.

The provenance explains why Keynes was so critical. He was a British Treasury expert who resigned in June 1919 because he thought the reparations would ruin Germany's economy and harm all of Europe, and his book was written to persuade people the treaty was a mistake. My own knowledge shows that Clemenceau did demand huge reparations, the Saar coalfield, Alsace-Lorraine and a German army of only 100,000. However, Keynes ignores the reasons: France had been invaded in 1870 and 1914 and lost about 1.4 million soldiers. Also, Clemenceau accepted compromises, such as leaving the Rhineland in Germany, and many in France, such as Marshal Foch, thought he had been too soft.

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Source B is useful because it shows how the war's destruction made ordinary French people want a harsh peace. The writer describes her village as completely destroyed, with the church 'a heap of stones', fields full of shell holes, her father's grave lost and the cattle taken by the Germans in 1914. My own knowledge confirms that much of north-east France had been occupied or fought over, and that retreating Germans flooded coal mines, while about 1.4 million French soldiers were killed. Her anger that Germany 'is to be fed again while we live in huts' shows why the French demanded reparations to rebuild the devastated regions, and her fear that a lenient peace would bring revenge 'on our children' shows the desire for security. As a private letter it is probably an honest expression of feeling, and it was written in March 1919, during the conference. However, it is only one person's experience in one of the worst-hit areas, so it shows public feeling rather than the government's reasons.

Source C is useful because it shows the strategic argument for a harsh peace from France's most senior soldier. Foch argues that Germany's larger population would always threaten France, so the Rhine must become Germany's military frontier and the land west of it must be separated from Germany. This is supported by my knowledge: France had about 40 million people against Germany's 60 million and had been invaded in 1870 and 1914, and Clemenceau at first demanded that the Rhineland be separated. Because Foch was the Allied commander, his view carried great weight, and as a formal memorandum to the Allied governments it was intended to influence the peace terms. However, Foch was more extreme than Clemenceau, who accepted a compromise of demilitarisation, a 15-year occupation and an Anglo-American guarantee, and Foch's memorandum deals only with security, not compensation.

Overall, the two sources are very useful together because they show different reasons for France's demands. Source B shows the emotional and economic reasons, revenge and compensation, felt by ordinary people, while Source C shows the security argument made by the military. Neither mentions Alsace-Lorraine or the Saar coal, and both represent strong opinions, so an historian would also need evidence of Clemenceau's own aims.

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Military defeat was the main reason Germany agreed to an armistice, because it was the army leaders themselves who demanded one in September 1918, before the revolution at home. However, other factors, especially the collapse of Germany's allies, the blockade and the revolution of November, explain why Germany accepted such harsh terms when it did. I therefore largely agree with the statement.

The military situation was decisive. In March 1918 Ludendorff launched the Spring Offensive, hoping to win before American troops arrived in large numbers. It gained ground but cost hundreds of thousands of casualties and left the army exhausted, holding long and exposed lines. The Allies then counter-attacked at the Marne in July and at Amiens on 8 August, which Ludendorff called 'the black day of the German army'. During the Hundred Days Offensive, the Allies combined tanks, aircraft and artillery effectively, and by November there were about 2 million American troops in France. German soldiers surrendered in large numbers and morale collapsed. When the Hindenburg Line was broken in late September, Ludendorff and Hindenburg told the Kaiser on 29 September that the war was lost and Germany must seek an armistice. This shows that defeat on the battlefield came first and was the trigger for the request.

The collapse of Germany's allies was also important. Bulgaria made an armistice on 29 September, which helped persuade Ludendorff that Germany could not fight on. The Ottoman Empire followed on 30 October and Austria-Hungary on 3 November, leaving Germany alone and exposed to attack from the south. However, this was itself largely a military collapse.

The home front was another major factor. The Allied naval blockade had caused severe food shortages since the 'turnip winter' of 1916-17, and the influenza pandemic weakened soldiers and civilians in 1918. In early November sailors at Kiel mutinied rather than sail on a final attack, and revolution spread across Germany as workers' and soldiers' councils took over cities. On 9 November the Kaiser abdicated and fled to the Netherlands. The new government had no means or wish to continue the war, so it accepted the harsh terms presented by Marshal Foch at Compiègne. Without the revolution, the army might have tried to fight on to Germany's own frontier.

Political calculations also mattered. Germany asked President Wilson for an armistice on the basis of the Fourteen Points in early October, hoping that this would bring a lenient peace, and Wilson's replies suggested that peace would be easier if the Kaiser went. Some historians also argue that Ludendorff wanted a civilian government to take responsibility for the defeat.

In conclusion, military defeat was the main reason Germany agreed to an armistice, because the army leaders asked for one before the revolution began, and the revolution itself was largely a reaction to a lost war and its hardships. However, the blockade and the revolution explain why Germany accepted harsh terms on 11 November instead of fighting on. Because the army was still on French and Belgian soil when the armistice was signed, many Germans later refused to accept that it had been defeated, which created the 'stab in the back' myth.