WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.660 Welcome. Welcome to another deep dive. And you 00:00:03.660 --> 00:00:06.179 know, when I say welcome, I am speaking directly 00:00:06.179 --> 00:00:09.160 to you, the ultimate learner. Absolutely. Whether 00:00:09.160 --> 00:00:12.220 you're gearing up for a historical debate or 00:00:12.220 --> 00:00:14.699 trying to untangle the complexities of the modern 00:00:14.699 --> 00:00:17.600 world by examining how we got here, or you're 00:00:17.600 --> 00:00:21.039 simply driven by this insatiable curiosity about 00:00:21.039 --> 00:00:24.000 the very messy reality of human history, you 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:26.559 have found exactly the right place. You really 00:00:26.559 --> 00:00:29.239 have. We have a pretty profound mission today. 00:00:29.679 --> 00:00:32.640 We are going to completely bypass that neat, 00:00:33.140 --> 00:00:35.039 sanitized version of history we all get in school, 00:00:35.039 --> 00:00:37.700 right? And head straight into the heart of a 00:00:37.700 --> 00:00:39.939 moment that completely rewired the 20th century. 00:00:40.039 --> 00:00:42.359 Yeah, it really did. We're uncovering the incredibly 00:00:42.359 --> 00:00:45.460 complex, deeply chaotic, and frankly surprisingly 00:00:45.460 --> 00:00:48.140 tragic reality behind one of the most famous 00:00:48.140 --> 00:00:50.780 dates in human history. That is exactly the goal 00:00:50.780 --> 00:00:53.140 today. We are pulling all of our insights, all 00:00:53.140 --> 00:00:56.200 the facts, the narrative threads from one incredibly 00:00:56.329 --> 00:01:00.130 which is the Wikipedia article on the armistice 00:01:00.130 --> 00:01:03.689 of 11 November 1918. And what makes this particular 00:01:03.689 --> 00:01:06.370 deep dive so compelling is how the historical 00:01:06.370 --> 00:01:09.510 record strips away all that simplified folklore. 00:01:09.930 --> 00:01:12.469 It doesn't just give us the famous date. It presents 00:01:12.469 --> 00:01:15.810 the raw, unfiltered, minute -by -minute sequence 00:01:15.810 --> 00:01:18.730 of events that actually brought the absolute 00:01:18.730 --> 00:01:21.569 meat grinder of the First World War. to a halt. 00:01:21.810 --> 00:01:23.469 Because everyone knows that famous phrase, right? 00:01:23.709 --> 00:01:26.349 The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. 00:01:26.469 --> 00:01:28.510 Oh, absolutely. It's iconic. It is. It's burned 00:01:28.510 --> 00:01:30.590 into our collective memory. It sounds so perfectly 00:01:30.590 --> 00:01:33.430 neat. Poetic almost. Yeah, exactly. Like poetic 00:01:33.430 --> 00:01:36.250 resolved like a curtain gracefully falling on 00:01:36.250 --> 00:01:39.629 a stage. But when you actually start looking 00:01:39.629 --> 00:01:42.879 at the historical record. The picture that emerges 00:01:42.879 --> 00:01:46.379 is anything but graceful. Not even close. The 00:01:46.379 --> 00:01:48.879 path to that exact minute on the clock was paved 00:01:48.879 --> 00:01:51.599 with secret train meetings in dark, rain -soaked 00:01:51.599 --> 00:01:54.719 forests. It had some of the most cynical political 00:01:54.719 --> 00:01:56.980 stapegoating imaginable. Naval mutinies, too. 00:01:57.219 --> 00:01:59.519 Right. Naval mutinies, full -scale revolutions, 00:01:59.719 --> 00:02:02.079 and just shocking numbers of casualties on a 00:02:02.079 --> 00:02:04.700 day that was ostensibly supposed to be entirely 00:02:04.700 --> 00:02:07.640 about peace. The massive gap between the poetry 00:02:07.640 --> 00:02:10.840 of that 11th hour and the grim, muddy reality 00:02:10.840 --> 00:02:14.099 on the ground is what we are digging into today. 00:02:14.419 --> 00:02:17.379 It is a staggering gap. But before we really 00:02:17.379 --> 00:02:19.680 get into the mechanics of how all of this unfolded, 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:21.919 it is crucial that we pause for a second and 00:02:21.919 --> 00:02:24.099 lay down a very clear parameter for our discussion. 00:02:24.180 --> 00:02:26.780 Good idea. The history we are examining today 00:02:26.780 --> 00:02:29.659 delves heavily into the intense political maneuverings 00:02:29.659 --> 00:02:32.889 of the time. It discusses various political factions, 00:02:33.530 --> 00:02:35.689 including right -wing myths that emerged, the 00:02:35.689 --> 00:02:38.349 actions of socialists, the fears of communists, 00:02:38.590 --> 00:02:40.990 and the looming impact of the Bolsheviks. It's 00:02:40.990 --> 00:02:43.810 a total political minefield. Exactly. And because 00:02:43.810 --> 00:02:45.629 of this politically charged content, I want to 00:02:45.629 --> 00:02:47.650 make it explicitly clear to you, our listener, 00:02:48.129 --> 00:02:50.409 that this deep dive is not taking any political 00:02:50.409 --> 00:02:53.590 sides whatsoever. We are not endorsing, we are 00:02:53.590 --> 00:02:56.569 not validating or condemning the viewpoints of 00:02:56.569 --> 00:02:59.530 the historical factions we'll mention. Our sole 00:02:59.530 --> 00:03:01.849 objective is to impartially report on the historical 00:03:01.849 --> 00:03:04.349 facts, the sequence of events, and the ideas 00:03:04.349 --> 00:03:06.810 exactly as they are contained within our original 00:03:06.810 --> 00:03:08.810 source material. We are here to understand the 00:03:08.810 --> 00:03:11.490 history, not to litigate the politics. Okay, 00:03:11.750 --> 00:03:13.710 let's unpack this. Let's transport ourselves 00:03:13.710 --> 00:03:16.990 back to the late summer and early autumn of 1918. 00:03:17.270 --> 00:03:19.879 Let's do it. We have to set the stage for why 00:03:19.879 --> 00:03:21.939 this armistice even happened in the first place, 00:03:22.280 --> 00:03:24.479 because the German Empire didn't just wake up 00:03:24.479 --> 00:03:26.780 one day and decide to quit. We are looking at 00:03:26.780 --> 00:03:29.699 an empire that is fundamentally crumbling under 00:03:29.699 --> 00:03:31.979 its own weight. Imploding, really. Imploding. 00:03:32.099 --> 00:03:34.180 So I want to start with the military collapse. 00:03:34.740 --> 00:03:37.259 The historical record pinpoints the beginning 00:03:37.259 --> 00:03:41.159 of the end to August 1918, specifically the Battle 00:03:41.159 --> 00:03:43.750 of Amiens. Yes. The Black Day. Right. But help 00:03:43.750 --> 00:03:46.389 me understand this, because earlier that same 00:03:46.389 --> 00:03:49.229 year in the spring, Germany had launched this 00:03:49.229 --> 00:03:51.430 massive offensive. They had gained all this ground. 00:03:51.870 --> 00:03:54.550 What changed so drastically by August? Well, 00:03:54.550 --> 00:03:57.030 what changed was the absolute exhaustion of the 00:03:57.030 --> 00:03:59.490 German military machine. And that was colliding 00:03:59.490 --> 00:04:02.409 with fresh allied tactics and resources. OK. 00:04:02.830 --> 00:04:05.009 The Battle of Amiens in August is often referred 00:04:05.009 --> 00:04:08.050 to as the Black Day of the German Army. During 00:04:08.050 --> 00:04:10.199 the spring offensive. The Germans had pushed 00:04:10.199 --> 00:04:12.740 incredibly hard. I mean, throwing everything 00:04:12.740 --> 00:04:15.080 they had into breaking the trench deadlock before 00:04:15.080 --> 00:04:16.920 the Americans could arrive in large numbers. 00:04:17.160 --> 00:04:19.379 So it was a race against time for them. Exactly. 00:04:19.459 --> 00:04:22.480 They gained territory, yes, but they lost their 00:04:22.480 --> 00:04:24.839 best, most experienced storm troopers in the 00:04:24.839 --> 00:04:28.160 process. They basically bled themselves dry to 00:04:28.160 --> 00:04:30.220 take ground that was ultimately impossible to 00:04:30.220 --> 00:04:32.800 defend. Ah, so they stretched themselves too 00:04:32.800 --> 00:04:35.839 thin. Way too thin. So when the Allies counterattacked 00:04:35.839 --> 00:04:40.160 at Amiens, utilizing coordinated tank warfare, 00:04:40.439 --> 00:04:43.819 aircraft, and creeping artillery barrages in 00:04:43.819 --> 00:04:45.980 a way the Germans hadn't fully anticipated. The 00:04:45.980 --> 00:04:48.519 German lines just shattered. Completely. They 00:04:48.519 --> 00:04:51.060 were forced into a massive withdrawal, falling 00:04:51.060 --> 00:04:53.839 all the way back to the Hindenburg line. So they 00:04:53.839 --> 00:04:56.620 essentially lost every single inch and ground 00:04:56.620 --> 00:04:58.639 they had just sacrificed hundreds of thousands 00:04:58.639 --> 00:05:00.959 of men to take. Every inch. The psychological 00:05:00.959 --> 00:05:03.139 blow of that alone must have been devastating. 00:05:03.699 --> 00:05:06.319 But it didn't stop there, right? Because immediately 00:05:06.319 --> 00:05:08.779 after this, we see the Allies launch what's known 00:05:08.779 --> 00:05:11.000 as the Hundred Days Offensive. Right. And this 00:05:11.000 --> 00:05:13.060 wasn't just a series of isolated attacks. It 00:05:13.060 --> 00:05:15.860 was a giant coordinated pincer movement. Like 00:05:15.860 --> 00:05:18.899 a vice. Exactly like a vice. If you picture a 00:05:18.899 --> 00:05:21.819 map of the Western Front in late September 1918, 00:05:22.660 --> 00:05:25.740 you have a massive combined force of United States 00:05:25.740 --> 00:05:28.500 and French troops attacking the Mise -Argonne 00:05:28.500 --> 00:05:31.120 region. OK. So that's in the south. That is the 00:05:31.120 --> 00:05:33.980 southern jaw of the pincer. Hundreds of thousands 00:05:33.980 --> 00:05:36.639 of fresh American troops, who hadn't been ground 00:05:36.639 --> 00:05:39.579 down by four years of trench warfare, are pushing 00:05:39.579 --> 00:05:41.560 relentlessly. And what's happening in the North? 00:05:42.160 --> 00:05:44.439 Simultaneously to the North, you have the British 00:05:44.439 --> 00:05:47.199 and Dominion forces assaulting the St. Quentin 00:05:47.199 --> 00:05:50.420 Canal. This is the northern jaw. And they actually 00:05:50.420 --> 00:05:52.860 broke through the Hindenburg Line, which the 00:05:52.860 --> 00:05:55.279 Germans had considered practically impregnable. 00:05:55.720 --> 00:05:58.360 So the German Army is suddenly facing an overwhelming, 00:05:58.360 --> 00:06:01.240 synchronized crush from two directions. Yeah, 00:06:01.319 --> 00:06:04.000 the tactical situation was rapidly becoming completely 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:06.180 untenable. I'm trying to visualize this. You've 00:06:06.180 --> 00:06:09.199 got an exhausted German Army, completely overstretched, 00:06:09.319 --> 00:06:11.860 and suddenly they are caught in this giant vice. 00:06:12.779 --> 00:06:14.500 But it wasn't just the Western Front that was 00:06:14.500 --> 00:06:16.519 collapsing. No, not at all. When you look at 00:06:16.519 --> 00:06:19.110 the broader map, the dominant effect happening 00:06:19.110 --> 00:06:22.470 to Germany's allies is almost unbelievable. It's 00:06:22.470 --> 00:06:25.670 like watching a geopolitical house of cards disintegrate 00:06:25.670 --> 00:06:27.790 in real time. That's a great way to put it. First, 00:06:28.009 --> 00:06:30.069 you have the Ottoman Empire, which is basically 00:06:30.069 --> 00:06:32.449 described as being close to total exhaustion. 00:06:33.250 --> 00:06:36.350 Then the Austro -Hungarian Empire, which is literally 00:06:36.350 --> 00:06:40.209 descending into absolute chaos, fracturing along 00:06:40.209 --> 00:06:43.069 ethnic lines. But the one that really caught 00:06:43.069 --> 00:06:46.420 my eye was Bulgaria. The Bulgarian army's resistance 00:06:46.420 --> 00:06:48.899 on the Macedonian front completely collapsed, 00:06:49.339 --> 00:06:51.699 leading to the armistice of Salonika on September 00:06:51.699 --> 00:06:54.939 29th. Why was Bulgaria such a critical linchpin? 00:06:55.079 --> 00:06:56.959 We really need to pause on that detail about 00:06:56.959 --> 00:06:59.540 Bulgaria because the strategic implications are 00:06:59.540 --> 00:07:03.259 massive. For most of the war, the Central Powers, 00:07:03.800 --> 00:07:06.600 Germany, Austria -Hungary, the Ottomans, and 00:07:06.600 --> 00:07:08.959 Bulgaria formed a contiguous block. They were 00:07:08.959 --> 00:07:12.079 connected. But the collapse of Bulgaria combined 00:07:12.079 --> 00:07:14.480 with an Italian victory over the Austro -Hungarians 00:07:14.480 --> 00:07:17.100 around the same time, completely changed the 00:07:17.100 --> 00:07:20.000 strategic map. It effectively severed the central 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:22.800 powers in half. Oh, wow. But more terrifyingly 00:07:22.800 --> 00:07:26.410 for Berlin, it opened a back door. for the Allies 00:07:26.410 --> 00:07:29.290 to invade Germany from the south, right through 00:07:29.290 --> 00:07:32.009 an entirely collapsing Austria. Wait, so Germany 00:07:32.009 --> 00:07:34.910 had spent four agonizing years fighting a two 00:07:34.910 --> 00:07:37.689 -front war against France and Britain in the 00:07:37.689 --> 00:07:40.449 west and Russia in the east. Yes. And just as 00:07:40.449 --> 00:07:42.910 they finally get Russia out of the war in 1917, 00:07:43.569 --> 00:07:45.750 suddenly there's a threat of an invasion from 00:07:45.750 --> 00:07:49.009 the south. Exactly. They're facing the terrifying 00:07:49.009 --> 00:07:51.790 prospect of a third front opening up on their 00:07:51.790 --> 00:07:54.759 completely exposed southern border. The German 00:07:54.759 --> 00:07:57.060 High Command recognized immediately that this 00:07:57.060 --> 00:07:59.500 was a fatal development. They had absolutely 00:07:59.500 --> 00:08:02.339 zero reserves left to send south to defend Bavaria. 00:08:02.759 --> 00:08:05.300 Which brings us to the situation inside Germany 00:08:05.300 --> 00:08:07.560 itself. the home front. Yeah, the home front 00:08:07.560 --> 00:08:09.839 was a nightmare. Because while the military is 00:08:09.839 --> 00:08:12.220 facing this giant pincer in France and a new 00:08:12.220 --> 00:08:14.779 southern back door through Austria, the civilian 00:08:14.779 --> 00:08:18.720 population is enduring absolute hell. The naval 00:08:18.720 --> 00:08:21.180 blockade by the allies seems to have been incredibly 00:08:21.180 --> 00:08:23.759 effective, but brutally so. I've heard the term 00:08:23.759 --> 00:08:25.740 turnip winter thrown around regarding Germany 00:08:25.740 --> 00:08:28.379 during this time. Right. Just how bad were the 00:08:28.379 --> 00:08:31.019 conditions for the average civilian? The conditions 00:08:31.019 --> 00:08:34.210 were catastrophic. The Allied naval blockade 00:08:34.210 --> 00:08:36.610 had effectively choked off Germany's ability 00:08:36.610 --> 00:08:39.129 to import food and essential fertilizers for 00:08:39.129 --> 00:08:42.570 years years Yes, the turnip winter actually refers 00:08:42.570 --> 00:08:46.330 to the winter of 1916 to 1917 where the potato 00:08:46.330 --> 00:08:49.029 crop failed and the civilian population had to 00:08:49.029 --> 00:08:52.509 survive almost entirely on route of Vegas Which 00:08:52.509 --> 00:08:54.570 were previously just used as animal feed that 00:08:54.570 --> 00:08:57.870 sounds awful It was. And by the autumn of 1918, 00:08:58.230 --> 00:09:00.750 things were even worse. The German people were 00:09:00.750 --> 00:09:03.809 surviving on literal starvation rations. Bread 00:09:03.809 --> 00:09:06.490 was adulterated with sawdust to make it go further. 00:09:06.990 --> 00:09:09.409 Meat was practically non -existent. You have 00:09:09.409 --> 00:09:11.730 a population that has been slowly starving for 00:09:11.730 --> 00:09:14.029 years. And if starvation wasn't enough, you have 00:09:14.029 --> 00:09:16.529 the devastating Spanish flu pandemic sweeping 00:09:16.529 --> 00:09:19.330 through this incredibly vulnerable population. 00:09:19.450 --> 00:09:21.730 Precisely. The influenza virus was tearing through 00:09:21.730 --> 00:09:24.389 cities, killing people who were already immunocompromised 00:09:24.389 --> 00:09:26.830 by years of severe malnutrition. It's just a 00:09:26.830 --> 00:09:29.629 perfect storm of misery. It really is. And that 00:09:29.629 --> 00:09:32.889 civilian suffering directly impacted the military's 00:09:32.889 --> 00:09:35.870 capacity to continue the war. While the discipline 00:09:35.870 --> 00:09:37.929 of the German troops actually on the front line 00:09:37.929 --> 00:09:40.710 was miraculously holding together, there was 00:09:40.710 --> 00:09:43.740 a desperate critical shortage of manpower. Because 00:09:43.740 --> 00:09:46.340 they just didn't have anyone left to draft. Right. 00:09:46.700 --> 00:09:48.980 Between the horrific battlefield casualties of 00:09:48.980 --> 00:09:52.399 100 days offensive, the starvation rations making 00:09:52.399 --> 00:09:55.299 men physically too weak to fight, and the toll 00:09:55.299 --> 00:09:58.019 of the Spanish flu, which incapacitated up to 00:09:58.019 --> 00:10:00.500 a million soldiers, they simply didn't have the 00:10:00.500 --> 00:10:02.600 bodies to fill the trenches. So they try to pull 00:10:02.600 --> 00:10:05.100 new recruits from the home front. But what kind 00:10:05.100 --> 00:10:06.659 of recruits are they getting? They're getting 00:10:06.659 --> 00:10:09.600 teenagers and old men. And worse for the military 00:10:09.600 --> 00:10:12.120 command, these new recruits are arriving completely 00:10:12.120 --> 00:10:15.070 war weary. entirely disaffected, and carrying 00:10:15.070 --> 00:10:18.629 all the misery, anti -war sentiment, and revolutionary 00:10:18.629 --> 00:10:21.049 discontent of the starving civilian population 00:10:21.049 --> 00:10:23.940 right into the frontline trenches. The military 00:10:23.940 --> 00:10:26.580 machine was running on fumes and the engine was 00:10:26.580 --> 00:10:28.899 starting to spark. So the military is essentially 00:10:28.899 --> 00:10:32.500 paralyzed and the civilians are starving. I have 00:10:32.500 --> 00:10:34.460 to imagine the pressure cooker at the highest 00:10:34.460 --> 00:10:36.799 levels of German command is about to explode. 00:10:36.879 --> 00:10:39.480 It does explode. And this brings us to the political 00:10:39.480 --> 00:10:42.940 chessboard, the sheer panic at the top. We are 00:10:42.940 --> 00:10:45.659 at the Imperial Army headquarters at Spa. in 00:10:45.659 --> 00:10:48.840 occupied Belgium. The date is September 29th, 00:10:48.980 --> 00:10:52.179 1918. Same day Bulgaria signed their armistice. 00:10:52.620 --> 00:10:55.519 Right. So Quartermaster General Erich Ludendorff, 00:10:55.720 --> 00:10:57.919 who, along with Hindenburg, is basically running 00:10:57.919 --> 00:11:00.399 a military dictatorship in Germany at this point, 00:11:00.779 --> 00:11:03.840 goes to Emperor Wilhelm II and the imperial chancellor. 00:11:04.940 --> 00:11:07.960 And Ludendorff just drops a bomb. A massive one. 00:11:08.139 --> 00:11:10.200 He tells them the military situation is completely 00:11:10.200 --> 00:11:13.039 hopeless. He explicitly says he cannot guarantee 00:11:13.039 --> 00:11:14.919 that the front will hold for another two hours. 00:11:15.039 --> 00:11:17.360 Two hours. And he demands that a request be sent 00:11:17.360 --> 00:11:19.960 for an immediate ceasefire. The panic is palpable. 00:11:20.440 --> 00:11:22.700 Ludendorff's nerves are famously shattered at 00:11:22.700 --> 00:11:24.980 this point. But what's truly sinister is the 00:11:24.980 --> 00:11:27.659 strategic pivot he makes in that exact same breath. 00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:31.779 He doesn't just ask for a ceasefire. He recommends 00:11:31.779 --> 00:11:34.580 that the German government fundamentally change 00:11:34.580 --> 00:11:38.519 its structure. He demands they accept the main 00:11:38.519 --> 00:11:41.539 demands of U .S. President Woodrow Wilson's 14 00:11:41.539 --> 00:11:44.940 points, which specifically included putting the 00:11:44.940 --> 00:11:47.200 imperial government on a democratic footing. 00:11:47.679 --> 00:11:50.279 Now hold on a second. Yeah. Ludendorff was a 00:11:50.279 --> 00:11:53.899 hardline, aristocratic, authoritarian military 00:11:53.899 --> 00:11:58.059 commander. Why on earth would he suddenly advocate 00:11:58.059 --> 00:12:00.759 for handing power over to a democratic parliament? 00:12:00.889 --> 00:12:03.750 That makes no sense. It makes perfect, cynical 00:12:03.750 --> 00:12:06.250 sense when you realize what he was doing. Oh, 00:12:06.309 --> 00:12:08.129 I see where you're going. The historical record 00:12:08.129 --> 00:12:11.009 makes his motive chillingly clear. Yes, he did 00:12:11.009 --> 00:12:13.090 it, hoping for more favorable peace terms from 00:12:13.090 --> 00:12:15.549 the Americans, believing Wilson would be softer 00:12:15.549 --> 00:12:18.289 on a fellow democracy than on an autocratic empire. 00:12:18.450 --> 00:12:20.730 Sure, that's the surface reason. But primarily, 00:12:20.870 --> 00:12:22.970 he did it to save the face of the Imperial German 00:12:22.970 --> 00:12:25.799 Army. Ludendorff knew the war was lost. He knew 00:12:25.799 --> 00:12:28.759 a humiliating surrender was inevitable. By handing 00:12:28.759 --> 00:12:31.019 power to a civilian democratic government at 00:12:31.019 --> 00:12:33.899 the exact moment the war was lost, he ensured 00:12:33.899 --> 00:12:36.100 the new democratic politicians would be the ones 00:12:36.100 --> 00:12:38.360 forced to sign the capitulation. This is one 00:12:38.360 --> 00:12:39.899 of the most critical moments we are going to 00:12:39.899 --> 00:12:43.000 talk about today. Ludendorff is orchestrating 00:12:43.000 --> 00:12:46.320 a military defeat, recognizing the army has failed. 00:12:46.840 --> 00:12:49.759 but intentionally designing the political aftermath 00:12:49.759 --> 00:12:52.519 so the civilians take the fall. That is dark. 00:12:52.919 --> 00:12:54.860 There is a specific quote that we have to feature 00:12:54.860 --> 00:12:57.720 here. Ludendorff, speaking to the officers of 00:12:57.720 --> 00:13:00.279 his staff on October 1st about these civilian 00:13:00.279 --> 00:13:03.100 politicians taking over, says they now must lie 00:13:03.100 --> 00:13:05.580 on the bed that they've made for us. The sheer 00:13:05.580 --> 00:13:09.080 audacity of that statement. I know. It is breathtakingly 00:13:09.080 --> 00:13:12.159 cynical. He is preemptively washing his hands 00:13:12.159 --> 00:13:15.309 of the disaster he helped create. This exact 00:13:15.309 --> 00:13:18.210 moment, this specific calculated decision by 00:13:18.210 --> 00:13:20.470 Ludendorff to step back into the shadows and 00:13:20.470 --> 00:13:22.549 let a brand new civilian government sign the 00:13:22.549 --> 00:13:26.370 surrender, is the absolute bedrock of the disastrous 00:13:26.370 --> 00:13:28.789 stab in the back myth that will plate Germany 00:13:28.789 --> 00:13:31.179 later. Yeah. He is setting the trap. And the 00:13:31.179 --> 00:13:33.220 political scrambling just accelerates from there. 00:13:33.440 --> 00:13:35.919 On October 3rd, the liberal Prince Maximilian 00:13:35.919 --> 00:13:37.879 of Baden is appointed as the new chancellor, 00:13:38.200 --> 00:13:40.620 replacing the old third specifically to negotiate 00:13:40.620 --> 00:13:43.080 this armistice. By October 5th, they are sending 00:13:43.080 --> 00:13:46.360 messages to President Wilson in Washington. But 00:13:46.360 --> 00:13:48.679 this telegraph war in October is fascinating 00:13:48.679 --> 00:13:50.980 because Wilson is playing absolute hardball. 00:13:51.679 --> 00:13:54.799 The Germans want peace based on his 14 points, 00:13:55.120 --> 00:13:58.120 but Wilson keeps escalating his demands. We should 00:13:58.120 --> 00:14:00.740 probably clarify what Wilson's 14 points actually 00:14:00.740 --> 00:14:02.700 were, because they are central to this whole 00:14:02.700 --> 00:14:05.639 negotiation. Yeah, good point. In January 1918, 00:14:05.940 --> 00:14:08.620 Wilson had outlined a vision for a postwar world. 00:14:09.200 --> 00:14:11.539 It included things like open diplomacy with no 00:14:11.539 --> 00:14:14.240 secret treaties, absolute freedom of navigation 00:14:14.240 --> 00:14:16.879 on the seas, the removal of economic barriers 00:14:16.879 --> 00:14:20.149 and free trade. Sounds very modern. It was. It 00:14:20.149 --> 00:14:22.370 also included national self -determination for 00:14:22.370 --> 00:14:24.850 the peoples of Europe and the creation of a general 00:14:24.850 --> 00:14:26.710 association of nations, what would eventually 00:14:26.710 --> 00:14:29.750 become the League of Nations. It was a highly 00:14:29.750 --> 00:14:32.789 idealistic, almost utopian framework for peace 00:14:32.789 --> 00:14:35.309 without a clear victor or vanquished. Right, 00:14:35.429 --> 00:14:37.929 so the Germans, facing total military collapse, 00:14:38.049 --> 00:14:40.230 suddenly say, hey, those 14 points sound great, 00:14:40.269 --> 00:14:43.350 let's do that. But Wilson isn't buying the sudden 00:14:43.350 --> 00:14:46.720 conversion to democracy. On October 23, Wilson 00:14:46.720 --> 00:14:48.600 essentially writes back that if the U .S. has 00:14:48.600 --> 00:14:51.500 to deal with the military masters and the monarchical 00:14:51.500 --> 00:14:54.259 autocrats of Germany, they aren't going to negotiate 00:14:54.259 --> 00:14:57.879 peace. They are going to demand absolute surrender. 00:14:58.299 --> 00:15:00.659 He draws a hard line. He really does. He makes 00:15:00.659 --> 00:15:03.039 the abdication of the Kaiser a hard prerequisite 00:15:03.039 --> 00:15:05.299 for even stopping the shooting. And while Wilson 00:15:05.299 --> 00:15:08.000 is demanding the Kaiser's head and pushing his 00:15:08.000 --> 00:15:11.059 idealistic points, there is a massive fracture 00:15:11.059 --> 00:15:14.379 happening among the allies themselves. Oh, because 00:15:14.379 --> 00:15:16.159 the The French, the British, and the Italians 00:15:16.159 --> 00:15:18.840 didn't actually want Wilson's 14 points. Really? 00:15:19.240 --> 00:15:21.799 Why not? Wasn't the whole point of the allied 00:15:21.799 --> 00:15:24.799 effort to establish a lasting peace? You get 00:15:24.799 --> 00:15:26.279 to look at it from the European perspective. 00:15:26.639 --> 00:15:29.240 The European allies view these 14 commandments, 00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:32.340 as French Prime Minister Clemenceau mockingly 00:15:32.340 --> 00:15:35.940 called them, essentially as clever American propaganda. 00:15:37.009 --> 00:15:40.049 It was a great psychological weapon for undermining 00:15:40.049 --> 00:15:42.710 the fighting spirit of the central powers, but 00:15:42.710 --> 00:15:44.970 they thought the actual principles were vague, 00:15:45.570 --> 00:15:47.950 completely unrealistic, and deeply threatening 00:15:47.950 --> 00:15:50.250 to their own postwar plans. Threatening how? 00:15:50.409 --> 00:15:52.830 Well, France and Britain had vast colonial empires. 00:15:52.889 --> 00:15:54.990 They didn't want to hear about national self 00:15:54.990 --> 00:15:57.789 -determination. Oh, right. That would be bad 00:15:57.789 --> 00:16:00.110 for the empire business. Exactly. Furthermore, 00:16:00.590 --> 00:16:02.590 France had had its industrial heartland completely 00:16:02.590 --> 00:16:05.590 destroyed by four years of German occupation 00:16:05.590 --> 00:16:08.549 and artillery. They didn't want a lenient piece 00:16:08.549 --> 00:16:11.289 based on American ideals. They wanted security. 00:16:11.519 --> 00:16:14.559 They wanted to crush Germany's physical ability 00:16:14.559 --> 00:16:17.600 to ever cross the Rhine River again. This disagreement 00:16:17.600 --> 00:16:19.820 among the Allies gets so intense that Wilson 00:16:19.820 --> 00:16:22.139 has to consult the top military commanders to 00:16:22.139 --> 00:16:24.539 find a consensus on what the actual armistice 00:16:24.539 --> 00:16:26.720 terms should be. Right. And the debate between 00:16:26.720 --> 00:16:29.279 these Allied commanders is so revealing of their 00:16:29.279 --> 00:16:31.340 vastly different mindsets. You have Field Marshal 00:16:31.340 --> 00:16:34.000 Douglas Haig representing the British. He actually 00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:37.940 urges moderation, which surprised me. Yes. Haig 00:16:37.940 --> 00:16:40.340 argued that the German army wasn't totally broken 00:16:40.340 --> 00:16:43.269 yet. He believed they could still retreat to 00:16:43.269 --> 00:16:46.190 shorter, highly defensible lines closer to the 00:16:46.190 --> 00:16:49.049 German border and drag the war out for another 00:16:49.049 --> 00:16:51.909 year. Which nobody wanted. Right. He wanted to 00:16:51.909 --> 00:16:53.769 grant them conditions they could actually stomach 00:16:53.769 --> 00:16:56.649 to end the slaughter now. But interestingly, 00:16:57.070 --> 00:17:00.029 there was also a political calculation. The British 00:17:00.029 --> 00:17:02.830 establishment wanted to keep The German army, 00:17:03.149 --> 00:17:06.369 somewhat intact and mobilized to act as a conservative 00:17:06.369 --> 00:17:08.829 counterweight against the spread of communist 00:17:08.829 --> 00:17:12.049 agitation sweeping westward from Bolshevik Russia. 00:17:12.210 --> 00:17:13.730 That makes sense. They're already looking at 00:17:13.730 --> 00:17:16.130 the next threat. Exactly. But the French commander, 00:17:16.349 --> 00:17:18.509 Marshal Ferdinand Foch, had a totally different 00:17:18.509 --> 00:17:21.269 view. Right. Completely different. Foch agrees 00:17:21.269 --> 00:17:23.789 with Hague's military assessment that the Germans 00:17:23.789 --> 00:17:26.490 could retreat and form a new defensive line. 00:17:26.869 --> 00:17:29.490 But his conclusion is the exact opposite. He 00:17:29.490 --> 00:17:33.339 wants to crush them. Foch wants. stringent punishing 00:17:33.339 --> 00:17:36.099 terms. He doesn't want to negotiate. He wants 00:17:36.099 --> 00:17:39.140 to dictate. He demands the military occupation 00:17:39.140 --> 00:17:41.980 of the Rhineland, allied bridgeheads over the 00:17:41.980 --> 00:17:44.980 Rhine River itself, and the surrender of massive 00:17:44.980 --> 00:17:48.059 crippling quantities of military material. He 00:17:48.059 --> 00:17:50.339 wants to physically neuter the German military 00:17:50.339 --> 00:17:53.079 once and for all. And then finally, you have 00:17:53.079 --> 00:17:55.720 General John Pershing, the commander of the American 00:17:55.720 --> 00:17:58.369 Expeditionary Forces. I have to play devil's 00:17:58.369 --> 00:18:00.269 advocate here because Pershing's stance sounds 00:18:00.269 --> 00:18:03.569 incredibly extreme. It was very extreme. He opposed 00:18:03.569 --> 00:18:05.789 giving the Germans any armistice at all. He wanted 00:18:05.789 --> 00:18:08.369 to reject the ceasefire entirely and fight the 00:18:08.369 --> 00:18:10.970 war all the way to Berlin. Why would he want 00:18:10.970 --> 00:18:13.349 to continue the bloodshed when the enemy is asking 00:18:13.349 --> 00:18:16.390 for peace? You can certainly view it as warmongering, 00:18:16.529 --> 00:18:18.630 but Pershing actually foresaw exactly what would 00:18:18.630 --> 00:18:20.890 happen if they didn't secure an unconditional 00:18:20.890 --> 00:18:23.079 surrender on German soil. What did he see coming? 00:18:23.380 --> 00:18:25.259 He believed that if the Allied armies didn't 00:18:25.259 --> 00:18:27.599 march into Berlin, the German military would 00:18:27.599 --> 00:18:30.480 never truly admit defeat and the German populace 00:18:30.480 --> 00:18:32.900 wouldn't believe they were beaten. He wrote that 00:18:32.900 --> 00:18:35.299 accepting an armistice now would only mean they 00:18:35.299 --> 00:18:37.619 would have to fight Germany again in another 00:18:37.619 --> 00:18:41.839 20 years. That is a chillingly accurate prophecy. 00:18:42.099 --> 00:18:45.180 It really is. But the combined effect of these 00:18:45.180 --> 00:18:48.240 hardcore military perspectives from Foch and 00:18:48.240 --> 00:18:51.599 Pershing effectively nullified Wilson's idealistic 00:18:51.599 --> 00:18:54.519 14 points. The terms were going to be brutal. 00:18:54.740 --> 00:18:56.819 And while the Allied commanders are arguing in 00:18:56.819 --> 00:18:59.400 Paris over exactly how hard to crush Germany, 00:18:59.980 --> 00:19:02.559 Germany is rapidly crushing itself from the inside. 00:19:02.779 --> 00:19:05.440 Yes. The situation completely spirals out of 00:19:05.440 --> 00:19:07.640 the government's control. We see the outbreak 00:19:07.640 --> 00:19:10.220 of the German Revolution. And it starts of all 00:19:10.220 --> 00:19:12.619 places with the Navy. Yes. It starts with the 00:19:12.619 --> 00:19:15.250 mutiny of the German high seas fleet. For most 00:19:15.250 --> 00:19:17.470 of the war, the mighty German fleet had been 00:19:17.470 --> 00:19:20.250 bottled up in port by the British Royal Navy. 00:19:20.269 --> 00:19:22.710 Just sitting there. Sitting there. Yeah. In late 00:19:22.710 --> 00:19:25.230 October, the German Naval Command, without authorization 00:19:25.230 --> 00:19:27.509 from the new civilian government, decided to 00:19:27.509 --> 00:19:31.569 launch one final, massive, suicidal battle against 00:19:31.569 --> 00:19:35.079 the British fleet to quote, save the honor of 00:19:35.079 --> 00:19:37.420 the Navy. So they ordered these sailors, who 00:19:37.420 --> 00:19:39.319 knew the war was basically over and the government 00:19:39.319 --> 00:19:41.960 was suing for peace, to sail out and die just 00:19:41.960 --> 00:19:44.859 for the sake of naval pride. Exactly. And the 00:19:44.859 --> 00:19:47.000 sailors simply refused. I don't blame them. Right. 00:19:47.160 --> 00:19:50.599 During the night of October 29th to 30th, sailors 00:19:50.599 --> 00:19:53.839 in the port of Vilhamshaven revolt. They extinguish 00:19:53.839 --> 00:19:56.160 the boilers on their ships. They refuse to weigh 00:19:56.160 --> 00:19:58.480 anchor. When the naval command tries to suppress 00:19:58.480 --> 00:20:00.579 them and arrest the ringleaders, this mutiny 00:20:00.579 --> 00:20:03.099 just erupts and spreads like wildfire. It jumps 00:20:03.099 --> 00:20:06.079 from the ships to the streets. Within days, the 00:20:06.079 --> 00:20:07.960 revolt moves from the ports into the industrial 00:20:07.960 --> 00:20:10.809 cities. Workers and soldiers councils modeled 00:20:10.809 --> 00:20:13.049 directly on the Soviets of the Russian Revolution 00:20:13.049 --> 00:20:15.750 start seizing control in major cities like Kiel, 00:20:16.009 --> 00:20:18.890 Bremen, Munich, and eventually Berlin. What do 00:20:18.890 --> 00:20:21.369 they want? Their primary goal is an immediate 00:20:21.369 --> 00:20:23.710 end to the war, the abdication of the Kaiser, 00:20:24.309 --> 00:20:27.349 and drastic social reform. The pressure on the 00:20:27.349 --> 00:20:30.470 government is insurmountable. The situation forces 00:20:30.470 --> 00:20:33.430 the hand of the ruling elite. Prince Max of Baden, 00:20:33.490 --> 00:20:36.289 the Chancellor, realizes that the Kaiser's stubborn 00:20:36.289 --> 00:20:38.829 refusal to abdicate is not only blocking any 00:20:38.829 --> 00:20:41.630 chance of peace with the Allies, but it is fueling 00:20:41.630 --> 00:20:44.329 a full -blown violent, potentially communist 00:20:44.329 --> 00:20:46.869 revolution right outside his window in Berlin. 00:20:47.109 --> 00:20:50.309 Yeah, he has to act fast. So on November 9th, 00:20:50.430 --> 00:20:52.349 acting entirely on his own authority without 00:20:52.349 --> 00:20:54.930 even telling the Kaiser, Prince Max announces 00:20:54.930 --> 00:20:58.150 to the press that Wilhelm II has abdicated. He 00:20:58.150 --> 00:21:00.410 then hands the office of Chancellor over to Friedrich 00:21:00.410 --> 00:21:02.980 Ebert. the leader of the Social Democrats. And 00:21:02.980 --> 00:21:05.720 that very same afternoon, another Social Democrat, 00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:08.200 Philip Scheidman, steps onto a balcony at the 00:21:08.200 --> 00:21:11.500 Reichstag. OK. He sees massive crowds of workers 00:21:11.500 --> 00:21:13.900 and soldiers. And to preempt the more radical 00:21:13.900 --> 00:21:15.779 communists from declaring a Soviet republic, 00:21:16.259 --> 00:21:18.460 he officially declares Germany a republic. Just 00:21:18.460 --> 00:21:22.000 like that. Just like that. So. In the span of 00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:24.680 a few chaotic hours, the centuries old German 00:21:24.680 --> 00:21:27.980 Empire falls. The Kaiser is forced to flee by 00:21:27.980 --> 00:21:30.519 train into exile in the Netherlands. And this 00:21:30.519 --> 00:21:34.299 brand new, incredibly fragile, democratic republic 00:21:34.299 --> 00:21:37.680 is born. And it is born just in time to be handed 00:21:37.680 --> 00:21:40.619 the pen to sign a humiliating, crushing surrender 00:21:40.619 --> 00:21:43.839 exactly as Ludendorff had planned. Exactly. Which 00:21:43.839 --> 00:21:46.480 brings us to the actual signing process. Section 00:21:46.480 --> 00:21:50.980 three, the secret train in Kampian. Negotiations, 00:21:51.019 --> 00:21:52.900 if you can even call them that. Dictations more 00:21:52.900 --> 00:21:55.720 like? Yeah. We have Matthias Erzberger stepping 00:21:55.720 --> 00:21:58.599 up to lead the German delegation. Who is Erzberger 00:21:58.599 --> 00:22:00.640 and why is he the one going instead of a military 00:22:00.640 --> 00:22:03.619 general? Matthias Erzberger was a prominent civilian 00:22:03.619 --> 00:22:05.880 politician from the Catholic Center Party. He 00:22:05.880 --> 00:22:08.000 had actually been an early supporter of the war, 00:22:08.299 --> 00:22:11.440 but by 1917 he had become a leading voice in 00:22:11.440 --> 00:22:14.299 the Reichstag, pushing for a negotiated peace. 00:22:14.539 --> 00:22:16.759 So he's already associated with wanting peace. 00:22:17.140 --> 00:22:19.440 Right. And because the military high command 00:22:19.440 --> 00:22:21.920 Hindenburg and Ludendorff refused to have their 00:22:21.920 --> 00:22:23.740 fingerprints anywhere near the surrender document, 00:22:24.180 --> 00:22:26.259 they forced the new civilian government to send 00:22:26.259 --> 00:22:29.460 someone. Erzberger was essentially handed a poison 00:22:29.460 --> 00:22:32.160 chalice. What a terrible position to be in. He 00:22:32.160 --> 00:22:34.920 was a civilian, a Democrat, being sent to surrender 00:22:34.920 --> 00:22:37.099 on behalf of an army that claimed it hadn't been 00:22:37.099 --> 00:22:39.380 defeated. Imagine the journey this man had to 00:22:39.380 --> 00:22:42.140 take. Erzberger and his small team crossed the 00:22:42.140 --> 00:22:45.630 front line in five cars. They are escorted by 00:22:45.630 --> 00:22:49.369 French officers for 10 harrowing hours across 00:22:49.369 --> 00:22:52.150 the completely devastated war zone of northern 00:22:52.150 --> 00:22:55.369 France. Just a horrific landscape. 10 hours driving 00:22:55.369 --> 00:22:58.069 over filled -in artillery craters, navigating 00:22:58.069 --> 00:23:00.789 through seas of mud, passing the rotting corpses 00:23:00.789 --> 00:23:03.549 of horses, and seeing the total ruins of towns 00:23:03.549 --> 00:23:06.650 wiped off the map by four years of industrialized 00:23:06.650 --> 00:23:09.809 slaughter. They cross no man's land with a white 00:23:09.809 --> 00:23:12.630 flag and a bugler sounding the ceasefire just 00:23:12.630 --> 00:23:14.549 to reach the meeting point on the morning of 00:23:14.549 --> 00:23:16.869 November 8th. What's fascinating here is the 00:23:16.869 --> 00:23:19.150 sheer psychological dominance of the setup once 00:23:19.150 --> 00:23:22.369 they finally arrive. The power dynamics. Exactly. 00:23:22.509 --> 00:23:24.950 They aren't taken to a grand palace or a government 00:23:24.950 --> 00:23:27.430 building in Paris. They are taken to a secret 00:23:27.430 --> 00:23:30.990 destination, a railway siding deep in the forest 00:23:30.990 --> 00:23:34.210 of Compiègne. And they are brought aboard the 00:23:34.210 --> 00:23:37.349 private train car of the allied supreme commander. 00:23:39.339 --> 00:23:42.180 The claustrophobia of that must have been intense. 00:23:42.420 --> 00:23:44.680 You're trapped in a train car in a dark forest 00:23:44.680 --> 00:23:46.640 with a man who has just defeated your nation. 00:23:46.839 --> 00:23:49.559 And this wasn't a diplomatic negotiation around 00:23:49.559 --> 00:23:52.359 a table. Foch designed it to be a dictation. 00:23:52.819 --> 00:23:55.119 He treated the German delegation with absolute 00:23:55.119 --> 00:23:58.359 icy contempt. I can imagine. The historical record 00:23:58.359 --> 00:24:00.720 explicitly notes that Foch only appeared twice 00:24:00.720 --> 00:24:03.240 during the entire three days of talks. Only twice 00:24:03.240 --> 00:24:05.220 in three days? Yes. He appeared on the first 00:24:05.220 --> 00:24:07.319 day simply to ask the German delegation, What 00:24:07.319 --> 00:24:09.480 do you want of me?" When Erzberger said they 00:24:09.480 --> 00:24:11.779 were there to hear the proposals for an armistice, 00:24:12.079 --> 00:24:14.460 Fosch coldly replied, I have no proposals to 00:24:14.460 --> 00:24:16.720 make. Wow. He forced the Germans to formally 00:24:16.720 --> 00:24:19.380 ask for an armistice as a defeated power. Then 00:24:19.380 --> 00:24:21.619 he handed them a staggering list of allied demands 00:24:21.619 --> 00:24:24.400 and essentially told them they had 72 hours to 00:24:24.400 --> 00:24:27.559 agree, take it or leave it. So they have 72 hours. 00:24:28.119 --> 00:24:31.019 Erzberger is stuck in this train car, frantically 00:24:31.019 --> 00:24:33.740 sending telegraphs back to a government in Berlin 00:24:33.740 --> 00:24:36.460 that is literally in the middle of a revolution. 00:24:36.839 --> 00:24:39.160 Trying to talk to leaders who might not even 00:24:39.160 --> 00:24:42.220 be in power the next hour, right? He is begging 00:24:42.220 --> 00:24:44.980 for instructions, but his leverage is exactly 00:24:44.980 --> 00:24:47.660 zero They were allowed to discuss the technical 00:24:47.660 --> 00:24:50.420 terms with other French and Allied officers But 00:24:50.420 --> 00:24:53.400 not with fuck himself right the Germans were 00:24:53.400 --> 00:24:55.920 trapped They were only able to correct a few 00:24:55.920 --> 00:24:58.599 demands that were physically impossible to fulfill 00:24:58.599 --> 00:25:02.059 like what for example They pointed out the Allies 00:25:02.059 --> 00:25:04.339 were demanding the surrender of more operational 00:25:04.339 --> 00:25:07.079 submarines than the entire German fleet actually 00:25:07.079 --> 00:25:09.180 possessed. OK, yeah, you can't hand over what 00:25:09.180 --> 00:25:11.720 doesn't exist. Exactly. They also managed to 00:25:11.720 --> 00:25:13.960 slightly extend the timeline for their military 00:25:13.960 --> 00:25:16.759 withdrawal across the Rhine, arguing that if 00:25:16.759 --> 00:25:19.000 they had to move that fast, their army would 00:25:19.000 --> 00:25:21.519 simply disintegrate into an armed starving mob. 00:25:21.869 --> 00:25:25.009 But otherwise, the terms were immovable. On Sunday, 00:25:25.009 --> 00:25:27.690 November 10th, the French show Erzberger Paris 00:25:27.690 --> 00:25:30.630 newspapers confirming that his own Kaiser had 00:25:30.630 --> 00:25:33.109 abdicated. He finds out from the enemy's newspapers. 00:25:33.710 --> 00:25:37.230 Yeah. That same day, Ebert, the new chancellor 00:25:37.230 --> 00:25:40.009 in Berlin, finally gets a message through instructing 00:25:40.009 --> 00:25:42.519 Erzberger to sign. They even got a message from 00:25:42.519 --> 00:25:44.720 Paul von Hindenburg, the head of the German high 00:25:44.720 --> 00:25:47.220 command, begging them to sign even if the terms 00:25:47.220 --> 00:25:49.220 couldn't be improved because the army was on 00:25:49.220 --> 00:25:51.380 the verge of total collapse. Because the terms 00:25:51.380 --> 00:25:54.660 Foch handed them were absolutely crushing. When 00:25:54.660 --> 00:25:57.380 we look at the specific list of surrendered material, 00:25:57.759 --> 00:26:01.079 it's not just a military disarmament. It is a 00:26:01.079 --> 00:26:03.660 systematic calculated dismantling of a modern 00:26:03.660 --> 00:26:06.200 industrial state's capacity to function. Let's 00:26:06.200 --> 00:26:09.000 hear the numbers. The Allies demanded 5 ,000 00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:12.759 artillery pieces, 25 ,000 machine guns, 3 ,000 00:26:12.759 --> 00:26:16.019 trench mortars, and 1 ,700 aircraft, specifically 00:26:16.019 --> 00:26:18.440 including all -night bombers. That immediately 00:26:18.440 --> 00:26:20.440 strips away their offensive capability. But then 00:26:20.440 --> 00:26:22.519 you look at the logistical demands and my jaw 00:26:22.519 --> 00:26:25.339 hit the floor. Yeah. 5 ,000 railway locomotives, 00:26:25.519 --> 00:26:29.019 150 ,000 railway carriages, and 5 ,000 motorized 00:26:29.019 --> 00:26:31.380 road trucks. The numbers are so vast they are 00:26:31.380 --> 00:26:33.339 almost hard to visualize. Just to put it that 00:26:33.339 --> 00:26:36.299 in perspective, taking 150 ,000 railway carriages 00:26:36.299 --> 00:26:39.420 is isn't just taking their guns. Precisely. It 00:26:39.420 --> 00:26:41.839 is essential to understand why those specific 00:26:41.839 --> 00:26:46.700 items mattered so much. In 1918, a nation's entire 00:26:46.700 --> 00:26:50.380 existence was dependent on railways. Taking 150 00:26:50.380 --> 00:26:53.559 ,000 carriages and 5 ,000 locomotives was about 00:26:53.559 --> 00:26:56.180 completely paralyzing Germany's internal logistics. 00:26:56.759 --> 00:26:59.180 So they can't move troops. Yes. It meant they 00:26:59.180 --> 00:27:00.759 couldn't move troops to the border to restart 00:27:00.759 --> 00:27:02.750 the war. But it also meant they would severely 00:27:02.750 --> 00:27:05.269 struggle to move food from the farms to the starting 00:27:05.269 --> 00:27:08.170 cities or coal from the mines to heat homes during 00:27:08.170 --> 00:27:11.569 the winter. It was a strategic crippling of the 00:27:11.569 --> 00:27:14.269 civilian economy to ensure absolute compliance. 00:27:14.569 --> 00:27:16.789 And furthermore, the terms required the evacuation 00:27:16.789 --> 00:27:18.849 of all German territory on the west side of the 00:27:18.849 --> 00:27:21.769 Rhine River and established major allied bridgeheads 00:27:21.769 --> 00:27:24.269 with a 30 kilometer radius on the east side, 00:27:24.390 --> 00:27:27.329 a key industrial cities, Mainz, Koblenz and Cologne. 00:27:27.640 --> 00:27:29.859 They were putting allied boots firmly on German 00:27:29.859 --> 00:27:32.460 soil, holding the industrial heartland hostage. 00:27:32.799 --> 00:27:35.039 And on top of all that, the allies demanded the 00:27:35.039 --> 00:27:37.039 immediate release of all allied prisoners of 00:27:37.039 --> 00:27:38.980 war. OK, that makes sense. But and this is a 00:27:38.980 --> 00:27:41.099 deeply brutal punitive detail. This was without 00:27:41.099 --> 00:27:43.420 any reciprocal release of German POWs. Wait, 00:27:43.559 --> 00:27:46.160 really? The German prisoners stayed locked up 00:27:46.160 --> 00:27:49.420 in allied camps. Furthermore, the naval blockade 00:27:49.420 --> 00:27:52.700 of Germany. The very blockade causing the starvation 00:27:52.700 --> 00:27:54.579 rations, the sawdust bread, the turnip winter 00:27:54.579 --> 00:27:57.480 we talked about earlier, was to continue in full 00:27:57.480 --> 00:28:00.539 force until a final permanent peace treaty was 00:28:00.539 --> 00:28:03.460 agreed upon months later at Versailles. So the 00:28:03.460 --> 00:28:06.200 starving continues. It was an armistice of total 00:28:06.200 --> 00:28:08.779 unmitigated submission. Which brings us to the 00:28:08.779 --> 00:28:11.839 signing itself and into section four, the eleventh 00:28:11.839 --> 00:28:15.039 hour and the deeply tragic final morning of the 00:28:15.039 --> 00:28:17.630 war. The agreement was officially signed in Faxxi's 00:28:17.630 --> 00:28:19.970 railway car at 5 a .m. Paris time on Monday, 00:28:19.990 --> 00:28:23.250 November 11th, 1918. However, it was scheduled 00:28:23.250 --> 00:28:26.130 to come into effect six hours later at 11 a .m. 00:28:26.289 --> 00:28:29.029 Why the six hour delay? If the ink is dry at 00:28:29.029 --> 00:28:31.769 5 a .m., why not just issue an immediate ceasefire 00:28:31.769 --> 00:28:34.809 order? The delay was ostensibly practical. They 00:28:34.809 --> 00:28:37.049 needed time to transmit the news down a vast 00:28:37.049 --> 00:28:39.589 complex chain of command from the Supreme Headquarters 00:28:39.589 --> 00:28:41.730 through the Army groups down to the divisions, 00:28:41.869 --> 00:28:44.210 brigades, and finally to the millions of individual 00:28:44.210 --> 00:28:46.670 men sitting in the mud across hundreds of miles 00:28:46.670 --> 00:28:48.730 of the Western Front. Because communications 00:28:48.730 --> 00:28:51.569 back then were pretty rudimentary. Very. They 00:28:51.569 --> 00:28:54.230 relied on a spotty network of telegraphs, field 00:28:54.230 --> 00:28:57.130 telephones, and literally just runners. But those 00:28:57.130 --> 00:29:00.289 six hours of delay proved to be lethal. Here's 00:29:00.289 --> 00:29:02.109 where it gets really interesting, but in the 00:29:02.109 --> 00:29:04.789 most heartbreaking, infuriating way possible. 00:29:05.029 --> 00:29:07.190 Because you would think once the paper is signed, 00:29:07.369 --> 00:29:10.670 the shooting naturally winds down. But the historical 00:29:10.670 --> 00:29:13.289 record reveals that the fighting actually intensified 00:29:13.289 --> 00:29:16.509 in some sectors right up until 11 a .m. It's 00:29:16.509 --> 00:29:19.220 awful. The numbers are just unbelievable. There 00:29:19.220 --> 00:29:23.640 were nearly 11 ,000 casualties, 10 ,944 to be 00:29:23.640 --> 00:29:26.680 exact, on the very last day of the war. Of those, 00:29:27.319 --> 00:29:31.380 2 ,738 men actually died, nearly 3 ,000 men killed 00:29:31.380 --> 00:29:33.819 in a war that was already officially over on 00:29:33.819 --> 00:29:36.319 paper. How on earth does a military apparatus 00:29:36.319 --> 00:29:39.339 justify that? It is justified through a mix of 00:29:39.339 --> 00:29:41.940 bureaucratic inertia, logistical stubbornness, 00:29:42.380 --> 00:29:45.079 and cold, hard, callous military calculation. 00:29:45.380 --> 00:29:47.200 Logistical stubbornness? What do you mean? Well, 00:29:47.200 --> 00:29:48.480 you have to remember, these generals have been 00:29:48.480 --> 00:29:50.940 fighting a war of attrition for four years. The 00:29:50.940 --> 00:29:53.500 mindset doesn't just switch off. Many artillery 00:29:53.500 --> 00:29:55.660 units continued to fire simply because they didn't 00:29:55.660 --> 00:29:57.880 want to have to haul their heavy spare ammunition 00:29:57.880 --> 00:30:00.420 all the way back to the railheads. You have got 00:30:00.420 --> 00:30:02.460 to be kidding me. So they just fired it off at 00:30:02.460 --> 00:30:05.180 German targets. They killed people, rather than 00:30:05.180 --> 00:30:08.240 carry heavy boxes. Essentially, yes. Furthermore, 00:30:08.619 --> 00:30:11.420 Allied commanders wished to ensure that if the 00:30:11.420 --> 00:30:13.960 armistice failed, if the Germans rejected the 00:30:13.960 --> 00:30:15.599 terms at the last minute or resumed fighting 00:30:15.599 --> 00:30:18.119 in a week, the Allied armies would be in the 00:30:18.119 --> 00:30:20.640 most favorable tactical positions possible. So 00:30:20.640 --> 00:30:23.339 they ordered their men to keep advancing. Keep 00:30:23.339 --> 00:30:25.839 capturing high ground. Keep attacking machine 00:30:25.839 --> 00:30:29.299 gun nests right up to the final minute. A stunning 00:30:29.299 --> 00:30:31.960 example of this determination to maintain pressure 00:30:31.960 --> 00:30:35.259 is Battery 4 of the U .S. Navy's long -range 00:30:35.259 --> 00:30:38.279 14 -inch railway guns. What did they do? They 00:30:38.279 --> 00:30:41.160 fired their last massive shell at exactly 10 00:30:41.160 --> 00:30:44.180 .57 and 30 seconds in the morning from the Verdun 00:30:44.180 --> 00:30:47.140 area. They timed it perfectly, calculating the 00:30:47.140 --> 00:30:49.200 flight time so the shell would land far behind 00:30:49.200 --> 00:30:51.720 the German front lines just seconds before the 00:30:51.720 --> 00:30:55.000 11 a .m. deadline. It is so clinical and so utterly 00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:56.819 devastating when you realize what that meant 00:30:56.819 --> 00:30:58.849 for the men on the ground. We have the names 00:30:58.849 --> 00:31:00.890 and stories of some of the final Fallen, and 00:31:00.890 --> 00:31:02.569 slowing down to look at these stories is really 00:31:02.569 --> 00:31:05.410 the only way to grasp the senselessness of those 00:31:05.410 --> 00:31:08.589 final hours. For instance, there's George Edwin 00:31:08.589 --> 00:31:11.230 Ellison, a soldier from the UK serving with the 00:31:11.230 --> 00:31:14.890 5th Royal Irish Lancers. He had survived four 00:31:14.890 --> 00:31:17.049 solid years of the war. He fought at the First 00:31:17.049 --> 00:31:20.089 Battle of Mons in 1914, and he was killed around 00:31:20.089 --> 00:31:22.390 930 a .m. that morning while scouting on the 00:31:22.390 --> 00:31:25.089 outskirts of that exact same city, Mons, in Belgium. 00:31:25.549 --> 00:31:28.849 an hour and a half before peace. Then there is 00:31:28.849 --> 00:31:31.890 Augustin Trebichon, the last French soldier to 00:31:31.890 --> 00:31:35.029 die. His story is incredibly poignant and highlights 00:31:35.029 --> 00:31:37.470 the mundane tragedies of the front line. Tell 00:31:37.470 --> 00:31:40.589 me about him. He was shot at 1045 a .m. He wasn't 00:31:40.589 --> 00:31:43.109 even engaged in an active firefight at that exact 00:31:43.109 --> 00:31:45.509 moment. He was acting as a messenger. What was 00:31:45.509 --> 00:31:47.230 the message? He was running to tell his fellow 00:31:47.230 --> 00:31:48.910 soldiers who were preparing for a completely 00:31:48.910 --> 00:31:51.509 unnecessary assault across the Meuse River that 00:31:51.509 --> 00:31:53.950 hot soup would be served to them after the ceasefire 00:31:53.950 --> 00:31:57.170 at 1130. Oh man. He died 15 minutes before the 00:31:57.170 --> 00:31:59.690 gun stopped, carrying a message about soup. At 00:31:59.690 --> 00:32:02.849 that exact same time, 10 -4 -5 a .m., Marcel 00:32:02.849 --> 00:32:05.569 Toussaint -Tuff, the last Belgian soldier to 00:32:05.569 --> 00:32:08.650 die, succumbed to a mortal lung wound from German 00:32:08.650 --> 00:32:11.750 machine gunfire. And the timeline gets even tighter, 00:32:11.990 --> 00:32:14.430 almost to the second. We have George Lawrence 00:32:14.430 --> 00:32:17.470 Price, a private from Canada. He was part of 00:32:17.470 --> 00:32:20.009 a force advancing into a Belgian town north of 00:32:20.009 --> 00:32:23.220 Mons. They were clearing houses. He was shot 00:32:23.220 --> 00:32:27.019 and killed by a German sniper at 1058 a .m. Just 00:32:27.019 --> 00:32:29.599 two minutes before the armistice went into effect. 00:32:29.920 --> 00:32:32.099 Two minutes. And then generally recognized as 00:32:32.099 --> 00:32:34.240 the last American and the last soldier killed 00:32:34.240 --> 00:32:36.970 in action overall on the Western Front. is Henry 00:32:36.970 --> 00:32:40.170 Gunther. His story is just soaked in tragic psychological 00:32:40.170 --> 00:32:42.670 irony. What happened to Gunther? Gunther had 00:32:42.670 --> 00:32:44.829 recently been demoted in rank because military 00:32:44.829 --> 00:32:46.809 sensors caught him writing a letter home, complaining 00:32:46.809 --> 00:32:49.349 about the miserable conditions. He was apparently 00:32:49.349 --> 00:32:51.609 deeply despondent over this demotion. They wanted 00:32:51.609 --> 00:32:54.450 to prove himself. Exactly. In a desperate, reckless 00:32:54.450 --> 00:32:56.390 attempt to redeem his reputation in the final 00:32:56.390 --> 00:32:58.970 minutes of the war, he charged a German road 00:32:58.970 --> 00:33:01.349 lock with his bayonet fixed. The war is practically 00:33:01.349 --> 00:33:03.789 over. The historical accounts note that the German 00:33:03.789 --> 00:33:06.630 troops were astonished. They knew the armistice 00:33:06.630 --> 00:33:09.710 was literally seconds away. They actually tried 00:33:09.710 --> 00:33:12.369 to wave him off, firing warning shots, but he 00:33:12.369 --> 00:33:14.529 kept charging and firing his rifle at them. You 00:33:14.529 --> 00:33:17.089 wouldn't stop. He was killed by a burst of machine 00:33:17.089 --> 00:33:20.910 gun fire exactly 60 seconds before 11 a .m. It's 00:33:20.910 --> 00:33:23.589 just a cascade of totally avoidable heartbreak, 00:33:23.869 --> 00:33:26.089 and the tragedy wasn't confined to the Allied 00:33:26.089 --> 00:33:29.250 side. No. We have records of the last German 00:33:29.250 --> 00:33:31.430 to die in the war, believed to be a lieutenant 00:33:31.430 --> 00:33:35.509 named Thomas. Shortly after 11 a .m., perhaps 00:33:35.509 --> 00:33:38.650 11 zero 1 a .m., after the ceasefire had officially 00:33:38.650 --> 00:33:40.950 begun and the artillery had finally gone quiet, 00:33:41.529 --> 00:33:43.970 he exited his trench. He thought it was safe. 00:33:44.349 --> 00:33:46.549 He began walking across no man's land, presumably 00:33:46.549 --> 00:33:48.970 to inform the American troops opposite him that 00:33:48.970 --> 00:33:50.990 the armistice was in effect and that the Germans 00:33:50.990 --> 00:33:53.500 would be evacuating their positions. Oh no. But 00:33:53.500 --> 00:33:55.480 the specific unit of Americans he approached 00:33:55.480 --> 00:33:57.460 hadn't yet received the news through their chain 00:33:57.460 --> 00:34:00.119 of command. They saw an enemy soldier approaching 00:34:00.119 --> 00:34:03.059 their line, opened fire, and killed him instantly. 00:34:03.500 --> 00:34:06.339 It's maddening. And it wasn't ignored by history. 00:34:06.920 --> 00:34:08.920 There must have been immense backlash once the 00:34:08.920 --> 00:34:12.000 public realized nearly 3 ,000 men died on the 00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:14.800 morning of peace. There was a deep, profound 00:34:14.800 --> 00:34:17.880 shame that followed. In the United States, Congress 00:34:17.880 --> 00:34:20.579 actually opened a formal investigation post -war 00:34:20.579 --> 00:34:23.860 to find out why this happened. and to see if 00:34:23.860 --> 00:34:25.619 blame should be placed on the leaders of the 00:34:25.619 --> 00:34:28.300 American Expeditionary Forces, including General 00:34:28.300 --> 00:34:31.820 Pershing. Good. They demanded to know why American 00:34:31.820 --> 00:34:35.079 boys were ordered to charge machine guns at 1030 00:34:35.079 --> 00:34:37.260 a .m. for ground they could have just walked 00:34:37.260 --> 00:34:41.260 onto at 1101 a .m. Did Pershing face any consequences? 00:34:41.679 --> 00:34:44.260 No formal punishment. He defended his actions 00:34:44.260 --> 00:34:46.300 by saying he was maintaining pressure on a retreating 00:34:46.300 --> 00:34:48.860 enemy. Typical military defense. But in France, 00:34:49.159 --> 00:34:51.079 the shame was so acute and the political optics 00:34:51.079 --> 00:34:53.679 so horrifying that the military authorities literally 00:34:53.679 --> 00:34:56.639 engaged in a cover up. A cover up. The graves 00:34:56.639 --> 00:34:58.579 of many French soldiers who died on November 00:34:58.579 --> 00:35:02.039 11th were backdated to November 10th. The government 00:35:02.039 --> 00:35:04.440 couldn't bear the public or the grieving mothers 00:35:04.440 --> 00:35:06.480 seeing that men were ordered to their deaths 00:35:06.480 --> 00:35:10.039 on the very day of peace. This profound disconnect 00:35:10.039 --> 00:35:12.280 between the high -level signatures in a comfortable 00:35:12.280 --> 00:35:15.519 train car and the brutal, senseless reality in 00:35:15.519 --> 00:35:18.699 the mud leads us perfectly into Section 5, the 00:35:18.699 --> 00:35:20.780 aftermath and the birth of a dangerous myth. 00:35:21.159 --> 00:35:23.619 Because the reactions to the 11 a .m. ceasefire 00:35:23.619 --> 00:35:25.900 were completely bifurcated depending on where 00:35:25.900 --> 00:35:28.460 you were standing. Very true. If you look at 00:35:28.460 --> 00:35:30.760 the home front for the Allies, the reaction was 00:35:30.760 --> 00:35:34.059 explosive. The news officially hit Paris around 00:35:34.059 --> 00:35:37.500 9 a .m. By 11 a .m., the first peace gunshot 00:35:37.500 --> 00:35:40.039 was fired from Fort Montlarian. The Eiffel Tower 00:35:40.039 --> 00:35:42.840 fired shots. The Ministry of War and the Elysee 00:35:42.840 --> 00:35:45.519 Palace threw up flags. Church bells rang all 00:35:45.519 --> 00:35:48.300 across Paris. The French prime minister, Georges 00:35:48.300 --> 00:35:50.519 Clemenceau, appeared on a balcony and shouted, 00:35:50.940 --> 00:35:53.760 Vive la France! to a massive cheering crowd. 00:35:53.900 --> 00:35:56.699 And in London, Big Ben shined for the first time 00:35:56.699 --> 00:35:59.699 in years. People flooded Trafalgar Square. It 00:35:59.699 --> 00:36:02.699 was pure jubilation. relief. But at the actual 00:36:02.699 --> 00:36:05.000 front lines, the reaction was incredibly muted. 00:36:05.079 --> 00:36:06.960 There was no cheering. The surviving soldiers 00:36:06.960 --> 00:36:09.280 describe a sudden deafening silence that was 00:36:09.280 --> 00:36:11.900 almost unnerving after four years of constant 00:36:11.900 --> 00:36:14.519 artillery roar. There's a quote from a British 00:36:14.519 --> 00:36:16.980 corporal who described the exact moment at 11 00:36:16.980 --> 00:36:20.119 a .m. He said, the Germans came from their trenches, 00:36:20.659 --> 00:36:23.260 bowed to us and then went away. That was it. 00:36:23.460 --> 00:36:25.460 There was nothing with which we could celebrate 00:36:25.460 --> 00:36:28.360 except cookies. Just eating dry cookies and feeling 00:36:28.360 --> 00:36:31.699 a profound sense of emptiness after 52 exhausting 00:36:31.699 --> 00:36:34.599 months of violence. That silence and the specific 00:36:34.599 --> 00:36:36.900 way the war ended on the battlefield became the 00:36:36.900 --> 00:36:39.619 incubator for one of the most toxic destructive 00:36:39.619 --> 00:36:42.699 lies of the 20th century. So what does this all 00:36:42.699 --> 00:36:44.480 mean? What's fascinating here is that we have 00:36:44.480 --> 00:36:46.559 to look at the geographical reality of November 00:36:46.559 --> 00:36:50.070 11th, 1918. At the exact moment the armistice 00:36:50.070 --> 00:36:52.469 took effect, the Western Front was still some 00:36:52.469 --> 00:36:55.909 450 miles over 700 kilometers away from Berlin. 00:36:56.150 --> 00:36:58.489 That is a huge distance. The Kaiser's armies 00:36:58.489 --> 00:37:00.449 had retreated for the battlefields of France 00:37:00.449 --> 00:37:03.570 and Belgium, yes, but they had retreated in relatively 00:37:03.570 --> 00:37:06.530 good order. They marched back to Germany with 00:37:06.530 --> 00:37:09.170 their rifles on their shoulders. Most importantly, 00:37:09.489 --> 00:37:11.869 the German frontier had barely been breached. 00:37:12.329 --> 00:37:14.889 Essentially, no Allied troops had invaded or 00:37:14.889 --> 00:37:16.989 occupied German soil before the fighting stopped. 00:37:17.099 --> 00:37:20.400 Right. It means that to the average German civilian 00:37:20.400 --> 00:37:23.119 at home, the army didn't physically look defeated. 00:37:23.440 --> 00:37:26.500 They hadn't seen enemy soldiers marching triumphantly 00:37:26.500 --> 00:37:28.920 through the Brandenburg Gate. They hadn't seen 00:37:28.920 --> 00:37:31.239 their cities shelled into rubble like the towns 00:37:31.239 --> 00:37:33.820 in France and Belgium. And this physical reality, 00:37:33.880 --> 00:37:37.019 this lack of visible, visceral defeat, allowed 00:37:37.019 --> 00:37:39.400 Hindenburg, Ludendorff and other senior right 00:37:39.400 --> 00:37:42.239 -wing leaders to spread a massive, self -serving 00:37:42.239 --> 00:37:44.900 lie. They pushed what became known as the stab 00:37:44.900 --> 00:37:47.340 in the back myth. They claimed that the mighty, 00:37:47.519 --> 00:37:49.559 undefeated German army was never actually beaten 00:37:49.559 --> 00:37:51.920 on the battlefield. Instead, they argued the 00:37:51.920 --> 00:37:53.969 army was betrayed. stabbed in the back by the 00:37:53.969 --> 00:37:56.269 public at home who failed their patriotic calling, 00:37:56.730 --> 00:37:59.389 and specifically sabotaged by Democratic politicians, 00:37:59.949 --> 00:38:02.969 Jews, socialists, and Bolsheviks who instigated 00:38:02.969 --> 00:38:05.849 the November Revolution. It's just a master class 00:38:05.849 --> 00:38:08.989 in shifting the blame. Ludendorff designed the 00:38:08.989 --> 00:38:12.230 civilian handover at Spa exactly for this purpose. 00:38:12.610 --> 00:38:14.530 But how did they convince the public of this? 00:38:14.610 --> 00:38:17.230 Didn't people know they were losing? The military 00:38:17.230 --> 00:38:19.269 had heavily censored the press throughout the 00:38:19.269 --> 00:38:22.349 war. So the public had been fed a diet of constant 00:38:22.349 --> 00:38:25.469 victories until the very end The shock of the 00:38:25.469 --> 00:38:27.869 sudden surrender made them desperate for an explanation 00:38:27.869 --> 00:38:30.389 that didn't involve military failure People want 00:38:30.389 --> 00:38:32.750 to believe what feels good and the military leaders 00:38:32.750 --> 00:38:35.429 even used foreign press to bolster their lie 00:38:35.670 --> 00:38:38.829 They grossly misrepresented a book by British 00:38:38.829 --> 00:38:41.250 Major General Frederick Maurice called The Last 00:38:41.250 --> 00:38:43.610 Four Months. What did they do? Hindenburg literally 00:38:43.610 --> 00:38:45.750 went before a National Assembly committee a year 00:38:45.750 --> 00:38:49.449 later in November 1919 and declared under oath, 00:38:49.869 --> 00:38:53.010 quote, As an English general has very truly said, 00:38:53.349 --> 00:38:56.369 the German army was stabbed in the back. He perjured 00:38:56.369 --> 00:38:59.289 himself using fake news to legitimize a conspiracy 00:38:59.289 --> 00:39:02.110 theory. And this myth wasn't just some historical 00:39:02.110 --> 00:39:04.829 footnote. It was incredibly dangerous because 00:39:04.829 --> 00:39:07.269 in the eyes of the German right, the blame for 00:39:07.269 --> 00:39:10.070 the surrender and the horrific terms of the subsequent 00:39:10.070 --> 00:39:13.010 Treaty of Versailles was carried over directly 00:39:13.010 --> 00:39:15.690 to the Weimar Republic itself. The Republic was 00:39:15.690 --> 00:39:18.389 born with the original sin of surrender. Exactly. 00:39:19.010 --> 00:39:21.929 This myth deliberately crippled the new democracy 00:39:21.929 --> 00:39:25.190 from its very inception. It caused massive political 00:39:25.190 --> 00:39:28.510 instability, justified the assassination of politicians 00:39:28.510 --> 00:39:31.360 like Matthias Erzberger, who was murdered by 00:39:31.360 --> 00:39:34.599 right -wing extremists in 1921 specifically for 00:39:34.599 --> 00:39:36.780 signing the armistice, and directly fueled the 00:39:36.780 --> 00:39:39.260 grievances that led to the rise of the Nazi party 00:39:39.260 --> 00:39:41.619 and the Third Reich. The seeds of the Second 00:39:41.619 --> 00:39:44.280 World War were planted in the muddy, unresolved 00:39:44.280 --> 00:39:47.179 soil of the 1918 armistice. Which brings us to 00:39:47.179 --> 00:39:50.019 our final section, legacy and echoes in history. 00:39:50.360 --> 00:39:52.900 Because history unfortunately loves a dark rhyme. 00:39:53.130 --> 00:39:55.969 There is a chilling postscript regarding Marshal 00:39:55.969 --> 00:39:58.730 Foch's private railway wagon in the Campign for 00:39:58.730 --> 00:40:01.369 us. Oh, this is such a dark detail. Fast forward 00:40:01.369 --> 00:40:05.010 to the Second World War, June 1940. The German 00:40:05.010 --> 00:40:08.269 military has just rapidly defeated France. Adolf 00:40:08.269 --> 00:40:11.469 Hitler, keenly aware of the humiliation of 1918 00:40:11.469 --> 00:40:14.349 and a massive proponent of the stab in the back 00:40:14.349 --> 00:40:17.769 myth, orchestrates a staggering act of historical 00:40:17.769 --> 00:40:21.010 revenge. He forces the French delegation to negotiate 00:40:21.010 --> 00:40:23.489 their surrender inside that exact same railway 00:40:23.489 --> 00:40:25.929 car. He had it brought out of the museum. Yes. 00:40:26.170 --> 00:40:28.429 Hitler had the car placed on the exact same spot 00:40:28.429 --> 00:40:30.949 in the Compiègne Forest where Erzberger had been 00:40:30.949 --> 00:40:33.690 forced to sign in 1918. He sat in the very chair 00:40:33.690 --> 00:40:36.579 Flush had used. The armistice was explicitly 00:40:36.579 --> 00:40:39.920 portrayed as erasing the shame of 1918. And immediately 00:40:39.920 --> 00:40:42.139 afterward, the glade of the armistice was blown 00:40:42.139 --> 00:40:44.639 up and destroyed by the Germans, and the train 00:40:44.639 --> 00:40:47.360 car was eventually taken to Berlin. It's incredibly 00:40:47.360 --> 00:40:49.719 petty, but it shows how deeply these events scarred 00:40:49.719 --> 00:40:51.780 the European psyche. If we connect this to the 00:40:51.780 --> 00:40:54.300 bigger picture, it shows how deeply the symbolism 00:40:54.300 --> 00:40:57.679 and the precise timing of 1918 embedded itself 00:40:57.679 --> 00:41:00.059 into global consciousness. The numerology alone 00:41:00.059 --> 00:41:03.059 is powerful. Right. The numerology of the eleventh 00:41:03.059 --> 00:41:05.349 hour of the eleventh day of the 11th month became 00:41:05.349 --> 00:41:08.750 iconic. We see a fascinating example of this 00:41:08.750 --> 00:41:11.309 echoing across the world decades later. When 00:41:11.309 --> 00:41:14.050 was that? When the second Sino -Japanese War, 00:41:14.329 --> 00:41:16.489 which was the Asian theory of World War II, finally 00:41:16.489 --> 00:41:19.030 came to an end, the formal surrender of Japanese 00:41:19.030 --> 00:41:22.309 forces in China was signed on September 9th. 00:41:23.059 --> 00:41:26.900 1945, at exactly 9 a .m. That is the ninth hour 00:41:26.900 --> 00:41:29.340 of the ninth day of the ninth month. Exactly. 00:41:29.800 --> 00:41:32.039 This date and time were chosen specifically to 00:41:32.039 --> 00:41:34.639 echo the 1918 armistice. Additionally, in Chinese 00:41:34.639 --> 00:41:37.079 culture, the number nine is a homophone for the 00:41:37.079 --> 00:41:39.559 word meaning long lasting, suggesting the hope 00:41:39.559 --> 00:41:41.940 that this new peace in Asia would endure forever. 00:41:42.139 --> 00:41:44.860 It's incredible how humanity clings to these 00:41:44.860 --> 00:41:46.920 patterns, these neat dates, to try and impose 00:41:46.920 --> 00:41:49.539 order on the absolute chaos of war. And we still 00:41:49.539 --> 00:41:52.960 do it today. We do. This singular, hurried, desperately 00:41:52.960 --> 00:41:55.920 flawed event in a cold railway car gave birth 00:41:55.920 --> 00:41:58.039 to the global traditions of remembrance we still 00:41:58.039 --> 00:42:00.960 observe. Armistice Day, Veterans Day in the U 00:42:00.960 --> 00:42:02.760 .S., Remembrance Day across the Commonwealth, 00:42:03.300 --> 00:42:05.219 even Polish Independence Day, they all stemmed 00:42:05.219 --> 00:42:07.380 directly from the ink drawing on that paper on 00:42:07.380 --> 00:42:10.789 November 11th. Indeed. The legacy of that day 00:42:10.789 --> 00:42:14.670 is profoundly dual -natured. It is a day of genuine 00:42:14.670 --> 00:42:17.230 relief and solemn remembrance for the millions 00:42:17.230 --> 00:42:20.650 of young men who died in the mud. But it is also 00:42:20.650 --> 00:42:23.429 a permanent historical warning of how the manner 00:42:23.429 --> 00:42:26.030 in which a war ends, the political machinations, 00:42:26.510 --> 00:42:28.670 the physical realities on the ground, the myths 00:42:28.670 --> 00:42:31.389 that are allowed to fester, can directly dictate 00:42:31.389 --> 00:42:37.800 the peace that followed. We started by looking 00:42:37.800 --> 00:42:41.320 at a crumbling German empire facing a massive 00:42:41.320 --> 00:42:44.139 allied pincer movement and the domino -like collapse 00:42:44.139 --> 00:42:46.880 of its allies, particularly the opening of that 00:42:46.880 --> 00:42:49.639 southern back door through Bulgaria. We saw the 00:42:49.639 --> 00:42:51.880 cynical political chessboard where military leaders 00:42:51.880 --> 00:42:54.440 like Ludendorff engineered a democratic government 00:42:54.440 --> 00:42:56.460 just so they could wash their hands of the defeat. 00:42:56.639 --> 00:42:59.059 We traveled with Matthias Erzberger on a 10 -hour 00:42:59.059 --> 00:43:01.780 drive through hell to be dictated crushing terms, 00:43:02.119 --> 00:43:04.579 terms designed to paralyze a nation's infrastructure 00:43:04.579 --> 00:43:07.400 by Marshal Fosch in a secret train car. We tracked 00:43:07.400 --> 00:43:09.820 the heartbreaking, totally avoidable deaths of 00:43:09.820 --> 00:43:11.980 men like Augustin Trevichon and Henry Gunther 00:43:11.980 --> 00:43:15.019 in those final maddening minutes before the 11th 00:43:15.019 --> 00:43:17.420 hour. And we watched how the lack of visible 00:43:17.420 --> 00:43:19.960 defeat in Germany spawned the stab in the back 00:43:19.960 --> 00:43:23.019 myth, poisoning the Weimar Republic and setting 00:43:23.019 --> 00:43:25.599 the stage for an even greater catastrophe two 00:43:25.599 --> 00:43:28.739 decades later. It really underscores the value 00:43:28.739 --> 00:43:31.719 of understanding the incredibly messy human reality 00:43:31.719 --> 00:43:34.519 that exists just beneath the neat, clean dates 00:43:34.519 --> 00:43:37.099 we memorize in history class. It does. And as 00:43:37.099 --> 00:43:39.219 we wrap up this deep dive, I want to leave you 00:43:39.219 --> 00:43:41.590 the listener. with a final thought to mull over, 00:43:42.010 --> 00:43:44.030 building directly on our discussion of that stab 00:43:44.030 --> 00:43:46.670 in the back myth. All right. What is it? We noted 00:43:46.670 --> 00:43:49.530 that the physical reality of the war, the fact 00:43:49.530 --> 00:43:51.889 that the front line was still 450 miles from 00:43:51.889 --> 00:43:54.630 Berlin and no foreign troops stood on German 00:43:54.630 --> 00:43:57.309 soil allowed this devastating lie to flourish. 00:43:57.949 --> 00:44:00.460 So this raises an important question. How does 00:44:00.460 --> 00:44:02.699 the physical visceral visibility of a defeat 00:44:02.699 --> 00:44:05.940 dictate a nation's psychological ability to accept 00:44:05.940 --> 00:44:08.280 peace? That's a good question. If a population 00:44:08.280 --> 00:44:10.320 doesn't see the war lost with their own eyes, 00:44:10.659 --> 00:44:13.159 if their cities aren't occupied, can they ever 00:44:13.159 --> 00:44:15.199 truly accept the consequences of a surrender 00:44:15.199 --> 00:44:18.139 treaty? It makes you wonder about General Pershing's 00:44:18.139 --> 00:44:20.519 terrifying stance. Marching to Berlin. Would 00:44:20.519 --> 00:44:22.860 the 20th century have looked entirely different 00:44:22.860 --> 00:44:25.579 if Pershing had gotten his way? What if the Allies 00:44:25.579 --> 00:44:28.400 had refused the armistice, suffered the horrific 00:44:28.400 --> 00:44:30.820 casualties required, and actually fought their 00:44:30.820 --> 00:44:33.460 way into the streets of the capital? Would a 00:44:33.460 --> 00:44:36.800 shattered, occupied Berlin in 1919 have prevented 00:44:36.800 --> 00:44:40.769 the rise of the Third Reich in 1933? It is a 00:44:40.769 --> 00:44:43.010 chilling, profound counterfactual to consider. 00:44:43.449 --> 00:44:46.369 A truly profound question to end on. Thank you 00:44:46.369 --> 00:44:48.090 as always to our listener for joining us on this 00:44:48.090 --> 00:44:50.409 deep dive. Keep questioning the narratives. Keep 00:44:50.409 --> 00:44:52.750 looking past the neat headlines of history and 00:44:52.750 --> 00:44:55.210 keep exploring the why behind the facts. Until 00:44:55.210 --> 00:44:55.690 next time.