Surrender

“The trenches erupted. Brown-uniformed men poured out of the American trenches, gray-green uniforms out of the German. From my observer’s seat overhead, I watched them throw their helmets in the air, discard their guns, wave their hands.... Seconds before they had been willing to shoot each other; now they came forward.... I could see them hugging each other, dancing, jumping.... Star shells, rockets, and flares began to go up, and I turned my ship towards the field. The war was over.”—Eddie Rickenbacker, American Fighter Pilot

Germany was winning its war on the Eastern Front with Russia surrendering in March 1918. However, it was losing on the Western Front. Its own allies had quit, soldier morale was low, and frustration was spreading at home. Despite publicly telling its people that the German army remained strong and committed, the High Command realized that Germany could not win the war. It recommended to the Reichstag, its parliament, to make peace.

Watch this video, which describes the poor conditions Germany faced in the army and at home. Combined with what seemed to be a steady stream of U.S. troops, Germany had no choice but to end the war. As you watch and then read the video transcript, pay attention to how Wilson’s Fourteen Points influenced the Germans’ plans for surrender.

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Surrender to America Video Transcript

NARRATOR: All along the Western Front the German Army was crumbling under the combined weight of British, French, and American assaults. The front was moving miles a day; German soldiers were surrendering by the tens of thousands. And their homeland was collapsing from within. Four years of war had reduced the population to starvation; the economy was bankrupt, cities on the brink of revolution.

JOHN HORNE, Historian: What really I think breaks the Germans is the calculation, almost the paper calculation, that more and more Americans will just continue to arrive. If there are already two million of them in France, at the end of 1918, how many will there be by 1920? And the Germans know that they can’t match that. It’s less the contribution in those final three months than it is the sheer spectacle that there’s more and more and more of that to come.

CHRIS CAPOZOLLA, Historian: The Germans ask for a peace on the basis of the Fourteen Points. They know that the British and the French would seek to crush them and in fact the Germans almost want to surrender to the Americans rather than to the Allies as a whole.

MARGARET MACMILLAN, Historian: I think Germans clutched at the idea of a Wilson who would be more sympathetic, less vindictive than either the British or the French. If they get Wilson to manage the peace, they might not lose that much.

NARRATOR: By approaching the United States and excluding the Allies, Germany had granted Wilson a leading role at the outset of the negotiations.

A German and an American trade hats on Armistice Day.

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