Dan Carlin's Hardcore History Addendum

[GloryofGreece]

I'm not actually clear on Ludendorf came to actual power in 1916ish...How did the Kaiser lose all control, officially? How was Ludendorf actually deposed? Did people come actually arrest him, or armed resistance take over his palace etc. ?

I always hear people refer to him and Hindenburg as defacto Military dictators but why not just call him the Dictator of Germany if that is what he was?

[Smitty-48]

I'm not actually clear on Ludendorf came to actual power in 1916ish...How did the Kaiser lose all control, officially? How was Ludendorf actually deposed? Did people come actually arrest him, or armed resistance take over his palace etc. ?

I always hear people refer to him and Hindenburg as defacto Military dictators but why not just call him the Dictator of Germany if that is what he was?

The Kaiser loses control right out of the gate, the moment the Kaiser sets the trains in motion he is rendered irrelevant and put on the back burner by his own high command.

Ludendorff takes over after he is the hero who defeats the Russians at Tanenberg, wherein he is transferred to take over the Western Front in the wake of the Russian onslaught being defeated in the East for all intents and purposes.

Ludendorff resigns on 27 October 1918 under pressure from the new German government led by Chancellor Max von Baden.

The Kaiser hems and haws for another month, but is also forced to abdicate and flee to the Netherlands, when the von Baden government simply announces that he is abdicating on 28 November 1918, gives him the shove out the door so to say.

[Speaker to Animals]

I think the Anglo world took the wrong side, or at least should not have been involved at all.

[Smitty-48]

What is going on with the Germans in October to November 1918 is that the new German government is hoping to make a deal with the Americans and have Wilson come in and save them from the wrath of the British and the French, so they are trying to ply the Americans by jettisoning the Imperial trappings and presenting themselves as a new democracy, which is ostensibly the whole reason the Americans are in the war, they're hoping to split the Entente, Americans vs the British and French, in order to influence to post war negotiations more to Germany's favour.

[Smitty-48]

I think the Anglo world took the wrong side, or at least should not have been involved at all.

If the British stay out, it doesn't even amount to a world war at all, it was merely the Second Franco-Prussian War, until the British Empire threw itself in front of the French under the rubric of Belgian neutrality.

So the Germans defeat the French again? So what? The Germans were not going to stay, they simply wanted them chopped down to size so they could turn and deal with the Eurasian hordes to the East, Kaiser same as Hitler in the end.

[Speaker to Animals]

I suspect the American entry into that fucking debacle had more to do with sovereign debt than anything else.

We should have just ate the losses and let the Germans wipe out the British and French forces. It's not like either side was good or bad. There was no moral cause there to be fought.

[Smitty-48]

I suspect the American entry into that fucking debacle had more to do with sovereign debt than anything else.

Well indeed, America comes in because Wall Street has loaned the British a fuckton of money and so America has to protect Wall Street's investment.

[Smitty-48]

The whole economic boom in America in the Roaring Twenties, wherein the American economy doubles in size, is largely related to the fact that the entire British Empire is by then in hock to the Americans, Chapter 11 bankruptcy take over the world economic Hegenomy.

If the Germans somehow win, then the whole British Empire will flow over to them, so the Americans have to put a stop to that, not just once, but twice in fact, because the same would have happened if Hitler had won the Second World War.

The British Empire is the prize that everyone is fighting for, it's really the First and Second Wars of British Hegemonic Succession.

If the British stay out, then the Empire is not in play, if the Empire is not in play, no world wars at all, the British put the Empire in play, whereupon both the Germans and then the Americans went to war for all those marbles.

[Okeefenokee]

That Zimmermann telegram always smelled like fake news to me.

[GloryofGreece]

I think the Anglo world took the wrong side, or at least should not have been involved at all.

If the British stay out, it doesn't even amount to a world war at all, it was merely the Second Franco-Prussian War, until the British Empire threw itself in front of the French under the rubric of Belgian neutrality.

So the Germans defeat the French again? So what? The Germans were not going to stay, they simply wanted them chopped down to size so they could turn and deal with the Eurasian hordes to the East, Kaiser same as Hitler in the end.

(Thanks for answering my poorly worded questions)

So in you opinion, did Britain ultimately mostly get involved because saving face sort of thing and the notion of honor/prestige etc.?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_vo ... tern_Front

What do you think of the significance of this WWI German General?
Was the success in the East mostly due to him than Ludendorff?