Spa Conference (29 September 1918)

Indeed, after the failures encountered by the central powers in Italy and on the Western Front, the leaders of the Reich can only acknowledge the strategic impasse in which they have found themselves since the month of August 1918.

The conference brought together in Spa, then the headquarters of the Oberste Heeresleitung (OHL, Supreme Command of the Army), the main military leaders of the Reich, the chancellor and his vice-chancellor around Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Following the defeat at Doiran, the Macedonian front, held mainly by the Bulgarians, collapsed in the face of Franco-Serb units engaged in a rapid ascent towards the North through Serbia towards Belgrade, an offensive that the Central Powers were unable to effectively hinder.

[n 4][11][12][13][14][3] While Erich Ludendorff suffered from a nervous breakdown,[n 5] his new deputy, Heye, having become aware of the seriousness of the situation, pressed the Reich Minister of War, as well as Vice-Chancellor Paul von Hintze, to go to the headquarters of the Oberste Heeresleitung, the supreme command of the German army, in Spa.

[17][18][12] Faced with a military situation which becomes more and more precarious as the days go by, in particular due to mass desertions, the participants in the conference propose an exit from the conflict to avoid taking responsibility for the defeat of the Reich and to mollify the allied representatives, in order to obtain more lenient conditions.

[18] This conference did not give rise to real debates between the main leaders of the Reich; in fact, military officials are requesting the opening of negotiations with a view to a cessation of hostilities, supported by the vice-chancellor.

[19] Emperor Wilhelm supports the proposal to camouflage the maintenance of war aims in Eastern Europe behind anti-Bolshevik propaganda: the Reich would then assert itself as the protector of the new states bordering Bolshevik Russia.

[20][21][19] On the day of the conference, Hindenburg and Ludendorff, the dioscuri,[n 6] demanded from Hintze, then in charge of foreign affairs, the rapid opening of negotiations with a view to the conclusion of an armistice: in fact, they assured the latter that the Reich finds it impossible to continue the war.

Thus, faced with the political and military developments of September, those mainly responsible for managing the conflict imposed the establishment of a government supported by the majority of parties represented in the Reichstag.