Peace efforts during World War I
[1] None of the attempts at peace succeeded, such as those by Austrian Emperor Charles I and mediated by Sixtus of Bourbon-Parma and all triggered waves of controversy,[1] demonstrating their ambivalent nature.
The study of peace efforts is a predominantly German field of research,[citation needed] within the broader scope of the war guilt question.
"[5] The haughty tone of the note, its content[6][7] and the fact that Germany showed no willingness to evacuate the occupied territories made it unacceptable to the Allies.
[23] The negotiations, centered on cooperation between the two countries in China, took a favorable turn: Japan agreed not to send troops to Europe[23] and hesitated to join the German side.
[30] Japan signed a defense agreement with Russia in the person of Sazonov on July 3, 1916, and German suspicions, particularly those of Gottlieb von Jagow, that the Empire of the Rising Sun was playing a double game, proved justified.
For example, he refused to cede South Tyrol or Trentino to Italy, even though the Allies had promised Rome their support on this territorial issue[citation needed] In the months that followed, Charles I's negotiations were increasingly held up by his own Foreign Minister, Count Czernin, who believed in an Austro-German military victory.
On April 2, 1918, Czernin delivered a speech to the Vienna City Council in which he accused France of having prevented any peace negotiations by demanding the return of Alsace-Lorraine.
[35] The speech appeared on the front page of the Fremden-Blatt newspaper the following day, but as Czernin's account of the facts was untrue, Georges Clemenceau had Charles I's first letter published on April 12, 1918.
[37] The negotiations became mired in blatant amateurism, with the American Foreign Secretary Robert Lansing describing Clemenceau's approach as "a piece of the most astounding stupidity.
Charles I's actions were motivated by his Catholic convictions in favor of peace, both externally: to put an end to the war; and internally: to avoid a revolution, with all its implications for the suffering of the people.
"[40] The Allies' recognition of the right of peoples to self-determination, in the fullest and most radical sense of the word, signaled the downfall of the multinational state of Austria-Hungary.
[41] In early 1917, in a Europe at war, emissaries of the Austrian-Hungarian Emperor Charles I secretly negotiated a separate peace with the Triple Entente, particularly France, in Neuchâtel.
They were welcomed, almost unexpectedly, by Maurice Boy de la Tour, in his sumptuous home on Rue du Pommier 7 in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
This home was the discreet place where news arrived from Paris (where Sixtus was negotiating with the French authorities) and Vienna (via Thomas Erdödy, private secretary to Charles I).
[citation needed] Neither the Confederation nor the State were informed of these secret dealings, so the documents relating to this affair are not to be found in the public archives, but in the private Boy de la Tour collection.
[42] With the outbreak of Unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1, 1917, the Imperial German Army's plan to force England to sign a peace treaty within six months failed.
[49] On July 24, 1917, the Apostolic Nuncio in Munich, Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pius XII, made a peace proposal to Chancellor Georg Michaelis and Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann, providing for the restitution of the German colonies and the evacuation of Belgium and the occupied French territories.
[51] Before Germany could respond, Pope Benedict XV sent a note of peace on August 1, 1917, which arrived officially a fortnight later and is known by its opening words: "From the beginning".
The official German reply of September 13, 1917 to the Curia avoided any concrete proposals or compromises on the specific issues, and confined itself to vague appeals for peace.
"[56] The German episcopate countered the pontifical commitment in the person of the Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Felix von Hartmann, who considered that the Pope had spoken as an international sovereign and not as the supreme shepherd of Catholics.
Similarly, in France, Father Antonin-Gilbert Sertillanges of the Order of Friars Preachers challenged the Pope's attempts at peace in front of the whole of Paris during a sermon in the Church La Madeleine.
Baron Von Lancken, head of the General Government of Belgium under German authority, had the support of Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg[59] to conduct negotiations with Aristide Briand, then President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs in France.
[citation needed] The Barons Coppée,[61] who had put Broqueville and Lancken in contact, announced that the Reich might consider returning the departments annexed in 1871 to France, which was clearly untrue, as the Germans declared themselves ready to cede only the tiny territory of Thann.
[64] From June to July 1917, at the same time as those led by Sixtus of Bourbon-Parme, further peace negotiations took place between Counts Nikolaus Revertera and Abel Armand,[65] then a captain in the 2nd Bureau of the French General Staff.
"[70] These negotiations brought together Great Britain and Austria-Hungary, represented respectively by General Jan Smuts and the former Austrian ambassador to London, Albert von Mensdorff.
Not wishing to lose the benefits of the revolution, the Russians were forced to sign a separate peace on March 3, 1918, at Brest-Litovsk,[79] renouncing numerous territories.
After the war, Šipkov recounted that the Americans had promised unification of the country from Dobroudja to the mouth of the Danube, the whole of Thrace and Macedonia, as well as a corridor with Hungary and financial aid, which Herron refuted.
The resistance of the army was singled out as one of the reasons for the failure of the peace, and numerous political figures in office at the time were interviewed, including Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg and Generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff.
[90] In order to avoid a confrontation, as in the case of the examination of Wilson's proposal, the witnesses were politicians or military men of lower rank than the generals.
General von Haeften was also criticized for keeping quiet about his talks with the Americans in the spring of 1918, but was quickly excused despite the protests of some, such as the historian Hans Delbrück.
