And what of those are primary sources? Isn't he saying something like "As study X has shown via a review of German letters (or something) homefront morale was collapsing"?thejester wrote:*snip pics*
I do not think it is as clear cut as that. To me it reads more as if he is endorsing his own plan first and foremost. Notice how he spends little time to talk about the military situation at all and just focuses on "THIS IS A WAY TO WIN NOW"? I would suggest this says more about him as a power broker than about the situation at the fronts.Ok, but in your interpretation would you say that:
- he puts forward this argument in the context of Germany having the upper hand in the war, as Zinegata claimed?
I mean, the absolute worst consequence he talks about is a standstill - neither side winning or losing but Germany unable to win overwhelmingly (which was the whole point behind the weltmacht ideas that started cropping up along with the fantasy war goals like "we are just going to annex all of Belgium and a quarter of France").
So I would say that he thinks the situation is in the balance now with enough of an advantage for Germany to win if - but only if - they use the tactic of unrestricted sub warfare.
Given that he is also a Naval officer unaccustomed to land warfare, I think this memo should not be overinterpreted as to what the OHL thought. If the OHL really thought that the war was being lost in 1917 then it should be relatively trivial to find some paper trail to prove it via a memo from the OHL or the General staff itself.
A memo by an Admiral who wants his own personal strategy to be implemented and endorses it and who is also trying to prove the Navy is just not a waste of resources is not the best way to go about this I think.
I assume by this you mean to enact unrestricted sub warfare? My guess - and this is only a guess unsupported by anything - would be that they underestimated the resolve of Wilson to go to war. I mean, you had stuff like people openly debating in the US whether the US should not go to war with Britain over their illegal north sea blockade. They also probably felt that this was the only way to hurt the British economy in return.- and what is your view on the issue I raised in my previous post: if Germany did indeed have the upper hand, why did the leadership undertake such a huge gamble?