HOW LAST WAR ENDED
CAUSE OF ENEMY COLLAPSE
The weight of the evidence is, I believe, heavily against the theory that the Fourteen Points shortened the 1914-18 war, writes Mr Walter Lippman. We know now that the German General Staff knew the war was lost in early August, 1918, and that it took the initiative in pressing the civil Government to ask for an armistice. There is little evidence that the people, trusting in Wilson’s promises, forced the General Staff to sue for peace. The evidence is that, the professional soldiers knew long before the people knew it that they could not fight on. Thus the collapse of Germany was not the cause of the defeat, but, on the contrary, the defeat was the cause of the collapse. It was only when the defeat of July and August had brought on the collapse of late Seotember and early October that the German Government turned to President Wilson and invoked the Fourteen Points in order to obtain the benefit of them.
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Bibliographic details
Otago Daily Times, Issue 25659, 6 October 1944, Page 7
Word Count
170HOW LAST WAR ENDED Otago Daily Times, Issue 25659, 6 October 1944, Page 7
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