Chapter 12

THE WAR IN 1918

FAILURE OF GERMAN PEACE OFFENSIVE.--During the fall of 1917 Germany had started a great discussion of the terms of the peace which should close the war. In general the position taken by German spokesmen was "peace without annexations and without indemnities," as proposed by the Russian Bolsheviki. Such talk was designed to weaken the war spirit of the Allied peoples, and perhaps to make the German people believe that they were fighting a war of self-defense. The time was ripe for a statement of the war aims of Germany's opponents. This statement, later approved in general by Allied statesmen, was made by President Wilson in his address to Congress on January 8, 1918. It is discussed in detail in