TIMEBASE 1918

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1918 January 1 Corneliu Codreanu and his followers in Romania resist attacks by bands of mutinous Russian soldiers looting and pillaging their countryside.

1918 January 8 President Wilson in an address to Congress lays out his famous Fourteen Points for peace, calling for, among other things, open diplomacy, armament reduction, national self-determination, and the formation of a League of Nations.

1918 January 28 The Bolsheviks found the Red Army.

1918 January Journalist Kurt Eisner plays a prominent role in anti-war strikes in Munich and is quickly jailed. (Roots)

1918 January The Bolsheviks sign an armistice with Germany at Brest-Litovsk. The Bolsheviks take Russia out of the war, freeing tens of thousands of German troops to fight the Allies in the West.

1918 January Sebottendorff publishes the first issue of Runen in association with the Germanenorden. He also assumes financial responsibility for the Allegemeine Ordens-Nachrichten newsletter, for members only. (BHK; Roots)

1918 February 9 German Foreign Secretary von Kuhlmann issues an ultimatum at Brest-Litovsk, which the Russians consider as annexationist. This causes division within the Soviet leadership. (Polyakov)

1918 February 10 Bukharin leads the so-called Left Communist opposition to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which he says is a betrayal of the quest for international socialist revolution. He will later accepts Lenin's policies.

1918 February 11 President Wilson publicly announces his Fourteen Point Plan for an armistice, promising that there will be "no annexations, no contributions, no punitive damages." (Nicholson)

1918 February 18 The German command launches an offensive along the entire Russian front after the Soviets refuse Germany's terms for peace. 700,000 Austro-German troops are thrown against the newly formed Red Army and begin closing in on Petrograd, Moscow and Kiev. (Polyakov)

1918 February 23 In memory of the Red Army's first battles, this day is hereafter celebrated as Soviet Armed Forces Day.

1918 March After a long convalescence, Rudolf Hess volunteers for service as a fighter pilot. (Missing Years)

1918 March A Germanenorden newsletter states that the articles of the Order had been formulated after discussions with Karl August Hellwig of the Armanenschaft. The ritual is also ascribed to Armanenschaft ceremony, but the suggestion that brothers of the higher grades in the Germanenorden be called Armanen was said to have been vetoed by the Armanenschaft. (Roots)

1918 March 3 The Bolsheviks sign a separate treaty of peace with the Germans at Brest-Litovsk. Under its terms, Russia recognizes the independence of the Ukraine, Finland, and Georgia; gives up control of Poland, the Baltic states, and a portion of Belorussia; and cedes Kars, Ardahan, and Batumi to Turkey. The treaty will be nullifieded by the defeat of Germany in November 1918.

(Note: Trotsky unsuccessfully opposed the treaty, as annexationist, but retains Lenin's confidence.)

1918 March 9 The warship Glory brings the first 200 British soldiers to Murmansk, beginning an armed invasion of Soviet Russia by the Allies. These troops are soon followed by even larger detachments of British, French and American forces. The whole of the Murmansk region is soon occupied and the Allies move on to Archangel. (Polyakov)

1918 March The Ukraine, which remains occupied by Germany throughout 1918, provides much of the grain that saves the German people from starvation.

1918 Leon Trotsky becomes commissar of war (to 1925). From the demoralized remnants of the Czar's armed forces he manages to organize the Red Army, a remarkable achievement, but his brusque style, his impatience with criticism and incompetence, and his decision to rely on "military specialists" won him few friends. Rank-and-file party comrades saw him as aloof and remote.

1918 Edward R. Stettinius is appointed U.S. assistant Secretary of War and is sent on a mission to France.

1918 March 21 At dawn, the German army launches another "great offensive" in the Second Battle of the Somme. After a 5-hour bombardment, specially trained German shock troops roll through a heavy fog, striking the right flank of the British sector between Arras and La Fere. The stunned British fall back, allowing the German Eighteenth Army to pass the Somme.

1918 March 23 A huge, long-range German cannon begins a sporadic bombardment of Paris from a position 65 miles away. This remarkable weapon seriously damages Parisian morale and eventually inflicts 876 casualties, yet with little effect on the war.

1918 April 3 The Allied Supreme War Council, in a meeting at Beauvais, appoints Ferdinand Foch as supreme commander of Allied forces, including the Americans. Foch Immediately sends reserves to aid the British at the Somme.

1918 April 5 Japanese troops landed from Japanese battleships anchored off Vladivostok overrun the city. They are soon followed by British troops. (Polyakov)

1918 April 9 During the Battle of Lys, German troops again strike the British sector, this time in Flanders, threatening the important rail junction of Hazebrouck and the Channel ports.

1918 April 9 The British are forced to withdraw from Ypres to Armentieres.

1918 April 12 General Haig, after announcing, "Our backs are to the wall," forbids further retreat and galvanizes British resistance at Lys.

1918 April 14 General Foch and Pershing soon make a joint plea to President Wilson to get more U.S. troops to Europe as soon as possible, even if untrained. The Allied situation is deperate.

1918 April 17 The German drive at Lys is halted after gaining only 10 miles including the Messines Ridge. Ludendorff achieves tactical success, but a strategical failure. There is no breakthrough, and the Channel ports are safe.

1918 April 21 German ace Manfred von Richthofen, known as the Red Baron, is shot down and killed.

1918 May Walter Riehl is elected chairman of the Austrian DAP (German Workers Party) and moves to Vienna.

1918 May 18 The French Ambassador to Russia informs the commander of a Czechoslovak corps, which had been formed in Russia from prisoners of war that the Allies desire them to remain in Russia to form the nucleus of an Allied army against the Bolsheviks. (Polyakov)

1918 May 50,000 well-equipped troops from the Czechoslak Corps deploy along the Trans-Siberian railway, and soon seize several key cities on the Volga and in Siberia. (Polyakov)

1918 May 27 Ludendorff attacks in great force along the Chemin des Dames as a diversion against the French, preparatory to a planned attack against the British in Flanders. German troops, preceded by tanks, route 12 French divisions (3 of them British), and by noon are crossing the Aisne. By evening they cross the Vesle, west of Fismes.

1918 May 28 General Pershing directs the first independent American offensive of the war at Cantigny, 50 miles northwest of the Marne. Although only a local operation, its success against veteran troops of Hutier's Eighteenth Army boosts Allied morale.

1918 May 29 The Soviet government passes a resolution on the introduction of mobilization for the Red Army. (Polyakov)

1918 May 30 Ludendorff's forces reach the Marne.

1918 May 30 The American Third Division holds the bridges at Chateau-Thierry, 44 miles from Paris, then counter attacks with the assistance of the rallying French troops, driving the Germans back across the Marne. The American Second Division checks the German attacks west of Chateau-Thierry.

1918 June 4 Ludendorff calls off the offensive after heavy losses. The American Second Division then counterattacks, spearheaded by its Marine Brigade.

1918 June 5 The U.S. Second Division begins a drive to uprooted the Germans from positions at Vaux, Bouresches, and Belleau Wood.

1918 June 9 A German advance begins on Compiegne.

1918 June 12 The German advance on Compiegne is halted by French and American troops.

1918 June 25 The Marine Brigade of the U.S. Second Division captures Bouresche and Belleau Wood. The Marines suffer 9,500 casualties, almost 55 percent.

1918 June 28 Lenin signs a decree of the Council of People's Commissars universally nationalizing large-scale industry, banks and transportation. (Polyakov)

1918 Summer Russian Constituent Assembly delegates begin fleeing to western Siberia and form their own "All-Russian" government, which is soon suppressed by a reactionary "White" dictatorship under Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak. Army officers in southern Russia organize a "Volunteer Army" under the leadership of Generals Lavr Kornilov and Anton Denikin and gain support from Britain and France. Both in the Volga region and the eastern Ukraine, peasants begin to organize against Bolshevik requisitioning and mobilization. Soon anarchist "Greens" are fighting the "Reds" (Bolsheviks) and Whites alike in guerrilla-type warfare. Even in Moscow and Petrograd, leftist Socialist Revolutionaries take up arms against the Bolsheviks, whom they accuse of betraying revolutionary ideals.

1918 July The Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets mobilizes the Red Army. (Polyakov)

1918 July President Wilson's Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, is introduced to Winston S. Churchill (then-Minister of Air and War) in London.

1918 July Some 313,000 U.S. troops arrive in France during July.

1918 July Baron Sebottendorff leases five large club rooms, accommodating 300 guests, at Munich's fashionable Four Seasons Hotel (Hotel Vierjahreszeiten). Meetings until this time had been held at his apartment on Zweigstrasse. (Roots)

1918 July 10 The first Soviet Constitution is adopted by the Fifth All-Russia Congress of Soviets. (Polyakov)

1918 July 14-15 Germany launches the Second Battle of the Marne. The Allies, warned of the attack by deserters, aerial reconnaissance, and prisoners, batters the advancing Germans with artillery. East of Reims the attack is halted within a few hours by the French. West of Reims 14 divisions of the German Seventh Army cross the Marne, but American forces rebuffed the attack.

1918 July 16-17 Czar Nicholas II, his wife, their five children, their doctor and servants are murdered by the Bolsheviks near Ekaterinburg in Siberia. On the window sill of the Czarina's room is found a swasika believed to have been carved by the Cazrina herself.

1918 July 17 In the Marne, Allied aircraft and artillery destroy all German controlled bridges, disrupt supply and force the attack to halt. In the space of 5 months the Germans had suffered half a million casualties. Allied losses were somewhat greater, but American troops are now arriving at a rate of 300,000 a month.

1918 July 18 As Ludendorff prepares to pull back, Foch orders a counteroffensive at Soissons. The French, using light tanks and aided by U.S. and British divisions, assault the Marne from left to right, reaching the Vesle River and recapturing Soissons. Ludendorff calls off the proposed drive in Flanders.

(Note: Later the German Chncellor would write, "On the 18th even the most optimistic among us knew that all was lost. The history of the world was played out in three days.") (Schlesinger I)

1918 July Sebottendorff buys the Beobachter, a minor weekly newspaper in the Munich suburbs, for 5,000 marks from the estate of Franz Eher who had died in June. He soon renames it the "Munchener Beobachter" and publishes it, until May 1919, at the Germanenorden (Thule) offices in the Four Seasons Hotel. (Roots)

1918 August The Austrian DAP, led by Walter Riehl, changes its name to the German National Socialist Worker's Party (DNSAP) at a meeting in Vienna. (Forgotten Nazis)

1918 August British troops cross the Soviet-Persian (Iran) border near Artyk station and soon occupy Ashkhabad and several other cities in the Trans-Caspian region (Soviet Turkmenia). (Polyakov)

1918 August 1 Allied warships approach the mouth of the North Dvina River and attack Soviet coastal defense batteries as Allied aircraft fly over Archangel. (Polyakov)

1918 August 2 The Soviet city of Archangel is occupied by the Allies.

1918 August 4 Hitler receives the Iron Cross, first class. The actual details surrounding its award remain uncertain.

1918 August 8 British troops open a drive along the Somme near Amiens. The Germans, caught off guard by the well-mounted assault, begin a panicky withdrawal, which quickly turns into a full scale retreat. The Allies take 100,000 prisoners and Ludendorff bitterly declares August 8 as the "Black Day of the German Army." He later added: "The war must be ended!"

1918 August 10 General Pershing is permitted by the Allies to establish an independent American Army. He soon appoints Colonel George C. Marshall as his operations officer.

1918 August 18 A formal dedication of the Germanenorden rooms at the Four Seasons Hotel in Munich is attended by Hermann Pohl, G.W. Freese and a number of other Germanenorden Walvater brothers from Berlin and Leipzig. (Roots)

1918 August 21 The British and French begin the second phase of the Battle of the Amiens. Ludendorff orders a general withdrawal from the Lys and Amiens areas.

1918 August 25 A large investiture of novices to the Germanenorden takes place at the Four Seasons Hotel. Pohl gives a lecture on the "Sun Castles" of Bad Abling, which he believes possess esoteric national significance.

1918 August 30 The Anzacs penetrate across the Somme, disrupting Ludendorff's plan for an orderly withdrawal. The German situation rapidly deteriorates, necessitating a retreat to the final position -- the Hindenburg line.

1918 August 30 Lenin is seriously wounded in an assassination attempt by Fannie Kaplan, a female Social-Revolutionary. He will never completely recover. Kaplan is quickly executed without trial. (Polyakov)

1918 August 30 General Pershing, having won his fight for a separate and distinct U.S. army operating on its own assigned front, moves toward the Saint-Mihiel salient. The Americans are supported by an Allied air force of about 1,400 planes -- American, French, Italian, and Portuguese -- under U.S. Colonel Billy Mitchell.

1918 September 1 Another Germanenorden meeting is held at the Four Seasons Hotel. Johannes Hering's diary records frequent meetings after this date and the lodge is convoked at least once a week for investitures, lectures and excursions. Since its ritual activities are supplemented by overt right-wing meetings, the term Thule Society has been adopted as a cover-name to spare it the unwelcome attention of socialists and pro-Republican elements. The rooms are decorated with the Thule emblem showing a long dagger superimposed over a shining swastika sunwheel. (Roots)

1918 September 2 The All-Russian Central Executive Committee recommends the introduction of a Red terror campaign in retaliation for the attack on Lenin. (Polyakov)

1918 September 5 The Council of Peoples Commissars proclaims the introduction of the Red terror campaign. "To secure our rear by means of terror is a direct necessity. It is necessary to secure the Soviet Republic against its class enemies by isolating them in concentration camps... All persons involved in White Guard organizations, plots and revolts are subject to execution by shooting..." (Polyakov)

1918 September 12 Pershing's U.S. First Army attacks both faces of the strategic Saint-Mihiel salient.

1918 September 14 Pershing's American forces begin taking the Saint-Mihiel salient.

1918 September 15 Baku is taken by Turkish troops and Azerbaijanian nationalists. 30,000 civilians are massacred.

1918 September 16 Pershing's assault on the Saint-Mihiel salient is completely successful, and the salient is entirely cleared.

1918 September 19 General Allenby begins the Jordan Valley offensive, and by dawn on September 20, the Turkish Eighth Army has ceased to exist. Allenby's decisive victory at Megiddo, which guarded the main pass through the Carmel Mountains, is one of the most brilliant operations in the history of the British army. During the next 38 days, Allenby's troops advance more than 360 miles, taking 76,000 prisoners (4,000 of them German and Austrian).

1918 September 21 British cavalry sweeps through Nazareth and turns east to reach the Jordan just south of the Sea of Galilee.

1918 September 22 British and Arabian troops under General Allenby defeat the Turkish forces in the Battle of Samaria.

1918 September 26 In the final major battle of the war, the Allies plan an offensive from Ypres to Verdun. Some 896,000 American troops join with 135,000 French soldiers in an attack on a sector between the Argonne Forest and the Meuse River. It is the largest battle fought up to this time, casualties will mount to 120,000. (Schlesinger I)

1918 September 26 The Americans sweep through Vauquois and Mont-faucon, but their drive slows down as the Germans rush in fresh reinforcements.

1918 September 27 Haig's British army group flings itself against the Hindenburg line; but the drive soon slows down, in the face of a skillful German defense.

1918 September 27 On Allenby's desert flank to the east, T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) and King Faisal cut the railway line at Deraa, while Allenby continues to press on toward Damascus.

1918 September 28 General Ludendorff in a meeting with Hindenburg demands an armistice "at once." (Duffy)

1918 September 29 General Ludendorff declares that a true democratic constitutional monarchy is to be setup -- "overnight."

1918 September 29 Bulgaria asks for and receives an armistice.

1918 September 30 Prince Max von Baden is named head of the new German government.

1918 Autumn Thule (Germanenorden) Grand Master Rudolf Sebottendorff entrusts Karl Harrer, a Munich reporter, with the task of forming a worker's organization affiliated with the Thule Society. (BHK)

1918 Autumn The Battles of the Argonne and Ypres (September-October) panic the German leadership. (CRL)

1918 October Rudolf Hess reaches his new operational unit, the 35th Fighter Staffel. (Missing Years)

1918 October The Politische Arbeiter-Zirkel (the Political Worker's Circle) is founded in Munich. Its members include Karl Harrer as chairman, Anton Drexler, the most active member, and Michael Lotter as secretary. This tiny group with only three to seven members in regular attendance, meets weekly throughout the winter. Harrer lectures on subjects such as the causes of military defeat, the Jewish enemy and anti-English sentiments. (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz)

1918 October 1 General Allenby takes Damascus.

1918 October 2 General Allenby takes Beirut.

1918 October 2 Field Marshal von Hindenburg at a meeting of the Crown Council, presided over by Kaiser Wilhelm II, repeats Ludendorff's September 28 demand for an immediate armistice. Hindenburg tells the Kaiser that the German army cannot hold out for another 48 hours. (Duffy)

1918 October 3 Germany forms a parliamentary government with Prince Max von Baden as its head.

1918 October 3 Austria sues for peace. Food shortages in Vienna have become so severe that thousands are starving to death.

1918 October 4 General Pershing replaces a number of his assault divisions with rested troops from the Saint-Mihiel operation and renews the Argonne offensive. The U.S. First Army batters its way slowly forward in a series of costly frontal attacks, but the Argonne Forest is finally cleared. The French Fourth Army, on the left, advances to the Aisne River.

1918 October 4 The Germans ask the Allies for an armistice.

1918 October 6 The new German Chancellor, Prince Max von Baden, sends a message to President Wilson, requesting an armistice on the basis of Wilson's Fourteen Points.

1918 October The crews of two German battleships mutiny.

1918 October 13 Hitler is blinded in a gas attack near Werwick and is taken to an army hospital at Pasewalk near Berlin. After several weeks, his eyesight slowly returns. One of his doctors, Dr. Edmund Forster, is thought to have been the first psychiatrist to treat Hitler.

1918 October Kurt Eisner, one of the leaders of the Munich anti-war strikes of January 1918, is released from jail.

1918 October 16 Allenby's Desert Mounted Corps, spearheading the advance, reaches Homs.

1918 October 17 The British break through the German defenses on the Selle River. At the same time the Belgians and British under Belgian king Albert began to move again in Flanders.

1918 October 18 American pressure in the Meuse-Argonne causes a German retreat all along the line. The German army begins to crack.

1918 October 23 President Wilson insists that the United States and the Allies not negotiate an armistice with the existing military dictatorship of Germany.

1918 October 23 In Mesopotamia, a British force under Lt. Gen. A. S. Cobbe pushes northward from Baghdad to secure the Mosul oil fields before the Turkish collapse.

1918 October 24 Italian forces attack Austrian positions in Italy at the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, but are quickly halted on the Piave River line.

1918 October 25 Allenby's troops takes Aleppo.

1918 October 26 General Ludendorff resigns his command, immediately before formal dismissal, to permit the desperate German government to comply with Wilson's demand. Hindenburg retains his post as German field commander, with Gen. Wilhelm Groener replacing Ludendorff as chief of staff.

1918 October 28 British and French troops gain a large bridgehead on the Piave River in Italy, splitting the front.

1918 October 29 Sailors of the German High Seas Fleet mutiny, seizing control of their ships to prevent a final desperate battle with the British Grand Fleet.

1918 October 29 Cobbe's cavalry engages the Turks at Sharqat.

1918 October 30 British and French advances against the Austrians reach Sacile, Italy.

1918 October 30 Turkey signs an armistice with the British at Mudros, ending the war in the Middle East.

1918 October 31 Pershing's First Army punches through most of the third and final German line in France.

1918 October 31 Italian reinforcements exploit the ever-widening gap at Sacile and Austrian resistance collapses.

1918 Autumn Sebottendorff claims to have increased the Bavarian membership in the Germanenroden to more than 1,500, with 250 members in Munich alone. (BHK)

1918 Autumn Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels leaves vienna and immigrates to Hungary. (Roots)

1918 November Sebottendorff and the Thule Society begin stockpiling weapons for Julius Lehmann's Pan-Germans.

1918 November Seventy Jews are killed in a pogrom in Lvov, Poland.

1918 November 1 The U.S. First Army advances, smashing through the last German positions northeast and west of Buzancy, thus enabling the French Fourth Army to cross the Aisne.

1918 November 1 Cobbe's British cavalry reaches Mosul in Mesopotamia. Despite provisions of the October 30 armistice, Cobbe is ordered to take the city. After some initial squabbling, the Turkish garrison of Halil Pasha marches out and the British remain.

1918 November 2 American spearheads, now in the open, race up the Meuse Valley.

1918 November 3 The German naval base at Kiel revolts.

1918 November 3 Trieste is seized by an Allied naval expedition in the Gulf of Venice.

1918 November 4 Austria-Hungary surrenders and hostilities come to an end.

1918 November 6 American spearheads reach the Meuse River before Sedan and sever the Mezieres-Montmedy rail line, a vital supply artery for the entire German front.

1918 November Poland is formally reconstituted, and a new republic is proclaimed with Marshal Josef Pilsudski as Chief of State and the commander of the Polish army.

1918 November 7 Kurt Eisner proclaims a republic in Bavaria. Eisner, a Bohemian Jewish journalist and the leader of the Independent ('minority') Social Democrats in Munich has just been released from jail in October. (Roots)

1918 November 8 Hundreds of thousands of Berliners surge into the streets and charge the center of town shouting revolutionary slogans under red banners. The mob murders scores of army officers and occupies the Ministry of War and nearly all the important governmental buildings. Karl Liebknecht proclaims a Soviet republic from the balcony of the Berlin Palace.

1918 November 8 Philipp Scheidemann, a Social Democrat and cabinet member, hastily proclaims a republic in order to prevent a Communist takeover, he says, by Karl Liebknecht and his extreme Spartacus League. Frederich Ebert, another Social Democrat, reportedly is outraged. A constitutional monarchy had already been agreed upon, not a republic.

1918 November 9 The Second Reich collapses and Chancellor Prince Max von Baden turns over the German government to Frederich Ebert, who shortly thereafter officially proclaims the new German socialist republic.

1918 November 9 Upon hearing this news, Hitler suffers a relapse and his blindness suddenly returns. He then claims to experience a supernatural vision, and recovers, he says, only after vowing to God that he will dedicate his life to politics. (Toland)

1918 November 9 In the evening, Thule Grandmaster Sebottendorff, delivers an oration to the Thule Society in Munich, stating: " Yesterday we experienced the collapse of everything which was familiar, dear and valuable to us. In the place of our princes of Germanic blood rules our deadly enemy: Judah. What will come of this chaos, we do not know yet. But we can guess. A time will come of struggle, the most bitter need, a time of danger... As long as I hold the iron hammer (a reference to his Master's hammer), I am determined to pledge the Thule to this struggle. Our Order is a Germanic Order, loyalty is also Germanic. Our god is Walvater, his rune is the Ar-rune. And the trinity: Wotan, Wili, We is the unity of the trinity. The Ar-rune signifies "Aryan," primal fire, the sun and the eagle. And the eagle is the symbol of the "Aryans." In order to depict the eagle 's capacity for self immolation by fire, it is colored red. From today on our new symbol is the red eagle, which warns us that we must die in order to live." Sebottendorff continues by exhorting the Thule members to fight "until the swastika rises victoriously out of the icy darkness" and closes his speech with a racist-theosophical poem by Philipp Stauff. (Roots)

1918 November 10 German Kaiser Wilhelm II flees to the Holland.

1918 November 10 The military High Command and the new German republic strike a deal. The generals promise to protect the republic if Ebert in return promises to prevent a socialist revolution. Ebert agrees.

1918 November 11 A German delegation, headed by a civilian, Matthias Erzberger, negotiates armistice terms with General Ferdinand Foch in his railway-coach headquarters on a siding at Compiegne, France. Agreement is finally reached at 5:00 AM. The terms specify that the German army must immediately evacuate all occupied territory and Alsace-Lorraine; immediately surrender great quantities of war materiel; surrender all submarines; and intern all other surface warships as directed by the Allies. In addition the Germans are to evacuate German territory west of the Rhine, and three bridges over the Rhine are to be occupied by the Allies. The armistice becomes effective immediately. Hostilities cease at 11:00 AM, November 11.

1918 November 12 An Allied fleet steams through the Dardanelles, and arrives off Constantinople (Istanbul) the next day, dramatizing the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

1918 November 14 German General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, after 4 years of continuous hide and seek, ends hostilities in Africa.

1918 November 16 British and French warships enter the Black Sea. They are followed through the Dardenelles and the Bosporus by troop ships. French and Greek troops land in Odessa under the cover of battleships.

1918 Autumn Sevastapol and several other Black Sea ports are seized by the Allies. Baku, Tbilisi and Batumi in Transcausasia are soon occupied. The French hold sway in the Ukraine, the British in Transcaucasia. Allied forces in the north and the Far East are reinforced. (Polyakov)

1918 November 17 Under the terms of the armistice, Allied troops begin reoccupying those portions of France and Belgium held by the Germans since 1914.

1918 November 21 The German High Seas Fleet sails into the Firth of Forth, between the lines of the British Grand Fleet. It later is shifted to Scapa Flow.

1918 November 23 General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck surrenders his command in Africa.

1918 November -December Hitler, still in the army, returns to Munich for duty with the 2nd Infantry Regiment. In a letter written three years later, Hitler wrote that he had returned to Munich on December 18, but may have confused this date with the date of his transfer to Traunstein. (See December 18, 1918 and Hitler letter: November 29, 1921)

(Note: Several months after Hitler became Chancellor in1933, Baron Rudolf Sebottendorff, Grand Master of the Thule Society in Munich, published a book entitled Before Hitler Came: The early years of the Nazi Party. It states: " Thule members were the people to whom Hitler first turned, and who first allied themselves with Hitler. The armament of the coming Fuehrer consisted of--besides the Thule Society itself --the Deutscher Arbeiterverein, founded in the Thule by Brother Karl Harrer at Munich, and the Deutsch-Sozialistche Partei, headed there by Hans Georg Grassinger, whose organ was the "Munchener Beobachter," later to be renamed the "Völkischer Beobachter." From these three sources Hitler created the Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei." (BHK; Roots)

1918 Winter Admiral Kolchak is proclaimed "Supreme Governor" of Russia by the White Guard and the remote city of Omsk in Siberia is declared to be Russia's "capital." Allied governments begin supplying arms, ammunittion and equipment to the Whites on a large scale.

1918 December Anton Drexler begins urging the other members of the Political Worker's Circle to found their own political party. (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz)

1918 December 4 President Wilson with a large contingent of historians, geographers, political scientists and economists sail for Europe. He is also accompanied by Secretary of State Lansing, General of the Army Bliss and his friend Colonel House. He does not take anyone from the now largely Republican Congress. (Schlesinger I)

1918 December 9 Allied troops cross the Rhine taking bridgeheads as agreed upon in the armistice. The British at Cologne, the Americans at Koblenz, and the French at Mainz.

1918 December 18 Hitler is ordered to Traunstein for guard duty at prisoner of war camp.

1918 December Baron Sebottendorff plans to kidnap Kurt Eisner at a rally in Bad Abling. (Roots)

1918 December Mutinous sailors occupy the Berlin Palace grounds and hold the city commander hostage, eleven sailors are killed during his rescue.

1918 December 27 Eberhard von Brockhusen writes a letter to General Heimerdinger asking to be relieved of his office as Grand Master of the loyalist Germanenorden. (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz; Roots)

1918 December 30 Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxenburg change the name of the Spartacus League to the Communist Party of Germany (KPD).

1918 An estimated 85,000 Jews are killed in the Ukraine between 1918 and 1920. (Atlas)

1918 American poet Ezra Pound becomes acquainted with British Major C.H. Douglas while in London and later becomes obsessed with his economic theories. Douglas believes the quest for foreign markets puts nations on a collision course and therefore wars are inevitable. The primary villains, he said, are international bankers, many of whom are Jews.

1918 Oswald Spengler publishes the first volume of his The Decline of the West. Spengler held that history follows definite laws of growth and decay that are observable in the careers of all cultures. Tracing the unfolding of these laws in his own era, he predicted that Western culture, already well into its twilight, would experience further decline as a future of rationalism, mass manipulation, and material expression succeeded the profound art, religion, and philosophy of the past. In later nationalistic political tracts Spengler contended that Germany, with its Prussian authoritarian tradition, could dominate this future.

1918 The Habsburg monarchy in Austria collapses forcing Emperor Karl von Habsburg and family into exile.

1918 Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia become republics in the aftermath of World War I.

1918 Achille Ratti, the future Pope Pius XI, becomes Pope Benedict XV's representative (the Papal Nuncio) to Poland. His proximity to the Polish-Soviet War will reinforce his horror of Communism.

1918 General Ludendorff flees to Sweden.

1918 Alfred Brunner, Heinrich Kraeger and others found the Deutsch-Sozialistische Partei.

1918 An influenza pandemic (Spanish flu) begins and kills more than 21 million people, worldwide, during the next 2 years.

1918 Civil war breaks out between the Red and White armies in Russia.

1918 More than 500 Jews are killed in Poland between 1918 and 1919. (Atlas)

Copyright © 1997 R.H. Perez de Cruet
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