Everything about The German Occupation Of Luxembourg In World War I totally explained
The
German occupation of Luxembourg in World War I was the first of two
military occupations of the
Grand Duchy of Luxembourg by
Germany in the
twentieth century. From August 1914 until the end of
World War I in November 1918,
Luxembourg was under full occupation by the
German Empire. The German government justified the occupation by citing the need to support their
armies in neighbouring
France, although many Luxembourgers, contemporary and present, have interpreted German actions otherwise.
During this period, Luxembourg was allowed to retain its own government and political system, but all proceedings were overshadowed by the German army's presence. Despite the over-bearing distraction of the occupation, the Luxembourgian people attempted to lead their lives as normally as possible. The political parties attempted to focus on other matters, such as the
economy,
education, and
constitutional reform.
The domestic political environment was further complicated by the death of
Paul Eyschen, who had been
Prime Minister for 27 years. With his death came a string of short-lived governments, culminating in rebellion, and constitutional turmoil after the withdrawal of German soldiers.
Background
Since the 1867
Treaty of London, Luxembourg had been an explicitly
neutral state. The
Luxembourg Crisis had seen
Prussia thwart
France's attempt to purchase the Grand Duchy from the
Netherlands. Luxembourg's neutrality was accepted by Prussia's then-
Chancellor,
Otto von Bismarck, who boasted, "In exchange for the fortress of Luxembourg, we've been compensated by the neutrality of the country, and a guarantee that it'll be maintained in perpetuity."
In June 1914,
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the thrones of
Austria-Hungary, was
assassinated by pan-Slavic nationalists, leading to a sudden deterioration in relations between Austria-Hungary and
Serbia. Austria-Hungary was supported by the
German Empire, whilst Serbia had the backing of the
Russian Empire. On
28 July, Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia, which, in turn, required the
mobilisation of Russia, hence of Germany, thanks to its responsibilities under the
Dual Alliance.
Anticipating a retaliatory declaration of war from Russia’s closest western ally,
France, Germany put into action the
Schlieffen Plan. Under this military strategy, formulated by
von Schlieffen in 1905, Germany would launch a lightning attack on France through the poorly-defended
Low Countries. This would bypass France’s main defences, arranged to the south. Germany’s army would be able to encircle
Paris, force France to surrender, and turn its full attention to the
Eastern Front.
Since the 1860s, Luxembourgers had been keenly aware of German ambition, and Luxembourg's government was well aware of the implications of the Schlieffen Plan. In 1911,
Prime Minister Paul Eyschen commissioned an engineer to evaluate Germany's western railroad network, particularly the likelihood that Germany would occupy Luxembourg to suit its logistical needs for a campaign in France. Moreover, Luxembourg was home to many
German people (including both
Auslandsdeutsche and
Volksdeutsche), and it was feared that Germany might seek to
annex Luxembourg into its empire. The government of Luxembourg aimed to avoid this by re-affirming the country's neutrality.
Invasion
On
1 August 1914, Germany declared war on Russia. On the outbreak of war with its eastern neighbour, Germany put the Schlieffen Plan into action, and Luxembourg's government's fears were realised. Initially, Luxembourg was only a transit point for
Albrecht von Württemberg's Fourth Army. One of the
railways from the northern
Rhineland into France passed through
Troisvierges, in the far north of Luxembourg, and Germany's first infringement of Luxembourg's sovereignty and neutrality was the unauthorised use of
Troisvierges station. Eyschen protested, but could do nothing to prevent Germany's incursion.
The next day, Germany launched a full invasion. German soldiers began moving through south-eastern Luxembourg, crossing the
Moselle River at
Remich and
Wasserbillig, and headed towards the capital,
Luxembourg City. Tens of thousands of German soldiers had been deployed to Luxembourg in those twenty-four hours (although the Grand Duchy's government refuted any precise number that was suggested).
Grand Duchess Marie-Adélaïde ordered that the Grand Duchy's small army, which numbered under 400, not resist, and, on the afternoon of the
2 August, she and Eyschen met the German commander,
Oberst Richard Karl von Tessmar, on
Luxembourg City's
Adolphe Bridge, the symbol of Luxembourg's modernisation. They protested mildly, but both the young Grand Duchess and her ageing statesman accepted German military rule as inevitable.
On
2 August, German Chancellor
Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg justified the complete occupation of Luxembourg in terms of military necessity, arguing that France was ready to invade Luxembourg itself. The French minister in Luxembourg dismissed this argument, claiming that it wouldn't have considered violating Luxembourg's neutrality unless Germany had done so first. Bethmann Hollweg attempted to prove his country's regret by offering Luxembourg compensation for the losses due to the military presence.}}
However, when it seemed that Germany was on the verge of victory, the Chancellor began to revise his statements. In his
Septemberprogramm, Bethmann Hollweg called for Luxembourg to become a German federal state, and for that result to be forced upon the Luxembourgian people once Germany achieved victory over the
Triple Entente. Given this promise, it came as a great relief to most Luxembourgers that the
British and French halted the German advance at the
Battle of the Marne in mid-September. The result for the combatant nations was
trench warfare, but, for Luxembourg, it was the indefinite continuation of German occupation.
Eyschen government
Just as the war was in the balance on the
Western Front, so the fate of Luxembourg was see-sawing back and forth. It was clear to all that the good conduct of the Luxembourgian government, if fully receptive to the needs of the German military administrators, could guarantee Luxembourg's continued self-government, at least in the short-term.
Eyschen was a familiar and overwhelmingly popular leader, and all factions put their utmost faith in his ability to steer Luxembourg through the diplomatic minefield that was occupation. On
4 August 1914, he expelled the French minister in Luxembourg at the request of the German minister, followed by the Belgian minister four days later and the Italian minister when his country entered the war. To the same end, Eyschen refused to speak ill of the German
Zollverein,
On occasions, Eyschen's principles got the better of him. On
13 October 1914, a Luxembourgian journalist named Karl Dardar was arrested by the German army for publishing anti-German stories. He was then taken to
Koblenz, and tried and sentenced by
court-martial to three months
imprisonment. Eyschen was outraged that the Germans had kidnapped a Luxembourgian citizen and tried him for an extra-territorial offence, and Eyschen did nothing to hide his indignation. Eyschen told the German minister in Luxembourg that the action was a 'direct injury to the Grand Duchy's national sovereignty'.
Such vexatious complaints were repeated, by both Eyschen and
Victor Thorn, when a railway worker was arrested in January 1915 for allegedly working for French
military intelligence, and subsequently tried and sentenced in
Trier. As
Minister for Justice, Thorn was incensed that the Luxembourgian legal system had been treated with such disdain. Such objections were not received well by the German authorities. Although they tired of Eyschen's stubborn ways, he remained a useful tool to unite the various Luxembourgian political factions.
Eyschen wasn't alone in letting his principles obstruct government business. In the summer of 1915, Eyschen pushed to further reduce the role of the Catholic church in the
state school system. Grand Duchess Marie-Adélaïde objected. A fervently religious Catholic (as was most of the country, but not her late father, who was
Protestant), she was reputed to have said, "I won't allow their most precious heritage [RomanCatholicism] to be stolen while I've the key." Marie-Adélaïde refused to budge, inviting Eyschen to resign if he couldn't accept her decision. Eyschen nearly did, but decided to control himself. Nevertheless, he wouldn't be long in the job.
After Eyschen
Eyschen's death
On
11 October 1915, Luxembourg's political system was brought to its knees by the death of Paul Eyschen. When war broke out, Eyschen had been 73 years old, but his premiership of twenty-seven years was the only government that most Luxembourgers had known. Throughout the first year of German occupation, he'd been a rock for the Luxembourgian people. He had also been of great importance to Marie-Adélaïde; the Grand Duchess had never been groomed for the position, was fifty-three years Eyschen's junior, and was considered both politically naïve and dangerously partisan for a
constitutional monarch. The recent strains were relatively cosmetic.
Critically, Eyschen had the
confidence of the
Chamber of Deputies, and he'd managed to hold together a government containing all major factions, seemingly by force of personality alone. To make matters worse for national unity, the strain of occupation had broken apart the pre-war
anti-clericalist alliance between the
socialist and the
liberal factions, thus depriving both the clericalists and anti-clericalists of a legislative
majority.
Mongenast's administration was never intended to be long-lived, and Marie-Adélaïde's main objective when appointing the experienced Mongenast was to steady the ship. Nevertheless, nobody expected the government to fall as soon as it did. On
4 November 1915, Mongenast nominated a new candidate for head of Luxembourg's
école normale. The nomination didn't meet with Grand Ducal approval, and Marie-Adélaïde rejected him. Marie-Adélaïde sought to end this deadlock by
dissolving the Chamber of Deputies and by calling for the voters to grant a mandate to the conservatives. This outraged the left, which assumed that its deputies alone had the constitutional right to grant the government confidence; Nonetheless, on
23 December 1915, Luxembourg went to the polls. Although the position of the Party of the Right was improved, taking 25 seats, it fell a whisker short of winning an absolute majority. On
11 January 1916, the Chamber of Deputies passed a
motion of no confidence, and Loutsch resigned.
National Union Government
Forming a consensus
After the failure of the all-conservative government, the Grand Duchess turned to the leading liberal politician,
Victor Thorn, to form a new government. After Eyschen's premiership of 27 years, two governments had come and gone in three months, and the Luxembourgian people were becoming disillusioned with the failure of the politicians. Thorn's nature was to be a conciliatory leader, and he made a direct appeal to the Chamber of Deputies to support his government, no matter the deputies' individual ideological persuasions: "If you want a government that acts, and is capable of acting, it's imperative that all parties support this government." This support was forthcoming from all parties, but only on the condition that each was invited into the government; Thorn was left with no choice but to afford them this. The resulting
grand coalition cabinet included every leading light in Luxembourgian politics; besides Thorn himself, there were the conservatives
Léon Kauffmann and
Antoine Lefort, the socialist leader
Dr Michel Welter, and the liberal
Léon Moutrier.
Food shortage
The most pressing concern of the Luxembourgian government was that of food supply. The war had made importation of food an impossibility, and the needs of the German occupiers inevitably came before those of the Luxembourgian people. To halt the deteriorating supply of food, Michel Welter, the Director-General for both agriculture and commerce, banned the export of food from Luxembourg. Furthermore, the government introduced
rationing and
price controls to counteract the soaring demand and to make food more affordable for poorer Luxembourgers. However, the measures didn't have the desired effect. Increasing numbers of Luxembourgers turned to the
black market, Although many Luxembourgers were on near-
starvation level dietary intakes,
Despite the avoidance of a famine, the Luxembourgian government lost much of the faith placed in it by the public and by the politicians. On
22 December 1916, Michel Welter, the minister responsible, was censured by the Chamber of Deputies, which demanded his resignation. Thorn procrastinated, seeking any option but firing the leader of one of three major parties, but could find none. On
3 January 1917, Welter was fired, and replaced by another socialist,
Ernest Leclère.
Miners' strike
Discontent amongst the population grew constantly, particularly in the country's industrialised south. The autumn of 1916 had seen the first
unionisation within the iron and steel industries, with
trade unions springing up in both Luxembourg City and
Esch-sur-Alzette. leading to greater employment insecurity. In March and April, three
independents were elected as deputies from the canton of
Esch-sur-Alzette, where the economy was dominated by iron and steel. However, on
31 May 1917, the workers sought to use their most potent weapon, by defying von Tessmar's ultimatum and downing tools. Germany was dependent upon Luxembourgian iron, as the British
Royal Navy's naval
blockade forced Germany to look to accessible local supplies; in 1916, Luxembourg produced over one-seventh of the Zollverein's
pig iron. As such, Germany simply couldn't afford a strike, lest it be deprived of critical raw materials.
In putting down the strike, von Tessmar was ruthlessly efficient, but he wasn't required to resort to the executions that he'd threatened. Within nine days, the strike was defeated and the leaders arrested. The two ringleaders were then sentenced by German court-martial in
Trier to ten years imprisonment, to the disgust of the government. The primary objective was to address the perennial grievances of the left by amending the constitution; in November 1917, the Chamber of Deputies launched a wide-ranging series of debates on various amendments to the constitutions. Ultimately, the constitution was amended to prohibit the government from entering into
secret treaties, to improve deputies' pay (hitherto set at just 5
francs a day), to introduce
universal suffrage, and to change the
plurality voting system to a
proportional one. Although this didn't endear the
Allies to Luxembourgers, the Grand Duchess' instinct was to run to the Germans, who were even less popular amongst the people. On
16 August, German Chancellor
Georg von Hertling paid a visit to Luxembourg; although Hertling asked only to see the Grand Duchess, Kauffmann asked that he also attend. To the Luxembourgian people, relations between the two countries now seemed unambiguously cordial, and all that was left of Kauffmann's credibility disappeared. Pressure mounted on Kauffmann; with his party still strong, but with his personal reputation shattered, he was left with no option but to resign, which he did on
28 September in favour of
Émile Reuter, another conservative.
End of the war
Armistice
By the autumn of 1918, Germany's position in the war was becoming untenable. The massive
Spring Offensive had been an unmitigated disaster, whereas the Allied
counter-attack, the
Hundred Days Offensive, had driven Germany back towards its own borders. On
6 November, von Tessmar announced the full withdrawal of German soldiers from Luxembourg. Five days after von Tessmar's announcement, Germany signed an
armistice treaty, which brought an end to the war of four years. One of the terms of the armistice involved the withdrawal of German soldiers from Luxembourg, along with the other occupied countries.
The Allied Powers agreed that the German withdrawal from Luxembourg would be observed by the
United States, and that the USA would receive the honour of liberating the captive country. On
18 November,
General John Pershing issued a
proclamation to the people of Luxembourg, stating that the United States' newly-formed
Third Army would move through Luxembourg to occupy the German
Rhineland, but that the Americans would come as allies and as liberators:
The following day, American soldiers crossed the Franco-Luxembourgian border. Everywhere, they were fêted as liberators, in the spirit that Pershing had intended to inspire, and were met by bands and civilians waving flags, and were adorned with flowers.
Luc Housse, the
Mayor of Luxembourg City, told the advancing American army that the Germans had, on the whole, been disciplined and well-behaved in the previous three weeks: a marked improvement upon his numerous complaints earlier in the conflict.
Rebellion
Although the Allies were satisfied at this remedy, at the time, the Luxembourgian government was threatened by a
communist insurgency. After the retreat of the German army, revolutionaries established
Russian-influenced
Workers' councils across Luxembourg. On
10 November, the day after
Karl Liebknecht and
Rosa Luxemburg declared a similar '
socialist republic' in Germany, communists in
Luxembourg City declared a republic, but it lasted for only a matter of hours. Another revolt took place in
Esch-sur-Alzette in the early hours of
11 November, but also failed. The socialists had been fired up by the behaviour of Grand Duchess Marie-Adélaïde, whose interventionist and obstructive streak had stymied even Eyschen. On
12 November, socialist and liberal politicians, finding their old commonality on the issue, called for her
abdication. A motion in the
Chamber of Deputies demanding the abolition of the monarchy was defeated by 21 votes to 19 (with 3 abstentions), but the Chamber did demand the government hold a popular
referendum on the issue. However, by January, the vacuum left by the German withdrawal had been filled by American and French soldiers.
President of the Chamber François Altwies asked French troops to intervene. Eager to put an end to what it perceived to be pro-Belgian revolutions, the French army crushed the would-be revolutionaries.
Nonetheless, the disloyalty shown by her own armed forces was too much for Marie-Adélaïde, who abdicated in favour of her sister,
Charlotte. The dynasty's hold on power would be tenuous until September 1919, when a referendum on the future of the Grand Duchy found 77.8% in favour of continued rule by the
House of Nassau-Weilburg.
Paris Peace Conference
Despite the armistice ending the war, and the end of the revolts, Luxembourg's own future was still uncertain. Belgium was one of the countries hit hardest by the war; almost the whole of the country was occupied by Germany, and over 43,000 Belgians, including 30,000 civilians, had died as a result. Belgium sought compensation, and had its eye on any and all of its neighbours; in November 1918,
Lord Hardinge, the
Permanent Secretary at the
Foreign Office, told the
Dutch ambassador in
London, "The Belgians are on the make, and they want to grab whatever they can."
From early 1919, Belgium engaged in a
propaganda campaign to promote its vision of annexation. The effects of these treaties' revocation were then explicitly stated; Luxembourg would withdraw from the
Zollverein, Germany would lose its right to use the Luxembourgian railways, and Germany was obligated to recognise the termination of Luxembourg's neutrality, thus validating the actions of the Luxembourgian government since the armistice. Furthermore, to prevent economic
embargo after the end of the customs union, the treaty allowed Luxembourg an indefinite option on German
coal, and prohibited Germany from levying
duty on Luxembourgian exports until 1924.
Luxembourgers overseas
Thousands of Luxembourgers overseas, unconstrained by the Luxembourgian government's need to remain neutral, signed up to serve with foreign armies. 3,200 Luxembourgian nationals served in the
French Army, of whom 2,800 died. the loss of life solely in the service of the French army amounted to over 1% of the entire Luxembourgian population, relatively greater than the totals for many combatant countries (see:
World War I casualties). The Luxembourgian volunteers are commemorated by the
Gëlle Fra (literally
'Golden Lady' )
war memorial, which was unveiled in Luxembourg City on
27 May 1923. The original memorial was destroyed on
October 20 1940, during the
Nazi occupation, as it symbolised the rejection of German identity and active resistance against
Germanisation. After
World War II, it was gradually rebuilt, culminating in its second unveiling, on
23 June 1985.
The
Luxembourgian community in the
United States found itself confronted by a
crisis of identity. Traditionally, they'd identified themselves as ethnically
German, rather than as a separate community of their own. As such, they read
German language newspapers, attended German schools, and lived amongst
German Americans. Nonetheless, when it became apparent that the war wouldn't be over quickly, the opinions of Luxembourg Americans changed; on
2 May 1915, the Luxemburger Brotherhood of America's annual convention decided to adopt
English as its only official language.
Other organisations were less inclined to change their ways; the
Luxemburger Gazette opposed
President Woodrow Wilson's supposed 'favouritism' towards the United Kingdom as late in the war as 1917.
However, when the United States entered the war in April of that year, the wavering members of the community supported the Allies, changing forever the relationship between the German and Luxembourgian communities in the USA.
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