Editing Stab-in-the-back myth (section)

==Assessments of Germany's situation in late 1918==
[[File:Western front 1918 allied.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|alt=|Map showing the Western Front as it stood on 11 November 1918. The German frontier of 1914 had been crossed in the vicinities of [[Mulhouse]], [[Château-Salins]], and [[Marieulles]] in Alsace-Lorraine.]]

===Contemporary===
When consulted on terms for an armistice in October 1918, [[Douglas Haig]], commander of the British and Commonwealth forces on the western front, stated that "Germany is not broken in the military sense. During the last weeks her forces have withdrawn fighting very bravely and in excellent order". [[Ferdinand Foch]], Supreme Allied Commander, agreed with this assessment, stating that "the German army could undoubtedly take up a new position, and we could not prevent it".{{sfn|Liddell Hart|1930|pp=383–384}} When asked about how long he believed it would take for German forces to be pushed across the Rhine, Foch responded "Maybe three, maybe four or five months, who knows?".{{sfn|Liddell Hart|1930|pp=385–386}}

In private correspondence Haig was more sanguine. In a mid-October letter to his wife he stated that "I think we have their army beaten now".<ref name="Beach 2013" />{{rp|316}} Haig noted in his diary for 11 November 1918 that the German army was in "very bad" condition due to insubordination and indiscipline in the ranks.<ref name="Beach 2013" />{{rp|318}}

British army intelligence in October 1918 assessed the German reserves as being very limited, with only 20 divisions for the whole western front of which only five were rated as "fresh". However, they also highlighted that the German Class of 1920 (i.e., the class of young men due to be conscripted in 1920 under normal circumstances, but called up early) was being held back as an additional reserve and would be absorbed into German divisions in the winter of 1918 if the war continued.<ref name="Beach 2013">{{cite book |last1=Beach |first1=Jim |title=Haig's Intelligence: GHQ and the German Army, 1916–1918 |date= 2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9781139600521 |pages=303–319 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/haigs-intelligence/C8E7355FE420251BF9CB60AAE202A893 |access-date=4 March 2024}}</ref>{{rp|317–318}} Aerial reconnaissance also highlighted the lack of any prepared fortified positions beyond the Hindenburg line.<ref name="Beach 2013" />{{rp|316}} A report from the retired German general [[Max Montgelas|Montgelas]], who had previously contacted British intelligence to discuss peace overtures, stated that "The military situation is desperate, if not hopeless, but it is nothing compared to the interior condition due to the rapid spread of Bolshevism.".<ref name="Beach 2013" />{{rp|318}}

===Post-war===
Writing in 1930, the British military theorist [[B. H. Liddell Hart|Basil Liddell Hart]] wrote that:
<blockquote>The German acceptance of these severe terms [i.e., the Armistice terms] was hastened less by the existing situation on the western front than by the collapse of the "home front," coupled to exposure to a new thrust in the rear through Austria.{{sfn|Liddell Hart|1930|p=385}}</blockquote> 
Analysing the role that developments on the western front had played in the German decision to capitulate, Hart emphasised particularly the importance of new military threats to Germany that they were ill-equipped to meet, alongside developments within Germany, stating that:
<blockquote>More truly significant was the decision on November 4, after Austria’s surrender, to prepare a concentric advance on Munich by three Allied armies, which would be assembled on the Austro-German frontier within five weeks. In addition [[Hugh Trenchard, 1st Viscount Trenchard|Trenchard]]’s [[Independent Air Force]] was about to bomb Berlin: on a scale hitherto unattempted in air warfare. And the number of American troops in Europe had now risen to 2,085,000, and the number of divisions to forty-two, of which thirty-two were ready for battle.{{sfn|Liddell Hart|1930|p=385}}</blockquote>

German historian [[Imanuel Geiss]] also emphasised the importance of the Austro-Hungarian collapse, alongside internal factors affecting Germany, in the final decision by Germany to make peace:
<blockquote>Whatever doubts may have lingered in German minds about the necessity of laying down arms they were definitely destroyed by events inside and outside Germany. On 27th October Emperor Karl threw up the sponge [...] Germany lay practically open to invasion through Bohemia and Tyrol into Silesia, Saxony, and Bavaria. To wage war on foreign soil was one thing, to have the destructions of modern warfare on German soil was another.<ref name="Geiss 266">{{cite book |last1=Geiss |first1=Immanuel |author1-link=Imanuel Geiss |editor1-last=Taylor |editor1-first=AJP |editor1-link=AJP Taylor |title=History of World War 1 |date=1974 |publisher=Octopus Books |isbn=0706403983 |page=266}}</ref></blockquote>

Geiss further linked this threat to Germany's borders with the fact that the German revolutionary movement emerged first in the lands that were most threatened by the new invasion threat{{snd}}Bavaria and Saxony. In Geiss's account, this led to the two competing movements for peace{{snd}}one "from above" of establishment figures that wished to use the peace to preserve the status quo, and one "from below" that wished to use the peace to establish a socialist, democratic state.<ref name="Geiss 266" />

Naval historian and first world war Royal Navy veteran Captain [[Stephen Roskill|S.W. Roskill]] assessed the situation at sea as follows:
<blockquote>There is no doubt at all that in 1918 Allied anti-submarine forces inflicted a heavy defeat on the U-boats ... the so-called 'stab in the back' by the civil population's collapse is a fiction of German militaristic imagination<ref name="Roskill 229">{{cite book |last1=Roskill |first1=S.W. |author1-link=Stephen Roskill |editor1-last=Taylor |editor1-first=AJP |editor1-link=AJP Taylor |title=History of World War 1 |date=1974 |publisher=Octopus Books |isbn=0706403983 |page=229}}</ref></blockquote>
Although Roskill also balanced this by saying that what he characterised as "the triumph of unarmed forces" (i.e., pressure from the German civilian population for peace under the influence of the Allied blockade) was a factor in Allied victory alongside that of armed forces including naval, land, and air forces.<ref name="Roskill 229" />