2024/09/01 by Hamza Deniz Kobus · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #European Political History Analysis #European history and politics #French Historical and Cultural Studies
paper · doi:10.1080/19475020.2025.2454590
openalex publication_date 2024/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
The defeat in the First World War led to an intense search for causes in interwar Germany. One suggestion insinuated that captured alcohol stocks were responsible for the failure of the German spring offensives and thus for the inability to bring about a change in fortune in 1918. This article reconstructs arguments for both sides of the ensuing debate – temperance activists on the one hand and prominent German military leaders on the other. By comparing their claims with allied, independent and German archival sources, it can be shown that the wine cellars of the Champagne did indeed play a role in delaying the German advance. While alcohol might not have been the primary or decisive factor for the failure of the spring offensives, it nonetheless intensified existing problems. The willingness of German troops to stop and drink can the same time also be regarded as a symptom of underlying disciplinary and logistical problems of the Imperial German army of 1918.