Why Germany Lost the First World W4r
In November 1918, the German army was beaten and Germany in the gr.i.p of revolution. Less than a year earlier though, Germany and its allies controlled most of Eastern Europe, had defeated Russia, and outnumbered the British and French in the West. So why did Germany lose World W4r One? The German Empire entered the First World W4r in August 1914 with the most powerful army in the world but by November 1918, it had been forced to sign an armistice on Allied terms and a revolution had replaced the Empire with a republic.
The explanation for Germany’s defeat in the last year of the w4r is not as simple as a numbers game. Yes, the Allies had more men and more money – and the longer the w4r lasted, the more likely it was the Allies would win, all things being equal. But nothing in history is inevitable, and all things were not equal.
Germany lost its chance to win a quick victory in 1914 when the French won the Battle of the Marne, but the Central Powers may have had a chance to avoid total defeat. As historian Holger Afflerbach put it: “It was impossible for Germany to win the w4r ; but it required very grave mistakes to lose it.
” Afflerbach 513 Both the Allies and Germans made good and bad decisions that shaped the w4r’s outcome – but only Germany’s decisions lay within its control, and it was by far the strongest member of the Central Powers so that’s why we’ll focus on them to explain Germany’s defeat in 1918. Germany’s famous w4r plan in 1914, the Schlieffen Plan, might have been its best chance to win the w4r against a more powerful enemy alliance.
But as 19th century Prussian General Helmuth von Moltke the Elder admitted in w4r, nothing is certain: “No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy’s main strength.” (Hart 32) The German high command learned that lesson the hard way in August and September 1914.
German planners and commanders pushed their men past their limits, expected too much from the army they actually had, neglected logistics, and made critical operational mistakes. Coupled with a desperate and effective reaction by the French at the Marne, the result ensured the w4r would not be over quickly.
To make matters worse for the Germans, they drew Britain into the w4r by violating Belgian neutrality. The wild gamble had gone wrong: France was still f1ghting, and now Britain was too, leaving the Central Powers to face the unhappy prospect of a long w4r. Still, the Central Powers weren’t necessarily doomed to total defeat, even if outright victory was unlikely.
Some historians argue they might have wrung out some sort of compromise peace even against stronger enemies. If it weren’t for more risks and mistakes they made from 1914 to 1917. • The High Command failed to effectively rea.ssess its strategy after the defeats of 1914 and develop a coherent plan to win or at least force acceptable peace terms.
The army wasted precious manpower in the failed Verdun offensive and flawed defensive tactics on the Somme in 1916. • Planners were unable to maintain food production to compensate for the effects of the Allied blockade. • Germany failed to properly manage its alliance: Austria Hungary and Germany didn’t always coordinate their military operations, and Kaiser Karl even tried to start peace talks without the Germans knowing.
Germany’s system of governance was ineffective: the Kaiser had an important role in the system but was weak, the military eventually took over but didn’t know how to run the economy or politics and interfered with those who did. • And another huge gamble that blew up in their faces was the renewal of unrestricted submarine w4rfare in 1917, which failed to knock Britain out of the w4r and brought in the United States.
That’s not to say Germany didn’t have some successes. They (with Austro Hungarian help) inflicted devastating defeats on Russia and Serbia in 1915, Romania in 1916, and Italy in 1917. They managed, with far fewer resources, to produce enormous quantities of w3apons, to develop new ways of producing fertilizer, and convinced the Ottomans and Bulgarians to join the Central Powers.
The Allies also made mistakes of course: inefficient use of their greater resources, disastrous offensives in Lorraine and East Prussia in 1914, Gallipoli and Champagne in 1915, on the Somme in 1916, and in Flanders, on the Chemin des Dames, and in the Kerensky Offensive in 1917. The difference was that as the weaker belligerent in a long w4r, Germany had no margin for error and every mistake brought it closer to defeat – the same was not true of the Allies.
Their prospects for victory once the US joined in 1917 were intact, while the German high command admitted in late 1916 it could not defeat the Allies on land in the West. So, Germany failed to win a quick victory in 1914, then saw its chances for avoiding defeat further reduced by mistakes in the following years.
But then, the Bolshevik revolution in late 1917 gave Germany one last chance for avoiding defeat. And so Germany gambled once again. In December 1917, the Central Powers and Bolshevik Russia agreed to an armistice, and eventually signed the Treaty of Brest Litovsk in early 1918. With Russia out of the w4r, Germany now in control of vast territories in Eastern Europe, and American troops not yet in France in large numbers, Berlin had one last chance to influence the outcome to the w4r.
As German divisions moved from East to West in early 1918, the High Command prepared one more great gamble, and many in the Allied camp feared defeat. British Cabinet Secretary Maurice Hankey reported the worries of General John du Cane: “ envisages the possibility of the French army being smashed and cut off from us, the enemy demanding as a condition of peace the handing over of all the ports from Rouen and Havre to Dunkirk, and, in the event of a refusal, the remorseless hammering of our Army by the whole German army.
He considers that, if we wanted to go on with the w4r, we should have to face the prospect of a million pr1soners in France.” Ferg 315 Some Germans had questioned what the coming offensives could achieve, like social democrat politician Philipp Scheidemann: “Suppose we were to take Calais and Paris. Suppose such a breakthrough were completely successful, would that mean peace? we have overrun entire states, we have chased hostile governments from the land and yet we still have no peace.
” Watson 515 Most Germans though, held out hope that victory was still within reach. On March 21, 1918, the German Army launched the so called Kaiser’s Battle, or Operation Michael against the British 5th Army. More than 70 divisions supported by 6500 g.uns sliced into 34 British divisions in an attempt to split the two Allied armies.
German forces pushed the British back, took 75,000 pr1soners, and achieved unheard of advances in the west since 1914. Ludendorff explained that he would set objectives as the @ttacks progressed: “In Russia we always merely set an intermediate objective, and then discovered where to go next.” Watson 517 But by April 5, the German drive had run out of steam and the British, with French help, managed to st4bilize the situation.
The German High Command then unleashed a series of follow up offensives against both British and French sectors: Operations Georgette in April, Blücher Yorck in May, Gneisenau in June, and Friedensturm in July. In the end these last ditch @ttacks all made serious dents in Allied lines, but they did not result in the capture of any significant strategic objectives, and they didn’t force the British and French to ask for peace terms.
The Western Front was not Russia, and the Allies managed to pool their reserves to st4bilize the front, with General Ferdinand Foch taking overall command. The French then launched a major counteroffensive in July, which began to turn the tide for good. The British followed with their own @ttack on August 8, a day Ludendorff called “the Black Day of the German Army.
” From then on, the Allies advanced without stopping during the so called 100 Days Offensive, and while the German army still fought back, it was a beaten force. The Allies also achieved crushing victories over the Ottomans, Bulgarians, and Austro Hungarians in the closing phase of the w4r, meaning that even if Germany could somehow hold out for longer in the west, it was completely unable to defend itself in the south and southeast.
In October Ludendorff told Berlin to ask for an armistice since the w4r was lost, and the f1ghting came to an end November 11, 1918. So, what happened in that critical period that resulted not in the German victory General Du Cane and others feared, but in a clear military defeat? The German offensives from March to July broke their own army without gaining a decisive victory.
In March and April alone, they lost 280,000 casualties. By the end of July, the figure was 977,000 – and the k1lled and wounded were disproportionately from Germany’s best units, including the famous Stormtroopers. German sold1er Frederick Meisel described the heavy losses: “French sh3lls began to hit to the right and left of us, leaving human forms writhing in agony.
Our advance came to a stop and soon the French drumfire engulfed us, the air was filled with gas and flying pieces of steel. I reached for my gas mask, pulled it out of its container then noticed to my horror that a splinter had gone through it leaving a large hole. I felt like an animal cornered by h.unters.
I leapt at and in the next moment had r.i.pped his gas mask from his face. The last thing I saw before putting on the mask were his pleading eyes.” (Hart 433) Germany needed 200,000 replacements every month, but each month only saw 70,000 recovered wounded and plus an average of 25,000 new recruits.
These losses caused overall German strength to fall from 5.1 million men in March to just 4 million men six months later. Meanwhile, the Allies were growing stronger, even without Russia. The British released reserves they had held in Britain, and by the end of the year, nearly two million Americans were in France.
Even if the Americans played a lesser role in combat, their presence was important. German rifle strength had outnumbered the Allies by 1.57 million to 1.35 million in April, but by November there were just 866,000 German rifles facing 1.49 million Allied. (Ayers 104) German commanders kept shifting priorities once each drive ran out of momentum.
If the Germans had taken rail hubs like Amiens or Hazebrouck, they could have seriously thre4tened Allied logistics. Major Wilhelm von Leeb was critical of the Army High Command, or OHL: “OHL has changed direction. It has made its decisions according to the size of territorial gain, rather than operational goals.
” Keegan 404 The Germans had effective stormtrooper infantry tactics and innovative artillery tactics thanks to artillery officer Georg Bruchmüller, but they couldn’t turn them into a campaign winning strategy. The Allies, on the other hand, adapted and collaborated. When the German offensive thre4tened the Allied positions, the British government released reserves from the home front.
The Americans, who had insisted until now on keeping their army together, agreed to lend out some of their divisions to the French and British. The French transferred forces to the British to stop Michael in March. British commander Douglas Haig, who had until now opposed being under French command, agreed to serve under French General Ferdinand Foch, who took over as Supreme Commander of Allied forces.
And the Allies were better at the most modern form of w4rfare: combined arms w4r using the latest industrial w3apons on a ma.ss scale. Germany had invented all sorts of new w3apons technology, from poison gas to flamethrowers, but the Allies beat the Germans at their own game. They had 800 hundred tanks in the field while the Germans had about 20, had 4500 aircraft to the Germans’ 3700, 18,000 g.uns to Germany’s 14,000, and 100,000 motor vehicles to move supplies – of which the Germans only had 30,000.
(Ferg 290) France alone produced about 50% more planes than Germany in 1918, caught up to the Germans in terms of the quality of heavy artillery, and surpa.ssed Germany in artillery pulled by tractors, and available sh3lls per battery. Historian David Steveson summed up the shift: „The Allies won the technological race (…), and overtook their enemies not only in numbers but also in f1ghting power.
In the process they pioneered the characteristic forms of later twentieth century w4rfare…” (S. 243) Stevenson Although the German army was beaten, it was still f1ghting in fall 1918 and Allied planners fully expected to f1ght on to complete victory in 1919. Instead, Germany suffered a devastating collapse in morale that ended the w4r sooner.
Even before the spring offensives began, many German troops had lost hope, and this only got stronger as 1918 went on. Up to 180,000 German troops deserted on route to France or while on leave in 1918. When they advanced in the field, some infamously stopped to plunder Allied supplies, but they also began @ttacking their own supply trains for food.
British military intelligence also noticed the change based on pr1soner interrogations: “The belief is prevalent among officers and men that Germany cannot now win the w4r.” Watson 527 After the offensives failed, surrenders became common, including groups or even whole units. This wave of surrenders accelerated until the November 11 armistice, as the army continued to slowly disintegrate.
In just the last three months of the w4r, nearly 400,000 German troops surrendered – by some counts, almost as many French troops as had surrendered in the entire w4r. Many within the rank and file became convinced that f1ghting no longer served Germany’s interests, just those of the high command, the monarchy, and w4r profiteers, the so called Schwindler: “The main thing is that the Schwindel and the k1lling stop.
It doesn’t matter to us, if we end up German or French.” (Zkora 124) Others were more likely to surrender because they felt disoriented as units suffered such heavy losses that they lost cohesion and group loyalty. Overall, the army suffered a nominal loss rate of 140% in just over eight months – so if a unit had 1000 men in January 1918, by October, including all the new recruits and replacements who joined in that time, a total of 1400 men were wounded.
And commanders often threw the remnants of depleted units together instead of building them back up with replacements. Unit cohesion suffered even more because the military regime shuttled hundreds of thousands of men between the field army and industry as short term priorities changed. (Zkora 141) At the same time, sold1ers, sailors and civilians inside Germany had had enough as well.
Workers suffering from malnutrition and w4r weariness went on strike, and navy sailors mutinied rather than sail out for a final su1cide mission against the more powerful Royal Navy. Public anger turned against the Kaiser and military who had led them into the w4r, and a full fledged revolution in early November forced Wilhelm to abdicate and flee to the Netherlands.
Meanwhile, the Allies renewed their propaganda efforts on the home front, better managed relations with labour unions, and took advantage of the morale boost from American troopships arriving in France to make sure that even fragile states like Italy held on. Of course, millions of Germans, military and civilian, wanted to keep f1ghting.
But millions did not, and that tipped the balance. As the crisis deepened, Germany’s top generals at first insisted victory was just around the corner, In the late summer, they p4nicked and admitted defeat, a cycle they repeated more than once in the second half of the year. In mid August, Ludendorff and Hindenburg informed the Kaiser and Chancellor Georg von Hertling that Germany could not win the w4r.
Ludendorff then changed his mind on this question, but after the collapse of Bulgaria in late September, he announced on October 3 that Berlin had to seek an armistice since the w4r was irretrievably lost. He also told Hindenburg that he had no confidence in the troops, since, in his view, they’d been infected by socialism.
The German high command had led the army into disastrous offensives, and now undermined what was left of morale by admitting defeat so suddenly. Historian David Stevenson summed up the impact: “The German Army, for all its virtuosity, was let down by a failure of generalship.” Stevenson 78 So, 1918 saw the German army defeated in the field, and a general German collapse in morale, but it also saw the failure of German w4rtime politics.
From 1916, the German military est4blished an informal dictatorship, and they turned out to be pretty bad at governing. Different interest groups among the German civilian and military elites stru.ggled to give the w4r a coherent meaning, and none of them really succeeded. The army high command generally saw no political solution to the w4r and so insisted on, and mistakenly believed in, their own military superiority until it was too late to avoid defeat.
The Kaiser and the High Command stuck to maximalist w4r aims at the cost of a potentially more effective strategy. They still insisted on annexing Belgium, Luxembourg, and parts of France until summer 1918. Ludendorff and Hindenburg even forced Foreign Minister Richard von Kühlmann to resign when he said that the w4r could not be decided by military means alone.
These rigid objectives were at odds with Germany’s allies like Austria Hungary, who wanted peace as soon as possible starting in 1916. The Allies coordinated far better, aligning their positions on Alsace Lorraine, the breakup of Austria Hungary, and the League of Nations – even though of course some of this consensus would break down after the w4r.
And although Germany won in the East in 1918, the high command kept hundreds of thousands of German troops tied up occupying the territories they had forced Russia to give them, leaving fewer resources for the campaign in the west. In the turmoil of the former Russian imperial territories, the German authorities weren’t even able to extract the food they needed from the lands they’d conquered, even after the so called “Bread Peace” with the new Ukrainian state.
These policies were at odds with the desire of most regular Germans for peace, like this sold1er in fall 1918: “Why didn’t we dispatch a note, when our offensives had their greatest success? No! Now, when we are taking it on the chin, they want to make peace again. Just like in December of 1916.” (Phd 121) On the home front, the military leadership consistently turned to coercion as a tool of governance against strikers and other unhappy citizens.
When Chancellor von Hertling told Ludendorff about the brewing unrest in September, the Quartermaster General simply replied that more repression was required. Austria Hungary did the same, constantly seeking to root out disloyal Slavs, executing thousands of its own Ukrainian citizens on suspicion of having Russian sympathies, and moving 7 divisions to the interior to keep order against roaming deserters.
Germany also failed to react to crises and support its allies in 1918. Austria Hungary was suffering from extreme hunger (in the Austrian half of the empire), but what little food the Central Powers did get from Ukraine went mostly to Germany. Ludendorff famously had a breakdown when the Bulgarian front collapsed, since by gambling everything on the west and leaving large occupation forces in the East, Germany had nothing left to support the Austrians in Italy or the Bulgarians in the Balkans.
The Allies on the other hand, had leaders who were flawed but more legitimate and more representative of the men in the frontlines and the people in the factories at home. President’s Wilson’s message that the w4r was a crusade of democracy was more effective as a result. They also used their command of the sea and good relations with neutrals like the US (until 1917) and Argentina to help feed and fund the w4r effort, and for example, support Italy and France in their worst moments of economic and military crisis.
The German Empire waged a w4r of risks from 1914 to 1918, a w4r that ended in bitter defeat. Berlin took these risks because it was the weaker side, but none of them could stave off total defeat. The final gamble in spring 1918 also ultimately failed: the high command had no strategic goals, the army was beaten in the field by a superior enemy, the generals admitted defeat, and the other Central Powers collapsed.
The home front collapse did indeed help end the w4r, but given the army was beaten, in retreat and disintegrating due to poor morale, here was no st4b in the back as Ludendorff and the Nazis later claimed. That myth, however, would help convince many Germans they’d never lost, with de@dly consequences for the next World W4r.
In 1945 however, the Allies didn’t stop before the German borders to avoid the mistakes of 1918. In early 1945 the Allies set their eyes on the Rhine in Western Germany and the Red Army was gearing up for their Berlin Operation. The Battle of the Rhineland would be the last set piece b4ttle in the west, and the Battle of Berlin the last one in the East.
Millions of Allied sold1ers stood at the ready to bring the Third Reich to its knees and the last German reserves would have to defend. If you are curious about these two often overlooked b4ttles, we produced two World W4r 2 documentary series that together run for more than 8 hours. In Rhineland 45 we cover the Battle for the lower Rhine from the Reichswald at the border until the Allied crossing of the Rhine that involved the biggest single day paratrooper landing of the entire w4r.
In 16 Days in Berlin we document the entire two week Battle of Berlin day by day. Both documentary series were filmed on original location, feature expert guests like Ian from Forgotten Weapons or David Willey from the Tank Museum and they show the Second World W4r in an uncompromising way that wouldn’t be possible to show on YouTube.
So where can you watch 16 Days in Berlin and Rhineland 45? On Nebula, a streaming service we built together with other creators. On Nebula we don’t have to worry about the algorithm or advertiser guidelines and the viewers there support us directly simply by watching our videos – which by the way are ad free and usually uploaded earlier than on YouTube.
If you head over to nebula.tv/thegreatw4r and sign up, you can save 40% on an annual subscr.i.ption right now and watch 16 Days in Berlin, Rhineland 45 or our brand new Nebula Original series Red Atoms about the Soviet Nuclear program. And that’s not all, apart from a growing number of Nebula Originals, your subscr.i.ption now also includes cla.sses.
In our newest cla.ss I teach you everything about producing a great Real Time History documentary and give you a glimpse behind the curtain of our production methods. That’s nebula.tv/thegreatw4r for 40% off on annual subscr.i.ptions and supporting us at Real Time History directly. As usually you can find all the sources for this video in the descr.i.ption down below.
If you want to watch some other World W4r 1 analysis videos of ours, check out the recent video about the downfall of the Imperial Russian Army or another one about the Battle of Cambrai where Germany learned the wrong lessons about tank w4rfare. If you are watching this video on Patreon or Nebula, thank you so much for the support.
I am Jesse Alexander and this is a production of Real Time History. The only history channel that is also sick of the Schwindlers on YouTube.
Why Germany Lost the First World W4r (Documentary) YouTube
Transcr.i.pts:
In November 1918, the German army was beaten and Germany in the gr.i.p of revolution. Less than a year earlier though, Germany and its allies controlled most of Eastern Europe, had defeated Russia, and outnumbered the British and French in the West. So why did Germany lose World W4r One? The German Empire entered the First World W4r in August 1914 with the most powerful army in the world but by November 1918, it had been forced to sign an armistice on Allied terms and a revolution had replaced the Empire with a republic.
The explanation for Germany’s defeat in the last year of the w4r is not as simple as a numbers game. Yes, the Allies had more men and more money – and the longer the w4r lasted, the more likely it was the Allies would win, all things being equal. But nothing in history is inevitable, and all things were not equal.
Germany lost its chance to win a quick victory in 1914 when the French won the Battle of the Marne, but the Central Powers may have had a chance to avoid total defeat. As historian Holger Afflerbach put it: “It was impossible for Germany to win the w4r ; but it required very grave mistakes to lose it.
” Afflerbach 513 Both the Allies and Germans made good and bad decisions that shaped the w4r’s outcome – but only Germany’s decisions lay within its control, and it was by far the strongest member of the Central Powers so that’s why we’ll focus on them to explain Germany’s defeat in 1918. Germany’s famous w4r plan in 1914, the Schlieffen Plan, might have been its best chance to win the w4r against a more powerful enemy alliance.
But as 19th century Prussian General Helmuth von Moltke the Elder admitted in w4r, nothing is certain: “No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy’s main strength.” (Hart 32) The German high command learned that lesson the hard way in August and September 1914.
German planners and commanders pushed their men past their limits, expected too much from the army they actually had, neglected logistics, and made critical operational mistakes. Coupled with a desperate and effective reaction by the French at the Marne, the result ensured the w4r would not be over quickly.
To make matters worse for the Germans, they drew Britain into the w4r by violating Belgian neutrality. The wild gamble had gone wrong: France was still f1ghting, and now Britain was too, leaving the Central Powers to face the unhappy prospect of a long w4r. Still, the Central Powers weren’t necessarily doomed to total defeat, even if outright victory was unlikely.
Some historians argue they might have wrung out some sort of compromise peace even against stronger enemies. If it weren’t for more risks and mistakes they made from 1914 to 1917. • The High Command failed to effectively rea.ssess its strategy after the defeats of 1914 and develop a coherent plan to win or at least force acceptable peace terms.
The army wasted precious manpower in the failed Verdun offensive and flawed defensive tactics on the Somme in 1916. • Planners were unable to maintain food production to compensate for the effects of the Allied blockade. • Germany failed to properly manage its alliance: Austria Hungary and Germany didn’t always coordinate their military operations, and Kaiser Karl even tried to start peace talks without the Germans knowing.
Germany’s system of governance was ineffective: the Kaiser had an important role in the system but was weak, the military eventually took over but didn’t know how to run the economy or politics and interfered with those who did. • And another huge gamble that blew up in their faces was the renewal of unrestricted submarine w4rfare in 1917, which failed to knock Britain out of the w4r and brought in the United States.
That’s not to say Germany didn’t have some successes. They (with Austro Hungarian help) inflicted devastating defeats on Russia and Serbia in 1915, Romania in 1916, and Italy in 1917. They managed, with far fewer resources, to produce enormous quantities of w3apons, to develop new ways of producing fertilizer, and convinced the Ottomans and Bulgarians to join the Central Powers.
The Allies also made mistakes of course: inefficient use of their greater resources, disastrous offensives in Lorraine and East Prussia in 1914, Gallipoli and Champagne in 1915, on the Somme in 1916, and in Flanders, on the Chemin des Dames, and in the Kerensky Offensive in 1917. The difference was that as the weaker belligerent in a long w4r, Germany had no margin for error and every mistake brought it closer to defeat – the same was not true of the Allies.
Their prospects for victory once the US joined in 1917 were intact, while the German high command admitted in late 1916 it could not defeat the Allies on land in the West. So, Germany failed to win a quick victory in 1914, then saw its chances for avoiding defeat further reduced by mistakes in the following years.
But then, the Bolshevik revolution in late 1917 gave Germany one last chance for avoiding defeat. And so Germany gambled once again. In December 1917, the Central Powers and Bolshevik Russia agreed to an armistice, and eventually signed the Treaty of Brest Litovsk in early 1918. With Russia out of the w4r, Germany now in control of vast territories in Eastern Europe, and American troops not yet in France in large numbers, Berlin had one last chance to influence the outcome to the w4r.
As German divisions moved from East to West in early 1918, the High Command prepared one more great gamble, and many in the Allied camp feared defeat. British Cabinet Secretary Maurice Hankey reported the worries of General John du Cane: “ envisages the possibility of the French army being smashed and cut off from us, the enemy demanding as a condition of peace the handing over of all the ports from Rouen and Havre to Dunkirk, and, in the event of a refusal, the remorseless hammering of our Army by the whole German army.
He considers that, if we wanted to go on with the w4r, we should have to face the prospect of a million pr1soners in France.” Ferg 315 Some Germans had questioned what the coming offensives could achieve, like social democrat politician Philipp Scheidemann: “Suppose we were to take Calais and Paris. Suppose such a breakthrough were completely successful, would that mean peace? we have overrun entire states, we have chased hostile governments from the land and yet we still have no peace.
” Watson 515 Most Germans though, held out hope that victory was still within reach. On March 21, 1918, the German Army launched the so called Kaiser’s Battle, or Operation Michael against the British 5th Army. More than 70 divisions supported by 6500 g.uns sliced into 34 British divisions in an attempt to split the two Allied armies.
German forces pushed the British back, took 75,000 pr1soners, and achieved unheard of advances in the west since 1914. Ludendorff explained that he would set objectives as the @ttacks progressed: “In Russia we always merely set an intermediate objective, and then discovered where to go next.” Watson 517 But by April 5, the German drive had run out of steam and the British, with French help, managed to st4bilize the situation.
The German High Command then unleashed a series of follow up offensives against both British and French sectors: Operations Georgette in April, Blücher Yorck in May, Gneisenau in June, and Friedensturm in July. In the end these last ditch @ttacks all made serious dents in Allied lines, but they did not result in the capture of any significant strategic objectives, and they didn’t force the British and French to ask for peace terms.
The Western Front was not Russia, and the Allies managed to pool their reserves to st4bilize the front, with General Ferdinand Foch taking overall command. The French then launched a major counteroffensive in July, which began to turn the tide for good. The British followed with their own @ttack on August 8, a day Ludendorff called “the Black Day of the German Army.
” From then on, the Allies advanced without stopping during the so called 100 Days Offensive, and while the German army still fought back, it was a beaten force. The Allies also achieved crushing victories over the Ottomans, Bulgarians, and Austro Hungarians in the closing phase of the w4r, meaning that even if Germany could somehow hold out for longer in the west, it was completely unable to defend itself in the south and southeast.
In October Ludendorff told Berlin to ask for an armistice since the w4r was lost, and the f1ghting came to an end November 11, 1918. So, what happened in that critical period that resulted not in the German victory General Du Cane and others feared, but in a clear military defeat? The German offensives from March to July broke their own army without gaining a decisive victory.
In March and April alone, they lost 280,000 casualties. By the end of July, the figure was 977,000 – and the k1lled and wounded were disproportionately from Germany’s best units, including the famous Stormtroopers. German sold1er Frederick Meisel described the heavy losses: “French sh3lls began to hit to the right and left of us, leaving human forms writhing in agony.
Our advance came to a stop and soon the French drumfire engulfed us, the air was filled with gas and flying pieces of steel. I reached for my gas mask, pulled it out of its container then noticed to my horror that a splinter had gone through it leaving a large hole. I felt like an animal cornered by h.unters.
I leapt at and in the next moment had r.i.pped his gas mask from his face. The last thing I saw before putting on the mask were his pleading eyes.” (Hart 433) Germany needed 200,000 replacements every month, but each month only saw 70,000 recovered wounded and plus an average of 25,000 new recruits.
These losses caused overall German strength to fall from 5.1 million men in March to just 4 million men six months later. Meanwhile, the Allies were growing stronger, even without Russia. The British released reserves they had held in Britain, and by the end of the year, nearly two million Americans were in France.
Even if the Americans played a lesser role in combat, their presence was important. German rifle strength had outnumbered the Allies by 1.57 million to 1.35 million in April, but by November there were just 866,000 German rifles facing 1.49 million Allied. (Ayers 104) German commanders kept shifting priorities once each drive ran out of momentum.
If the Germans had taken rail hubs like Amiens or Hazebrouck, they could have seriously thre4tened Allied logistics. Major Wilhelm von Leeb was critical of the Army High Command, or OHL: “OHL has changed direction. It has made its decisions according to the size of territorial gain, rather than operational goals.
” Keegan 404 The Germans had effective stormtrooper infantry tactics and innovative artillery tactics thanks to artillery officer Georg Bruchmüller, but they couldn’t turn them into a campaign winning strategy. The Allies, on the other hand, adapted and collaborated. When the German offensive thre4tened the Allied positions, the British government released reserves from the home front.
The Americans, who had insisted until now on keeping their army together, agreed to lend out some of their divisions to the French and British. The French transferred forces to the British to stop Michael in March. British commander Douglas Haig, who had until now opposed being under French command, agreed to serve under French General Ferdinand Foch, who took over as Supreme Commander of Allied forces.
And the Allies were better at the most modern form of w4rfare: combined arms w4r using the latest industrial w3apons on a ma.ss scale. Germany had invented all sorts of new w3apons technology, from poison gas to flamethrowers, but the Allies beat the Germans at their own game. They had 800 hundred tanks in the field while the Germans had about 20, had 4500 aircraft to the Germans’ 3700, 18,000 g.uns to Germany’s 14,000, and 100,000 motor vehicles to move supplies – of which the Germans only had 30,000.
(Ferg 290) France alone produced about 50% more planes than Germany in 1918, caught up to the Germans in terms of the quality of heavy artillery, and surpa.ssed Germany in artillery pulled by tractors, and available sh3lls per battery. Historian David Steveson summed up the shift: „The Allies won the technological race (…), and overtook their enemies not only in numbers but also in f1ghting power.
In the process they pioneered the characteristic forms of later twentieth century w4rfare…” (S. 243) Stevenson Although the German army was beaten, it was still f1ghting in fall 1918 and Allied planners fully expected to f1ght on to complete victory in 1919. Instead, Germany suffered a devastating collapse in morale that ended the w4r sooner.
Even before the spring offensives began, many German troops had lost hope, and this only got stronger as 1918 went on. Up to 180,000 German troops deserted on route to France or while on leave in 1918. When they advanced in the field, some infamously stopped to plunder Allied supplies, but they also began @ttacking their own supply trains for food.
British military intelligence also noticed the change based on pr1soner interrogations: “The belief is prevalent among officers and men that Germany cannot now win the w4r.” Watson 527 After the offensives failed, surrenders became common, including groups or even whole units. This wave of surrenders accelerated until the November 11 armistice, as the army continued to slowly disintegrate.
In just the last three months of the w4r, nearly 400,000 German troops surrendered – by some counts, almost as many French troops as had surrendered in the entire w4r. Many within the rank and file became convinced that f1ghting no longer served Germany’s interests, just those of the high command, the monarchy, and w4r profiteers, the so called Schwindler: “The main thing is that the Schwindel and the k1lling stop.
It doesn’t matter to us, if we end up German or French.” (Zkora 124) Others were more likely to surrender because they felt disoriented as units suffered such heavy losses that they lost cohesion and group loyalty. Overall, the army suffered a nominal loss rate of 140% in just over eight months – so if a unit had 1000 men in January 1918, by October, including all the new recruits and replacements who joined in that time, a total of 1400 men were wounded.
And commanders often threw the remnants of depleted units together instead of building them back up with replacements. Unit cohesion suffered even more because the military regime shuttled hundreds of thousands of men between the field army and industry as short term priorities changed. (Zkora 141) At the same time, sold1ers, sailors and civilians inside Germany had had enough as well.
Workers suffering from malnutrition and w4r weariness went on strike, and navy sailors mutinied rather than sail out for a final su1cide mission against the more powerful Royal Navy. Public anger turned against the Kaiser and military who had led them into the w4r, and a full fledged revolution in early November forced Wilhelm to abdicate and flee to the Netherlands.
Meanwhile, the Allies renewed their propaganda efforts on the home front, better managed relations with labour unions, and took advantage of the morale boost from American troopships arriving in France to make sure that even fragile states like Italy held on. Of course, millions of Germans, military and civilian, wanted to keep f1ghting.
But millions did not, and that tipped the balance. As the crisis deepened, Germany’s top generals at first insisted victory was just around the corner, In the late summer, they p4nicked and admitted defeat, a cycle they repeated more than once in the second half of the year. In mid August, Ludendorff and Hindenburg informed the Kaiser and Chancellor Georg von Hertling that Germany could not win the w4r.
Ludendorff then changed his mind on this question, but after the collapse of Bulgaria in late September, he announced on October 3 that Berlin had to seek an armistice since the w4r was irretrievably lost. He also told Hindenburg that he had no confidence in the troops, since, in his view, they’d been infected by socialism.
The German high command had led the army into disastrous offensives, and now undermined what was left of morale by admitting defeat so suddenly. Historian David Stevenson summed up the impact: “The German Army, for all its virtuosity, was let down by a failure of generalship.” Stevenson 78 So, 1918 saw the German army defeated in the field, and a general German collapse in morale, but it also saw the failure of German w4rtime politics.
From 1916, the German military est4blished an informal dictatorship, and they turned out to be pretty bad at governing. Different interest groups among the German civilian and military elites stru.ggled to give the w4r a coherent meaning, and none of them really succeeded. The army high command generally saw no political solution to the w4r and so insisted on, and mistakenly believed in, their own military superiority until it was too late to avoid defeat.
The Kaiser and the High Command stuck to maximalist w4r aims at the cost of a potentially more effective strategy. They still insisted on annexing Belgium, Luxembourg, and parts of France until summer 1918. Ludendorff and Hindenburg even forced Foreign Minister Richard von Kühlmann to resign when he said that the w4r could not be decided by military means alone.
These rigid objectives were at odds with Germany’s allies like Austria Hungary, who wanted peace as soon as possible starting in 1916. The Allies coordinated far better, aligning their positions on Alsace Lorraine, the breakup of Austria Hungary, and the League of Nations – even though of course some of this consensus would break down after the w4r.
And although Germany won in the East in 1918, the high command kept hundreds of thousands of German troops tied up occupying the territories they had forced Russia to give them, leaving fewer resources for the campaign in the west. In the turmoil of the former Russian imperial territories, the German authorities weren’t even able to extract the food they needed from the lands they’d conquered, even after the so called “Bread Peace” with the new Ukrainian state.
These policies were at odds with the desire of most regular Germans for peace, like this sold1er in fall 1918: “Why didn’t we dispatch a note, when our offensives had their greatest success? No! Now, when we are taking it on the chin, they want to make peace again. Just like in December of 1916.” (Phd 121) On the home front, the military leadership consistently turned to coercion as a tool of governance against strikers and other unhappy citizens.
When Chancellor von Hertling told Ludendorff about the brewing unrest in September, the Quartermaster General simply replied that more repression was required. Austria Hungary did the same, constantly seeking to root out disloyal Slavs, executing thousands of its own Ukrainian citizens on suspicion of having Russian sympathies, and moving 7 divisions to the interior to keep order against roaming deserters.
Germany also failed to react to crises and support its allies in 1918. Austria Hungary was suffering from extreme hunger (in the Austrian half of the empire), but what little food the Central Powers did get from Ukraine went mostly to Germany. Ludendorff famously had a breakdown when the Bulgarian front collapsed, since by gambling everything on the west and leaving large occupation forces in the East, Germany had nothing left to support the Austrians in Italy or the Bulgarians in the Balkans.
The Allies on the other hand, had leaders who were flawed but more legitimate and more representative of the men in the frontlines and the people in the factories at home. President’s Wilson’s message that the w4r was a crusade of democracy was more effective as a result. They also used their command of the sea and good relations with neutrals like the US (until 1917) and Argentina to help feed and fund the w4r effort, and for example, support Italy and France in their worst moments of economic and military crisis.
The German Empire waged a w4r of risks from 1914 to 1918, a w4r that ended in bitter defeat. Berlin took these risks because it was the weaker side, but none of them could stave off total defeat. The final gamble in spring 1918 also ultimately failed: the high command had no strategic goals, the army was beaten in the field by a superior enemy, the generals admitted defeat, and the other Central Powers collapsed.
The home front collapse did indeed help end the w4r, but given the army was beaten, in retreat and disintegrating due to poor morale, here was no st4b in the back as Ludendorff and the Nazis later claimed. That myth, however, would help convince many Germans they’d never lost, with de@dly consequences for the next World W4r.
In 1945 however, the Allies didn’t stop before the German borders to avoid the mistakes of 1918. In early 1945 the Allies set their eyes on the Rhine in Western Germany and the Red Army was gearing up for their Berlin Operation. The Battle of the Rhineland would be the last set piece b4ttle in the west, and the Battle of Berlin the last one in the East.
Millions of Allied sold1ers stood at the ready to bring the Third Reich to its knees and the last German reserves would have to defend. If you are curious about these two often overlooked b4ttles, we produced two World W4r 2 documentary series that together run for more than 8 hours. In Rhineland 45 we cover the Battle for the lower Rhine from the Reichswald at the border until the Allied crossing of the Rhine that involved the biggest single day paratrooper landing of the entire w4r.
In 16 Days in Berlin we document the entire two week Battle of Berlin day by day. Both documentary series were filmed on original location, feature expert guests like Ian from Forgotten Weapons or David Willey from the Tank Museum and they show the Second World W4r in an uncompromising way that wouldn’t be possible to show on YouTube.
So where can you watch 16 Days in Berlin and Rhineland 45? On Nebula, a streaming service we built together with other creators. On Nebula we don’t have to worry about the algorithm or advertiser guidelines and the viewers there support us directly simply by watching our videos – which by the way are ad free and usually uploaded earlier than on YouTube.
If you head over to nebula.tv/thegreatw4r and sign up, you can save 40% on an annual subscr.i.ption right now and watch 16 Days in Berlin, Rhineland 45 or our brand new Nebula Original series Red Atoms about the Soviet Nuclear program. And that’s not all, apart from a growing number of Nebula Originals, your subscr.i.ption now also includes cla.sses.
In our newest cla.ss I teach you everything about producing a great Real Time History documentary and give you a glimpse behind the curtain of our production methods. That’s nebula.tv/thegreatw4r for 40% off on annual subscr.i.ptions and supporting us at Real Time History directly. As usually you can find all the sources for this video in the descr.i.ption down below.
If you want to watch some other World W4r 1 analysis videos of ours, check out the recent video about the downfall of the Imperial Russian Army or another one about the Battle of Cambrai where Germany learned the wrong lessons about tank w4rfare. If you are watching this video on Patreon or Nebula, thank you so much for the support.
I am Jesse Alexander and this is a production of Real Time History. The only history channel that is also sick of the Schwindlers on YouTube.
