Why the Allied Forces Eventually

Won World War I

Rene Ramjas 999088357
Professor Dimitriadis
HIS103Y
July 24
th
, 2013
2

The war to end all wars
- H.G Wells
1



At the time this quote was said, the scale of the First World War had begun to hit many.
No one believed that a war of this scale could ever happen again it brought around more
bloodshed than anyone had ever seen. Termed the Great War, both conflict and intensity were
unprecedented as both sides competed to create war technology and employ strategies that would
destroy the other
2
. It eventually brought in countries and colonies from all over the world, each
having a different reason for fighting either the Central Powers or the Allied Forces.
3
Despite the
amount of countries involved though, the main conflict was fought in Europe. Both the Allied
Forces and the Central Powers suffered great losses, and they were on equal levels with each
other since it caused a four year stalemate, but ultimately the victors of this war were the Allied
Forces. This was a gradual win, as there were many factors that led to this outcome. However,
the allied forces eventually won the war due to two factors that when put together created the
perfect circumstances for the defeat of the Central Powers: the Collapse of the German Front and
the Americans entrance into the war.
4

Pre-war Germany was a powerful, stable state, and had already outstripped Britain in
terms of industrial output.
5
Even the civilians supported the war effort as it was for the Greater
good of Germany. However by 1915, one could already see that the strain of war had put cracks
in the state that affected not only the people but also the war effort against the Allies. When the
1. H.G Wells was a commentator that wrote many articles about the First World War and eventually they were
put into a book called The War to End all Wars
2. Beckett, I. F. W.. The Great War, 1914-1918. Harlow, England: Longman, 2001 pg 21
3. Beckett, pg 19
4. Please note that Central Powers and Germany will be used interchangeably
5. Beckett pg 21
3

German front collapsed in 1918, it gave the Allies a much needed upper hand against the
Germans to break through their defenses. This collapse was caused by a combination of two
factors that both strained Germany to beyond her maximum level of tolerance, the first being the
Allied blockades. At this time, there were no international laws that were enforced when using
the sea, comparable with the Hague convention that regulated warfare on land
6
. Britain as the
dominant power reigning over the waters took full advantage of her navy and used blockades to
prevent ships from the United States and other countries from trading with Germany
7
.
Strategically placing its ships at the Northern and Southern exits of the North Sea provided an
effective distant blockade from the German ports, as only 19 ships out of 3,098 evaded the
British in 1915
8
. Its true to say that in the beginning, the Germans managed to evade this
blockade and survived for quite a while trading with their Scandinavian neighbours and Holland,
who supplied them with an immense quantity of goods from ammunition to food.
9
However, the
pressure of the blockade had a gradual effect, and eventually Germany exhausted all her
resources and began to starve. As a result, there was a lack of food in Germany. The hungry and
weary population reacted predictably by taking to the streets in protest, and although there was a
political undertone within the strike, it was really just cry of outrage from a population that was
put second to the military needs of the country.
10
Many Germans now wanted an end to the war,
and politically they sided with the Social Democratic Party who also wanted the war to end. As a
result, the German Kaiser did not have 100% of his attention on the war on the field due to the
political and civil unrest. The blockades not only did their job of blocking goods, but they also
6. Cruttwell, C. R. M. F.. A history of the great war, 1914-1918,. 2d ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936 pg 187
6. Cruttwell pg 188
7. Cruttwell pg 188
8. Cruttwell pg 192
9. Groot, Gerard J.. The First World War. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000. pgs 116, 138
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created civil unrest on the home front that weakened Germany due to the fact that it distracted it
from its main goals on the front.
The soldiers of Germany also suffered as a result of the blockades. Germany itself did
not have enough power to manufacture all the weapons that was needed for the war effort.
11
Despite trading with their neighbours, this was still not enough to supply the entire army with
weapons, and as such they were often ill equipped to perform any action against the allies, as one
can see in Operation Michael.
12
In order to strike a decisive blow to the Allies before the
Americans arrived, Germany decided that they would use the advantage that they had more
troops and overpower the Allies. However, this operation was ill equipped, and only about half
of the required number of ammunition needed materialized.
13
Although the strength in numbers
worked for the first battle, the Germans had massive casualties that they werent able to keep up
with. Consecutive battles got harder and harder as the amount of troops and ammunition became
harder to resupply. At the end of this operation, the Germans suffered as much casualties as both
Britain and France put together, and they ended up with 40% less men than the Allies.
14
The
soldiers were led to believe that this operation would win the war, and when it didnt soldier
morale dropped.
15
The Germans couldnt address this properly because not only did they face
problems at home, but also because they had a lack of sufficient supplies that would help to bring
the morale back up to win the battles. As one German soldier wrote, We never understood the
sense of the entire operationThe soldier does his duty and does not question why. It was a duty
10. Ryder, A. J.. The German revolution of 1918: a study of German socialism in war and revolt. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1967.
11. Groot pg 118
12. Groot pg 118
13. De groot 122
14. De groot 123
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alone that kept us together and held our courage up. At such a place, one cannot speak of
enthusiasm; everyone wishes that they were a thousand miles away.
16
The morale of a soldier is
very important in a war. It can either propel an army forward or cause them great defeat. For
example, take the French revolutionaries of 1789 who won their battles based on their sense of
nationalism and liberalism for their country.
17
This morale of the soldiers propelled their power
to massive heights, despite the fact that they lacked the proper direction of Generals and
ammunition for war.
18
The German soldiers became weary and questioned the reason why they
fought the war. They no longer fought because they wanted to see a Greater Germany, they
fought because they were told to, and the amount of effort put into defeating their enemies
dwindled as a result of this. Therefore, the British blockades created circumstances that reflected
in the unrest at home in Germany and carried through to the soldiers acting out on the field.
Germany as a state was weakened due to this, which made it easier for the Allied forces to win
the war.
The second factor that contributed to the collapse of Germany was the fact that it was one
of the only nations that was fighting the war on two fronts. Germany knew that the war would be
hard to win if they fought the war in this manner; however it was possible if the war ended
quickly. What motivated the Germans was the fact that a quick and decisive victory would avoid
the massive casualties that would ensue and would also avoid damaging the structure of
society.
19
However, as history tells, the war was not over by Christmas and actually kept going
16 Groot 179
15. Dimitriadis, Vasilis . "The French Revolution ." Lecture, HIS103Y from University of Toronto, Toronto, June 5,
2013.
16. Dimitriadis, pg 2
17. Beckett pg 46
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for another four years. One factor that might have contributed to the failure of carrying out a
quick war was downfall of the Schlieffen Plan.
20
The Schlieffen Plan took advantage of the fact
that Germany already had a mobilized army and planned a quick decisive blow to France using
the full strength of the army that would end the war on the Western Front.
21
Then the army
would travel to the Eastern Front and defeat Russia. This would end the war in about 12 weeks.
22

Basically, the Germans would fight two one front wars on the Eastern and Western sides using
all available troops. However, Schlieffen died before the war started and the General who was in
charge of the plan made some changes that led to the failure to capture Paris, which was crucial
in the plan.
23
The French attacked the Germans, and the Russians mobilized fairly quickly so
Germany was forced to fight a two front war. The fact that the war was not as quick and decisive
as they planned led to a draining and dragged on war that was to be fought on two fronts.
The main reason that Germany wanted to avoid fighting a war on two fronts was because
it was essentially fighting two wars at the same time. One side might be stronger than the other,
but the fact remains that all resources had to be split among the two fronts. The soldiers were
split, the resources such as food and ammunition were split, and it also was extra effort to ship all
of these goods to the front lines.
24
Communications, as it was the age of the radio, might have
had issues with accuracy
25
. All of these were factored in when Germany was trying to avoid a
two front war. As opposed to fighting with its full strength, Germany was reduced to fighting
with less on both sides as both sides needed to be kept under control. At the beginning of the war
18. Hamilton, Richard F., and Holger H. Herwig. War planning 1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2010. Pg 48
19. Hamilton and Herwig pg 52
20. Hamilton and Herwig pg 52
21. Hamilton and Herwig pg 54
22. Beckett pg 46
23. Groot pg 112

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on the Western front, they were already outnumbered by the French, and the French used that to
their advantage, but failed however because it led to a military stalemate
26
. On the Eastern front
against Russia and her endless supply of men, Germany was also outnumbered. But because
Russia was never the ace in military and was also recovering from war with the Japanese, the
Germans were able to stand their ground in the Eastern front.
27
However, it was never able to
use its power fully to strike a decisive blow any of the Allies on the both the Eastern and
Western fronts. It may have won many battles, but ultimately the two front war weakened the
strength of the German army and power, and was slightly advantageous for the Allies.
The Germans themselves contributed to the collapse of their front. This was what gave
the Allies a slight advantage. War, however, does not differentiate between allies and enemies,
and effects as a whole the entire continent. Therefore, Germany was not the only country facing
problems; the Allied Powers were too, which is why a military stalemate went on for four years.
When Russia went through a Communist revolution and pulled out of the war, the Germans
brought all but 1 million of their troops to the Western front.
28
Although they did have a slight
advantage at that time, the entrance of a powerful state that had till that time been neutral shifted
the chances of winning completely over to the Allies side. That state was the United States of
America.
The Americans, as mentioned above, had remained neutral until April 1917
29
. There
were a number of reasons they stayed that way, some of which were that they didnt want to get
involved in European affairs, they found colonialism abhorrent, and lastly was that America
24. Groot pg 113
25. Hamilton, Richard F., and Holger H. Herwig. The origins of World War I. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2003. Pg 154
26. Groot pg 115
27. Hamilton and Herwig Origins, pg 416
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traded with both the Central and the Allied Powers when it came to shipping ammunition and
goods.
30
On this point, they feared profits would fall if they entered the war. However, due to a
few German mistakes, America was compelled to join the war. One of the mistakes involved the
unrestricted submarine warfare that Germany had employed. Germany initially employed this
strategy in 1914 and sunk the Lusitania, an American ship.
31
The Americans brushed it off and
stayed neutral on the account that the Germans stop the warfare. They stopped, but then realized
that because of the military stalemate, the sea was the only place to win the war and therefore
restarted the unrestricted submarine warfare.
32
The calculation mistake they made here was with
the Americans. They estimated that because American only had a standing army 100,000 strong,
which was a drop in a bucket of water compared to the size of the armies in Europe, they werent
a force to be worried about
33
. Also, America was not a great power as of yet, and they still
trailed behind Germany in terms of industrial output. The amount of ammunition they had on
standby was only enough to last a few battles. This mistake made the Germans lose the war. It
took a year for the Americans to mobilize, but eventually they had an army of 1.8 million men,
and were sending them over at a rate of 10,000 per day.
34
This destroyed the German
calculations of a meek and weak America. This underestimation caused errors in the calculations
of the strategies and tactics used by the Germans to defeat the Allies.
The entry of the Americans into the war brought much needed relief and troops for the
Allies. The Allies themselves were not in the best condition, and with the entry of the
Americans, it gave the Allies a much needed face lift. The American brought in 1.8 million
28. Groot pg 113
29. Groot pg 116
30. Groot pg 116
31. Hamilton and Herwig Origins, pg 420
32. Groot pg 117

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troops to help the Allied war effort, and they also brought in a lot of determination.
35
This not
only raised the morale of the soldiers fighting for the Allies, it also guaranteed them a victory.
Germany in a last ditch effort employed Operation Michael in order to bombard the Allies with
the size of their army and to win the war before the Americans came.
36
However, due to the
stressed state or Germany the operation didnt go as planned and the Americans arrived just in
time. The amount of troops that came in makes one think that the Allies won the war simply on
the man power they had at the end. This is partially true as the man power the Americans
brought in not only tipped but fully brought the scales in the direction of the Allied Powers. The
amount of Americans over powered and suffocated the German soldiers such that they lost the
war.
. The Allied Powers won this war not by themselves, but with a little help from the
enemy and a little bit of help from a comrade. The Germans dug their own hole when they went
to war with Britain and the Royal Navy. Since there werent any sea laws to live by, the British
basically had full control of the sea and used that to their advantage to create a blockade. This
blockade over time starved Germany of not only ammunition but also food. This caused civil
unrest, especially when the civilians had nothing to eat during the long hard winters. This civil
unrest was a distraction for the Kaiser and the generals involved with war since they could not
focus their full attention on the battlefronts. The civil unrest and the lack of ammunition also led
to a drop in soldiers morale, which basically had them giving up rather than going on with the
war. These problems on the homeland tipped the scales in favour of the Allied Powers, but it
33. Groot pg 118
34. Hamilton and Herwig War Planning, pg 52

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wasnt enough to make them win. They also had problems of their own, and when America
decided to join them, thats when victory was well in their hands as the Americans brought in
much needed fresh troops that overpowered the Germans. These two factors, the collapse of the
Germans front and the entry of America into the war allowed the Allied power to eventually win
the war. The First World War will always be remembered as the birth of modern warfare, due to
the technology, the tactics and the scale on which the war happened. Peace was signed, and there
was no official loser, but this peace was a ticking time bomb with an expiration date for the
next world war.
37









35. There was no official loser because technically Germany didnt surrender; they sued for peace. Its different
because they didnt want it to seem as if they had been beaten and humiliated, so therefore they accepted
the Peace Treaty sent out by America.
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References

1. Beckett, I. F. W.. The Great War, 1914-1918. Harlow, England: Longman, 2001.
2. Cruttwell, C. R. M. F.. A history of the great war, 1914-1918,. 2d ed. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1936.
3. Groot, Gerard J.. The First World War. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000.
4. Hamilton, Richard F., and Holger H. Herwig. The origins of World War I. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003.
5. Hamilton, Richard F., and Holger H. Herwig. War planning 1914. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2010.
6. Ryder, A. J.. The German revolution of 1918: a study of German socialism in war and
revolt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967.
7. Dimitriadis, Vasilis . "The French Revolution ." Lecture, HIS103Y from University of
Toronto, Toronto, June 5, 2013.