Resolution of The War

In 1917, when the American Doughboys began pouring in earnest into the European warfront, the
stalemates that had been for nearly 3 years quickly changed to losses for the German military. Though,
inexperienced, young and wholly new to battle the American Expeditionary Forces were fresh, well-supplied
and largely eager to help their allies defeat the Germans due to the large amount of propaganda going on in
the US at that time (Lyons, 2000).
With the last few battles of World War I, boiling down to clear defeats of the German military on the
Western front, and losing one of their key allies in the country of Bulgaria, the German government and war
leaders were being forced to realize that the end of the war was near, but only had to agree on how best to
meet that end. The battles fought and lost by the Germans in the Argonne Operation, as well as the line at the
Hindenberg getting pushed further and further back as the Germans lost almost every battle to the Allies,
showed the German leaders that militarily, defeat was not only a forgone conclusion, but was imminent and
that time was running out (Lyons, 2000).
Further, geographically speaking, the sudden surrender and treaty reached between the Allied Nations
and Bulgaria, showed the Germans that losing their supply of oil from Romania was a real danger and doing so
would leave them in no position to bargain for any decent truce which placed some of the German leaders at
odds with each other. Some thought that those who could see the weakening German line at the Western
Front were acting too hastily towards a truce and feared that Germany could lose too much if they acted too
fast. Others pushed for the need to transition their country into a democracy to see if that would add leniency
to their situation once truce time came (Lyons, 2000).
Wilson's 14 points
President Woodrow Wilson, in his address to Congress on January 8, 1918, outlined the things that the
US would push for in seeking peace with Germany and their allies in the war. Soon to be known as Wilsons
14 Points, the terms for armistice and eventual treaties while selfless and desirable, eventually came to be
seen as perhaps too idealistic and far reaching. The points involved things like free-trade, giving up control of
the oceanic trading routes and realignment and governance of colonial territories. Many of these things were
not met with happy agreement on either side of the war; even Great Britain and France were not eager to
hastily agree to anything that would be to their detriment, especially when they felt that they had been the
ones wronged (Lyons, 2000).
It was not until President Wilson had taken the time to consult with his European counterparts, the
Allies had made serious military advances on the warfront, as well as open up a dialogue between German
leaders and himself that the things he outlined in the 14 points began to take shape and become somewhat of
a reality. One of the 14 points was to create a League of Nations, a neutral force that could settle international
disputes. While this force would take decades to become close to what was originally envisioned, the United
Nations would eventually come out of this idea (Lyons, 2000).

Source
Lyons, M. (2000). World War I: A short history (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall