The Defeat of Germany by November 1918
There was great initial enthusiasm in Germany, Layton suggest that
Germany had the best of the four years of fighting. After all Germany
still occupied large parts of enemy territory, such as the Ruhr. Yet
it was found to accept an armistice on allied terms in 1918 outlined
by the treaty of Versailles. This essay intends to examine why this
was the case.
I feel there are a number of reasons why Germany lost the First World
War by November 1918. The first of these is the fact that Germany had
weak allies. Germany’s main ally was the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They
where not a great force in Europe, not compared with the English
empire, which was said at one time that the sun never set on it. There
other ally was the Ottoman Empire. They where also not very strong.
This gave Germany a disadvantage before they even began the war.
Germany could just not compete with the strength of Great Britain.
Also Germany was fighting a war on two fronts with Russia on the east
and France on the left. This meant that they had to divide their
troops into two separate sections. Obviously this is at Germanys
disadvantage as they have half as many troops in the same place,
compared with the size of Russia’s army this was a severe handicap. As
the war was coming to its later stages this became apparent as Germany
was rapidly running out of men for their army, leaving them weak and
bare on the ground.
Another reason why Germany where defeated by 1918 was the fact that
Italy joined the war on the Ententes side, Italy had been Allies to
Germany but a month after joining the Entente Italy declared war on
Germany and Austria-Hungary. This meant that Germany, Austria-Hungary
and the Ottoman Empire where facing war on another front. The German
troops just couldn’t cope. Although the German troops could not cope,
the English where having the same problem, even though they had
introduced compulsory conscription.