Why did Germany and her Allies lose WWI?

From the start, Germany and it's allies were set to have a tragic end; unlike the British, they did not have a strong Government to make good decisions involving the military, economic or cultural aspects of their country that was represented in the war. Towards the end, Germany's army began to completely deteriorate while England, France,and the USA were still standing confidently as they worked together and had strong and well-trained armies and navies, enough money to supply the soldiers with weapons, and the trust of their nation's people. Countless mistakes were made by the Central powers to drive them out of the war with nothing gained but millions of their own men dead.Events like the Zimmerman Telegram, the Von Schlieffen Plan, and the Battle of Jutland all contributed to the downfall of Germany and her allies in WWI. The Central powers' main mistake throughout the war though, was their political factors which created many more problems in other aspects of their Nation and the war including military, economic, and cultural.

The Central Powers deeply lacked a good political system which was the root cause of their collapse in the war. Firstly, the Germans followed an Authoritarian Government which is run by a leader or leaders and is usually unelected by the people and so, they do not have a say in any of the decisions that were made for the Nation. This structure was very ineffective in Germany as all the decisions were made by the top authority and at that time was Wilhelm and General Ludendorff. Both were unwilling to give up their command which was wrong of them because they made all the decisions without considering the opinions of their people and, if their method failed, there was no other back-up plan. Secondly, Germany's Alliance System with Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria, and Italy was very weak due to the fact that they didn't work well together and they were not reliable. Italy, as Austria-Hungary and Germany had taken the offensive alliance, refused to go to war and never actually fought on the side of the Central Powers. Furthermore, towards the very end of the war, Austria-Hungary stopped protecting Germany and they were left alone surrounded by the Alliance side with no help. On the other hand, Britain, France, and the US had a very strong alliance system as they worked very well together since only one supreme commander, General Ferdinand Foch, controlled all the Allied armies. Lastly, the Zimmerman Telegram also affected Germany greatly in the war on their political side as they sent a telegram to Mexico asking them to go against the US so that it would distract the US from entering the war and joining the Allies side and they promised them that if they won, Mexico would receive all their land back. They did not accept though since they were busy fighting their own war (Civil war) and the US found out and were raged. This became one other reason that the US entered the war.

Due to the fact that Germany had a disorganized political system, its military side was badly affected too. Their only military strategy was high-risk attack where, any opportunity they found, they would use all their strength and do everything they could to advance on the enemy but if they did not succeed, their only plan was to wait for the next chance to charge whereas the British had a professional army that had strict instructions on how to take over and destroy their enemy. The British also had DORA (Defense Of the Realm Act) which was a series of laws that made sure the soldiers had everything they needed and were capable of fighting in the war. Moreover, the Von Schlieffen Plan was Germany's military tactic to get back the land of Alsace and Lorraine from France which also failed. They wanted to go through Belgium which was a neutral country to get into France while the rest of the soldiers surrounded Russia in the East. As the Germans attempted this though, the French counterattacked on the outskirts of Paris and meanwhile, it gave time for the Russians to spread and end the German offensive. This resulted in years of trench warfare. Likewise, the Battle of Jutland that was between the British Navy and the German fleet (31st May-1st June 1916) began because the British Navy controlled the Northern Sea with Dreadnoughts and would sink any German ship they found. This cut supplies of food to Germany and nitrates which were needed to make explosives for the army and fertilizer for the farmers. This deeply concerned the German people about the war and they began to wish for the fighting to end as they were being starved at home. The Germans found a chance for defeat when they sunk the Lusitania, the largest passenger vessel that was coming from the US to England; it was said that it was only carrying cargo but was actually filled with weapons. This event was one of the big reasons the US entered the World War as many Americans died on that boat and now, the German people had completely lost faith in their Government.

All of these military failures that Germany was experiencing began to worry the German people and they were starting to believe that it would be better to stop fighting in the war as the only things happening were countless of their men dying everyday and the money given by the people towards the war was going to waste since there were no successes. Germany did not have a tax system so all the money that was used for the war was given by Germany's nationalists and people who trusted their Government. But since they weren't getting anywhere in the war and the German army was deteriorating, the Government started running out of money to use for weaponry as the people lost confidence in them. Additionally, Germany became isolated as they were surrounded by the Allied armies and they had no choice but to fight by themselves without any help from their alliances.

* People in Germany were becoming worried because countless of German men were dying every day at war and people at home were shocked because they didn't realise and were not informed of the huge risks of participating in the war. This lead to an untrustworthy relationship between Germany and its people because they felt betrayed by their nation due to the fact that they were not familiarized with the tragedy of the war and did not have an accurate idea of what was happening. When they started being aware of the amount of casualties of their army that they believed was extremely strong, they no longer felt the need to encourage the continuation of the war as they were let down by their Government.

Culturally, Germany was doomed from the start as Propaganda affected the way German soldiers fought in the war and the amount they trusted their Nation. A big mistake that the Germans made with their propaganda was that they ridiculed the worth of the enemy and the soldiers trusted that everything they said was the truth but when they were sent to war, they were shocked as they had a very different impression to what they saw in front of them. They did not expect such harsh brutality and did not have time to prepare so they felt deceived by their Nation's propaganda. On the other hand, British propaganda was much more truthful to its people and warned them of the barbarians they were to be faced with. This adjusted the soldiers to know what to expect and fight with all their might and it strengthened their self-esteem. When they got to the battle-field, they weren't scared off by the enemy, knew exactly how to act, and actually increased their hatred towards the Central Powers.

Many people today are trying to figure out whether Germany could have defeated their original enemies if the US did not enter the war but in my opinion, Germany and its allies were not strong as an Alliance System or Government to begin with and did not have a strict enough structure or prepared enough army to defeat Britain and France. These two countries, even working without the US were extremely well-prepared and Germany did not stand a chance compared to them, with or without the US, however long their army stayed up. They were deteriorating fast and Germany didn't even have their people's trust towards the end so I think, if the US did not enter the war, yes Germany would be able to hold up their army longer but I don't think they would be able to defeat France and Britain. In the end, Germany would have the same outcome since they would just grow weaker and the German people would crave peace which would force them to surrender.

The First World War was huge in the sense that for the first time, so many countries were involved and had created so many problems together. The Central Alliance was weak from the start and did not have a proper structure so the war didn't really benefit them in any way. They didn't gain much more than what they started with and instead lost millions of men in a time line of four years. Many mistakes were made by the Government of Germany and if they had planned out exactly how they were going to get what they wanted from the very start and if they were more organized, they might of had better luck in the war. But because of the wrong government structure, the lack of German peoples' opinion taken into consideration, and all the events that occurred that proved Germany was not worthy enough to fight in the war, Germany and its alliance system slowly and painfully declined affecting the Nation militarily, economically, and culturally.

What was the leading cause of WWI?

World War I was a terrible breakout in which all countries were involved. It began in 1914 and lasted for four years. There were many different reasons for this worldwide conflict but I believe that the main one was imperialism which began a long time before a world war was ever imagined to happen. Imperialism is the policy of forcefully extending a nation’s authority by territorial gain or by the establishment of economic and political dominance over other nations. This began many conflicts that started in Europe and spread to various countries which created industrialization, militarism, alliances, and nationalism.

Imperialism first formed in Europe’s major empires, Great Britain, Germany, and France. They wanted to spread their nations and create overseas empires and open up markets for the goods they produced. So they started conquering weaker nations in Europe like Africa because they thought that they were better than them and believed that there nations were more important than Africa was since it was a ‘backward’ country. Africa was not technologically advanced and did not have a good military so wasn’t able to fight back the imperialists. The European missionaries also started to support these ideas because they thought that it would make it easier for them to convert the native people and would end slave trade. This started spreading throughout Europe and countries started competing with each other; it was often thought that gaining colonies was a measure of the nation’s greatness.

During this time, industrialization was also introduced. Industrial and scientific achievements began and countries in Europe started becoming more advanced in technology and in trade with foreign nations. They began looking for rare things that they could trade with foreign countries like gold and diamonds from Africa. There were many consequences of imperialism and industrialization though because countries started fighting over nations they wanted to conquer and it drove them to creating more military advancements to help them take over the countries they wanted. They also started creating alliances with each other to help them when a war broke out with an enemy that tried to conquer the same land of a nation.

Militarism was an important factor which contributed to WWI because it helped make the nations stronger to conquer other nations. Machine guns and great gunships like the Dreadnaught were created which caused a lot of military competition. Many battles were also the result of militarism as they fought for lands, like the Boers war, the British and Germans who were fighting over who had a stronger naval army and the British with France over Africa. This created a lot of enemies and alliances which brought more and more battles and formed a lot of tension in Europe.

When alliances were created, the reason for them was when an agreement was made between two or more countries to give each other help if needed during a time of war but also to prevent any one European country achieving a position of overwhelming strength. Some examples of alliances that were created are the Three Emperors league (Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary), the Dual Alliance (Germany and Austria-Hungary), the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy), the Franco-Russian Alliance, and the Anglo-Russian Entente. The alliance system was started by Bismarck after the Franco-Prussian war when he wanted to isolate France so created the Three Emperors League in 1872. After France occupied Tunisia, Bismarck took advantage of Italian resentment towards France and created the Triple Alliance. The negative side of alliances was that some countries had no option but to declare war if one of their allies declared war first.

There were many nationalists forming in Europe during the constant battles between various nations. They believed that they should do everything for their country like join the army and fight in the wars, even if it meant getting killed, and support all of their nation’s plans to conquer. After the Austrian-Hungarian heir, Franz Ferdinand was assassinated along with his wife in Sarajevo, Serbia to break off Austria-Hungary’s south-Slav provinces so that they could be combined into a greater Serbia, the people became furious and did everything to get their country back. After this, nationalism started spreading throughout Europe which created stronger armies, more people wanted to expand their nations and it started more wars.

Therefore, we can see that the major cause of WWI was imperialism because that is what began all the other factors like militarism, alliances, and nationalism. Even though each factor caused many problems between different nations, especially in Europe, the main problems came from imperialism. I believe that it opened up many issues and made countries much greedier for power and money. It brought a lot of competition in trade and military equipment and started the use of alliances which created many more enemies. Through little wars about unimportant issues, big wars started happening with more and more countries involved which created a big mess and brought out World War I.

To what extent was Germany already at war with Europe by 1914?

I. Introduction

• Origins of the rivalry between Germany and Europe.

• Thesis

II. Domestic policies and foreign policies

• Colonial expansion

• Creation of a German dominated economic zone

• Strengthening of the navy

III. Socioeconomic developments in Germany and Europe

• Rapid industrialization

• The evolution of the political structures

IV. Main incidents

• Daily Telegraph Affair

• First Moroccan Crisis

• Second Moroccan Crisis

• Balkan Crisis

V. Conclusion

Unification of Germany and Bismarck's rule

Otto Von Bismarck’s rule began in 1847 when he became a Deputy in the Prussian United Diet and then, one year later became the Prussian Representative at the Diet in Frankfurt. He then became Minister-President when he was recommended by Prussia’s war minister. During his rule, he constantly tried to weaken Austria and make Prussia the dominant state. I strongly believe that without the steps taken by Bismarck, the unification of Germany would never have happened so it is possible that the World Wars wouldn’t have happened either. Many sources say that Bismarck used to make important decisions for the instant but never looked at the future. He once said “ Politics are not a science based on logic; they are the capacity of always choosing at each instant, in constantly changing situations, the least harmful the most useful,” (source 11). There was a long course of acts that had been made before the unification of Germany that added up to it.

After Napoleon’s victory, the states went from 350 to 39 and the largest two remained Prussia and Austria. Bismarck continually tried to weaken Austria and after the Crimean War, Austria was left isolated when it lost its allies (France, Russia, and Britain). This made Prussia able to take control over them so Bismarck made a secret alliance with Italy and increased tension when proposed to the Federal Diet a constitution that he knew they would strongly disagree with. Bismarck once wrote “Germany is clearly too small for the both of us” (pg 19). At the end of seven weeks, Austria was defeated by Prussia in Koniggratz. Furthermore, Bismarck made it seem that Kaiser Wilhelm did not like France so they became worst enemies. After the war had ended between them, France lost more than twice as many men as Germany did and Napoleon had also been captured but now Germany feared another war with France. That was the last push which helped the decision for the unification of the states.

A major factor of the unification of France was the dominance of Prussia and the weakening of Austria. If Austria was never weakened by Bismarck and if he had never provoked France, there wouldn’t have been a Franco-Germany war so the states would never have to be unified to become stronger in case of another attack from France. All this was because of the wrong decisions made by Bismarck. If he thought about the future and not just about the instant issue, the unification of Germany and maybe even the World Wars would never have happened.