HIST363: Global Perspectives on Industrialization

The events of 1917 were decisive in ending the war, although their effects would not be fully felt until 1918. The British naval blockade of Germany began to have a serious impact on morale and productivity on the German home front. In response, in February 1917, the German General Staff was able to convince Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg to declare unrestricted submarine warfare, with the goal of starving the United Kingdom out of the war. Tonnage sunk rose above five hundred thousand tons per month from February until July, peaking at 860,000 tons in April. After July, the reintroduced convoy system was extremely effective in neutralizing the U-boat threat, thanks to American experimentation. Britain was safe from the threat of starvation, and the German war industry remained deprived materially.

In the trenches: A carrying party of the Royal Irish Rifles in a communications trench on the first day on the Somme, July 1, 1916

The decisive victory of Germany at the Battle of Caporetto led to the Allied decision at the Rapallo Conference to form the Supreme Allied Council at Versailles to coordinate plans and action. Previously, British and French armies had operated under separate command systems.

In December, the Central Powers signed an armistice with Russia, which released troops from the eastern front for use in the west. Ironically, German troop transfers could have been greater if their territorial acquisitions had not been so dramatic. With both German reinforcements and new American troops pouring into the Western Front, the final outcome of the war was to be decided in that front. The Central Powers knew that they could not win a protracted war now that American forces were certain to be arriving in increasing numbers, but they held high hopes for a rapid offensive in the West using their reinforced troops and new infantry tactics. Furthermore, the rulers of both the Central Powers and the Allies became more fearful of the threat first raised by Ivan Bloch (1836–1929), the Polish financier and war theoretician in 1899, that protracted industrialized war threatened social collapse and revolution throughout Europe. Both sides urgently sought a decisive, rapid victory on the Western Front because they were both fearful of collapse or stalemate.

Entry of the United States

President Wilson before Congress, announcing the break in official relations with Germany on February 3, 1917.

America's policy of insisting on neutral rights while also trying to broker a peace resulted in tensions with both Berlin and London. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson repeatedly warned that he would not tolerate unrestricted submarine warfare, and the Germans repeatedly promised to stop. A proposal to Mexico to join the war against the Allies was exposed in February, bringing war closer. After further U-boat (German submarines) attacks on American merchant ships, Wilson requested that Congress declare war on Germany, which it did on April 6, 1917. The U.S. House of Representatives approved the war resolution 373-50, the U.S. Senate 82-6, with opposition coming mostly from German American districts. Wilson hoped war could be avoided with Austria-Hungary; however, when it kept its loyalty to Germany, the U.S. declared war on Austria-Hungary in December 1917.

Although the American contribution to the war was important, particularly in terms of the threat posed by an increasing U.S. infantry presence in Europe, the United States was never formally a member of the Allies, but an "Associated Power". Significant numbers of fresh American troops arrived in Europe in the summer of 1918, and they started arriving at ten thousand per day.

Germany miscalculated that it would be many more months before large numbers of American troops could be sent to Europe, and that, in any event, the U-boat offensive would prevent their arrival.

The United States Navy sent a battleship group to Scapa Flow to join with the British Grand Fleet, several destroyers to Queenstown, Ireland and several submarines to the Azores and to Bantry Bay, Ireland to help guard convoys. Several regiments of U.S. Marines were also dispatched to France. However, it would be some time before the United States would be able to contribute significant manpower to the Western and Italian Fronts.

The British and French wanted the United States to send its infantry to reinforce their troops already on the battle lines, and not use scarce shipping to bring over supplies. Consequently, Americans primarily used British and French artillery, airplanes, and tanks. However, General John J. Pershing, American Expeditionary Force (AEF) commander, refused to break up American units to be used as reinforcements for British Empire and French units (though he did allow African American combat units to be used by the French). Pershing ordered the use of frontal assaults, which had been discarded by that time by British Empire and French commanders as too costly in lives of their troops. To the astonishment of the Allies, the dispirited Germans broke and ran when the Americans came running, and the AEF suffered the lowest casualty rate of any army on the Western Front, with most recorded deaths being attributed to disease.

German Spring Offensive of 1918

For most of World War I, Allied forces were stalled at trenches on the Western Front.

German General Erich Ludendorff drew up plans (codenamed Operation Michael) for a 1918 general offensive along the Western Front, aiming to divide the British and French armies in a series of feints and advances by striking a decisive blow against the enemy before significant United States forces could be deployed. Before the offensive even began, Ludendorff made what was possibly a fatal mistake; he left the elite Eighth Army in Russia, sending over a few German troops from the east to aid the offensive in the west.

Operation Michael opened on March 21, 1918, with an attack against British Empire forces near the rail junction at Amiens. Ludendorff's plan was to split the British Empire and French armies at this point. German forces achieved an unprecedented advance of 40 miles. For the first time since 1914, maneuvering was achieved on the battlefield.

British and French trenches were defeated using novel infiltration tactics. Instead of the usual long artillery bombardments and continuous front mass assaults, the German Army started to use artillery briefly to infiltrate the line with small groups of infantry at weak points, attacking command and logistics areas and surrounding points of serious resistance. More heavily armed infantry then destroyed these isolated positions. German success relied greatly on this tactic.

The front line had now moved to within 75 miles of Paris. Three super-heavy Krupp railway guns advanced and fired 183 shells on Paris, which caused many Parisians to flee the city. The initial stages of the offensive were so successful that German Kaiser Wilhelm II declared March 24 a national holiday. Many Germans thought victory was close; however, after heavy fighting, the German offensive was halted. The Germans had brilliant new storm trooper, or Hutier tactics that avoided the trenches and sent small units on preplanned raids deep behind the lines to control and communication centers. That worked very well, but the Germans, lacking tanks or motorized artillery, were unable to consolidate their positions. The British and French learned that they had to fall back a few miles and the Germans would be disorganized and vulnerable to counterattack.

Canadian troops advancing behind a tank at the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

American divisions, which Pershing had sought to field as an independent force, were assigned to the depleted French and British Empire commands on March 28. A supreme command of Allied forces was created at the Doullens Conference, in which British Field Marshal Douglas Haig handed control of his forces over to French Marshall Ferdinand Foch.

Following Operation Michael, Germany launched Operation Georgette to the north against the English Channel ports. This was halted by the Allies with less significant territorial gains to Germany. Operations Blücher and Yorck were then conducted by the German Army to the south, broadly towards Paris. Next, Operation Marne was launched on July 15 in an attempt to encircle Reims, beginning the Second Battle of the Marne. The resulting Allied counterattack marked their first successful offensive of the war. By July 20, the Germans were back at their Kaiserschlacht starting lines, having achieved nothing. Following this last phase of the ground war in the West, the German Army never again held the initiative. German casualties between March and April 1918 were 270,000, including many of the highly trained storm troopers. Their best soldiers were gone just as the Americans started arriving.

Meanwhile, Germany was crumbling internally as well. Anti-war marches were a frequent occurrence and morale within the army was at low levels. Industrial output had fallen 53 percent since 1913.

Allied Victory: Summer and Autumn 1918

American engineers returning from the front during the Battle of Saint-Mihiel in September 1918

The Allied counteroffensive, known as the Hundred Days' Offensive began on August 8, 1918. The Battle of Amiens developed with III Corps Fourth British Army on the left, the First French Army on the right, and the Canadian and Australian Corps spearheading the offensive in the center. It involved 414 tanks of the Mark IV and Mark V type, and 120,000 men. They advanced as far as seven miles into German-held territory in just seven hours. Erich Ludendorff (1865–1937), a leading German General, referred to this day as "the Black Day of the German army". Ludendorff wrote extensively on the conduct of the war, which he believed had been defensive.

After a few days, the offensive had slowed down - British Empire units had encountered problems with all but seven tanks. On August 15, General Haig called a halt and began planning a new offensive in Albert, Somme. This Second Battle of the Somme began on August 21. Some 130,000 United States troops were involved, along with soldiers from Third and Fourth British Armies. It was an overwhelming success for the Allies. The German Second Army was pushed back over a 34 mile front. The town of Bapaume was captured on August 29 and by September 2 the Germans were on the Hindenburg Line, which was the starting point of the war.

The Allied attempt to take the Hindenburg Line (the Meuse-Argonne Offensive) began on September 26, as 260,000 American soldiers went "over the top". All divisions were successful in capturing their initial objectives, except the U.S. Seventy-Ninth Infantry Division, which met stiff resistance at Montfaucon and took an extra day to capture the objective.

By the start of October, it was evident that Germany could no longer mount a successful defense, let alone a counterattack. On the frontline they were increasingly outnumbered, with the few new recruits too young or too old to be of much help. Rations were cut for men and horses because the food supply was critical. Ludendorff had decided by October 1 that Germany had two ways out of the War - total annihilation or an armistice. He recommended the latter to senior German officials at a summit on that very same day. During October, Pershing's artillery continued to unrelentingly pound the exhausted and bewildered Germans, all along the Meuse-Argonne front. The Allied pressure did not let up until the end of the war.

Meanwhile, news of Germany's impending military defeat had spread throughout the German Armed forces. The threat of general mutiny was rife. Naval commander Admiral Reinhard Scheer and Ludendorff decided to launch a last ditch attempt to restore the "valor" of the German Navy. Knowing any such action would be vetoed by the government of Prince Maximilian of Baden, Ludendorff decided not to inform him. Nonetheless, word of the impending assault reached sailors at Kiel. Many rebelled and were arrested, refusing to be part of a naval offensive which they believed to be nothing more than a suicide bid. It was Ludendorff who took the blame for this - the Kaiser dismissed him on October 26.

With power coming into the hands of new men in Berlin, further fighting became impossible. With 6 million German casualties, Germany moved toward peace. Prince Maximilian of Baden took charge of the new German government. Negotiations for peace began immediately upon his appointment. In the matter of the German monarchy, he was torn between the ideas of a constitutional monarchy - in which he himself was in line for the crown - or a republic. President Wilson demanded the abdication of the Kaiser and there was no resistance when the Social Democratic Philipp Scheidemann declared Germany to be a republic on November 9. Von Baden then announced that the Kaiser was to abdicate, along with all other princes in the Reich. Imperial Germany was dead; a new Germany had been born - the Weimar Republic.