Why did Germany lose WW1?

This is something I don't get. Germany managed to settle a white peace with Russia, meaning they had a war on only one front. Conventional wisdom states that therefore they should have the upper hand and win the war.

But they didn't? Germany crushed the West in WW2, so why did they have some much trouble in WW1?

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>This is something I don't get. Germany managed to settle a white peace with Russia,

First off, the peace with Russia took some time to settle, what with the revolution and whatnot. Second, holding the newly conquered lands took some manpower.

>meaning they had a war on only one front. Conventional wisdom states that therefore they should have the upper hand and win the war.

Why would conventional wisdom state that they should have the upper hand just because they only fought on one front? That would only be conventional wisdom if that meant they somehow achieved a decisive advantage in some factors, most importantly manpower. Which they did not.


>But they didn't? Germany crushed the West in WW2, so why did they have some much trouble in WW1?

Germany crushed the west in WW2 because they got very lucky with an incredibly risky plan - and reaped incredible dividends as a result. They achieved this in large part to a much higher degree of mobility which was not present in WW1.

The answer why Germany could not achieve anything meaningful despite only now having a single front after 1917 is fairly easy – they had the short end of the stick when it came to the homefront. The blockade was denying them resources, the allies were in a much better economical position for the long run, and resentment and war weariness grew among the populace.

Then there was the American entry into the war which was not decisive but it definitely sped things up by a lot simply by the virtue of opening up large reserves of manpower. Which did not really get tapped into, but the allies - unlike Germany - could easily afford to act in a much more decisive manner.

The Germans actually tried one last gasp attempt at a major breakthrough with the Spring offensives, but in the end those were counter-productive to their war effort. They did not achieve any meaningful objectives, whatever ground they gained was either only reclaimed from previous positions or of little to no value.

Exhaustion, to put it simple.

German manpower and resources were brought to their limits fighting off a 2 front war, along with enduring a blockade by sea that was effective in slowly starving the Germany civilian population.

By the time Germany secured peace on the eastern front, the damage done was already too severe, and the Germans had to gamble what was left of their army one one final offensive to break France and bring Britain and Italy to the negotiating table.

By late 1918, the food shortage was so severe that both the civilian population and the military revolted, overthrowing Wilhelm and setting up a Republic that would accept talks with the allies.

tl;dr: exhausted manpower and resources grounded Germany to a halt at the very end, and the food shortages that were starving the country was the last straw that broke Germany.

All their allies were about done and or collapsing. They were defeated rather decisively in the hundred days offensive. Their population was starving and large parts in revolt.

>meaning they had a war on only one front

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonian_Front

To expand a bit on the Spring Offensives, whatever limited gains the Germans achieved were bought at a terrible cost – by virtue of committing their most experienced units to the attack, whatever casualties they suffered would hurt doubly. In general terms because they were facing a manpower shortage, and because these were veteran troops.

Incidentally, this is what "stormtrooper tactics" as employed by Germany were. Equivalent "stormtrooper" tactical approaches were explored and utilized by virtually every combatant as early as 1915, but only Germany added to them this overarching layer of pooling troops into dedicated formations on a larger scale. Which might work for isolated, tactical objectives quite well, but in the long run - and in a precarious position like in which Germany found itself - this was detrimental to their war effort.

The Germans often outran their supply lines, and would often suffer from miscommunication or no clear objectives being set, with their leadership often changing goals daily. Coupled with the aforementioned deliberate strategy on the part of the allies of letting the Germans overextend themselves, the offensive was pretty much dead in the water only a couple of weeks after it had started. This was all after they had shipped what troops they could spare from the east.

Then the allies went on the counterattack for about a hundred days straight, pretty much without stopping, breaking the enemy lines at will, and dealing decisive blows to the enemy. Who, as if things were not bad enough, then suffered a collapse on the homefront with mutinies, strikes, unrest and the like.

bcuz they were well into planning for ww2

well those are pretty much single-digits of german divisions in places far away from 'german' frontlines proper, it's not like they had an impact on the war one way or the other

>But they didn't? Germany crushed the West in WW2, so why did they have some much trouble in WW1?

World War I was the whole reason why germany lost pretty much everything it gained during and after it's unification. They were a leading industrial, military and economic power.
Going into this war benefitted them in no way yet the warmongers around Hinderburg and Luddendorf wanted this war. They even went so far to discredit the more peaceful advisors of Willy with the Harden-Euleburg affair.
From then on germany was on caps lock, cruise control.

Winning this war additionally required a good plan a little bit of luck. The Schlieffen-Plan was basically copying Hannibals gamble and wreck the french armies in one big encirclement.
That didn't work out. The french for one fought tooth and nail and the thrust through Belgium was not as hard as it could have been. Russia helped a lot by mobilizin it's army, slapping the Austrians and making Falkenhayn lose his nerve. He send crucial Soldiers away that were needed for the plan to succed. Instead Hindenburg got reinforcements he never ever needed. Germany lost the war then and there.
Everything afterwards was both sides trying new cool ways to waste soldiers. Sometimes in hilariously horrific ways.

So no, Germany never ever had a chance after the Schlieffen plan failed. The entente had won by that point, but nobody realized it until 1918.

In both world war Germany was in the same situation: due to a stronger domestic army and industry they had the upper hand in the early war but they'd lose out in the long run because France, Britain and Russia would be able to extract more manpower and resources from their manpower in the long run.

This is why the Von Schlieffen plan existed: to knock France out of the war rapidly. The Miracle of the Marne moved the front outside of Paris, which was pivotal for the rise or fall of France. This gave both France and Britain breathing space, allowing them to exploint their colonial wealth and manpower to the maximum and wear down Germany.

This is also why I don't get why the French get shit for being defeated in "only" six weeks. If the French weren't defeated in under two months, they wouldn't be defeated at all. Just like in WW2.

> Coupled with the aforementioned deliberate strategy on the part of the allies of letting the Germans overextend themselves

man this has been russias strategy for a invasion ever since napoleon

Read a bit about the maginot line and you will understand better

I don't like when people blame the Jews for everything, but this time it was really the Jews stabbing the German people in the back.

>highlighting people who weren't jews
>ignoring leaders who weren't jews
>ignoring the revolution was kicked off by kriegsmarine sailors (presumably all jews?)
>ignoring the mass surrenders and unrest in the army
>ignoring the military defeat preceded the revolution
0/10 effort, get the fuck outta here

I wouldn't call it a white peace at all. See the Treaty of Brest Litovsk. The treaty was good for Germany apart from trying to occupy Ukraine. The Ukrainians hated the Germans just as much as they hated the Russians. Germany had to keep over 1 million men in the East to secure the treaty they signed.

Germany policy in the west in 1918 was a complete clusterfuck. There best chance to win as they identified was to knock Britain out of the war and therefore a isolated France would come to the negotiating table. A German win hinged on them making the first offensive (Operation Michael) a decisive one. Although they smashed the British Fifth Army, they were taking back worthless ground. (all the ground they had retreated from in 1917) Typical Germany. Great on a tactical level but operationally their plans were lacking. In order to defeat the British, they needed to take key points in the line in which troop movements/communications were organised.
Amiens and Arras being the obvious targets.
Arras is an often overlooked battle but one of the finest British defensive displays in the whole war.

The Germans proceeded to split their forces and only make half hearted plans to take these positions.All the time they are messing around deciding whether to push Arras or Amiens, they are expending manpower and resources that they could not afford. Operation Michael was their best chance at winning the war since the Marne in 1914.

Over the next series of offensives; Georgette, Blucher-Yorck and Gneisenau they again make "gains" but these are strategically useless. Eventually the materialschlact tells and they are worn down. Ironically, German pre war planners anticipated that Germany would inevitably lose a long drawn out war.

Because burger.

Baguette detected

The war was lost conventionally when the 1918 Revolution happened though.

Lol they removed the entry about Radek being Jewish on the wiki, but you can see it at the bottom. Fucking hell

WW1 was not a winnable war. The technology for winning was simply not available until very late in the war. The only way was to lose less hard, and that's what the Entente did in the end.

You can tell by the picture regardless lmao

The war was over when Italy defeated the Austrians, the Germs would had fallen apart like a house of cards if they got attacked from the south.

same reason they lost the second one. They were fighting the entire god damn planet.

Did Italy defeat Austria? I thought the Italians got slapped down everytime they attacked and the serbs did a lot of
damage to A-H

>they got very lucky with an incredibly risky plan
>walk AROUND the demagio line & through belgium
MUH GENIUS
like they cared after being bait fucked by seperating prussia from the versai treaty from wwi, there was only one course that could be taken.

they got wigged hard by ghosts of the tripple entrande, german generals knew the east was coming and yolo'd it.

>walk AROUND the demagio line & through belgium
Read a book, nigger. Everyone, including the Belgians and French and British and Germans, were aware that the Germans would try to circumvent the maginot line in Belgium. That was why the line was built, so that the French reservists could hold a vast stretch of land while the standing army would fight and (theoretically) defeat the Germans on the field in Belgium. There were both French and BEF forces in Belgium during the battle of France, but they were too far north and reacted too sluggishly when the actual incredibly risky plan was pulled, i.e. going through the Ardennes.

The reason that Germany won was that they sent a few divisions through the Ardennes, difficult terrain that could easily have been a death trap for the German divisions had the French or British reacted promptly. Gamelin, however, was convinced that this was just a diversionary assault and didn't reinforce the salient, allowing the Germans to break through.

The risky part was pushing thousands of vehicles through a forested, hilly region with just four roads.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vittorio_Veneto

That wasn't decisive anymore as it was about one month after the breakdown of Bulgaria and the Ottomans and the German defeats on the Western front.

Germans talk a good fight but they lack the martial spirit of true warrior races, such as the French and Russians.

...

>That would only be conventional wisdom if that meant they somehow achieved a decisive advantage in some factors, most importantly manpower. Which they did not.

But they did gain an advantage in manpower. Once Russia was out of the war, some 50 Geeman divisions were freed up and sent to the Western Front. This meant that the Germans outnumbered the Allies by several hundred thousand men. This is the primary reason they launched the Kaiseschlact, they knew that their manpower advantage was temporary and would be negated once American units started arriving en made in France. It was a big gamble that could have paid off, but German forces just took too many casualties in all the heavy fighting and where unable to achieve the massive breakthroughs they so desperately needed.

Betrayal by communists and Jewish banker cabals on the home front.

>But they did gain an advantage in manpower.
Not a decisive one.