Why did Germany lost WWI?

the brave germans were about to march on paris until they were ambushed from behind by the jewish stab squad

I don't know if this is just Veeky Forums fucking about or the state of public knowledge about WW1, but either way it's pretty shitty.

I would in no way say that Germany was winning up until 1917. At best it was a stalemate, at worst the the Germans were being drained of men and materiel at a rate that would have left them unable to fight on much beyond 1918 anyway.
Entente armies had the full backing of the French and British empires as well as American resources and money. They had the material and resources to fight the kind of war on the Western Front in a way the Germans didn't. They also had the institutional capacity to train their troops, all their troops, in the kind of fire and movement and infiltration tactics that Germans only trained in their "stormtroopers". When they tried their summer offensives they bloodied the nose of the British and French, but they hardly routed them and once their campaign was stopped they found themselves with inferior troops, too few resources and a line that was not hand picked for defence like the Hindenburg line was. And when the Brits and French reorganised they not only dominated the new battlefields they pushed the Germans back over the ground they'd just captured and then back to the Hindenburg line and then broke that too in the same amount time than it took for the Germans to take it.

> (You)
>I don't know if this is just Veeky Forums fucking about or the state of public knowledge about WW1, but either way it's pretty shitty.

This guy I can talk to!

fake news
nice try, kike

Go for it. I had a couple of WW1 threads up last week. I'm a PhD student studying command on the Western Front and I run a WW1 blog with 3000+ pictures.
Unfortunately I'm about to go to bed, but I'll answer any and all questions tomorrow if you guys have any.

You sound a little mad kiddo.

did black people fight in ww1 or is battlefield a liberal meme

It's impossible to defeat the Chad Anglo

Literally hundreds of thousands of black soldiers fought on the Western Front. Mainly in the French and American armies, but there were also significant numbers of black British troops as well as I think one or two regiments of black German soldiers. There were also tens of thousands of Indian troops who fought on the Western Front and hundreds of thousands of black labourers and hundreds of thousands of Chinese labourers.

yes absolutely, battlefield apparently just seems to make it random across all armies or something like that for maximum diversity insurance which only makes people think it's a forced meme

You again?
Awesome! I'm going to main de massiges in two weeks. Any interesting things you can tell me about the area?

P.S. I've been there a lot of times because my father organises trips to the western front. Just interested if you can tell me anything new.

P.P.S. This is his website, mostly for dutch and belgiumfags
reizennaarwo1.nl/Welkom/

over estimated the strength of the russian tsar and underestimated the british.
reading storm of steel really hammered home to me just home out gunned the germans were in regards to industry. the blockade really fucking hurt them.

the German war machine would've grind to a halt if the French and Brits actually invested in a defensive posture
just look at Verdun

At least in broad brushstrokes, I knwo that the German plans involved trying to knock out France in 1914, and when that failed, there were larger attempts to put weight on the Russian front while trying to hold in the western one.

Do you have any information, or better yet actaual sources that go into a timeline as to how the Germans allocated their forces from 1914-1918? I can easily find such things for WW2, but for WW1, I've never been able to find any

In order to have realistic chance of winning, Germany needed to knock out France within the first year of the war. When the war devolved in a slow, grinding war of attrition, Germany had already lost. In retrospect, they should have offered a peace settlement in 1916.

>Germany is not winning pre 1917 as it is a stalemate and on a strategic level they are loosing having less expendable men and resources than the western entente despite fairing better strategically
>British Blockade crippling them due to lack of food and raw resources which are essential for the combined arms doctrines of late war
>German army is operating at critical capacity on the western front compared to other nations who have men to spare due to other fronts coming to a close with entente victories
>French troops don't nearly have as poor moral as you are led to believe
>Despite having defeated Russia Germany still has to send troops to occupy Russian lands
>The Americans and Anglo/French colonial troops from other theaters are coming to reinforce the western front so Germany is do or die
>Launch Spring offensive but the entente is now even more professional than your army
>Loose all you best troops in the Spring offensive and fail to get a decisive breakthrough but at least you have your impenetrable Hindenburg line
>Allies are preparing for the mother of all offensives in 1919 but go ahead with a smaller offensive in 1918
>The 100 days offensive happens with combined arms and the British and French punch through your impenetrable lines taking so many prisoners its ridiculous causing your entire theater to collapse
>Either sue for an armistice or watch an entire army collapse and the entente sweep through Germany in a theater wide rout and subsequently a unconditional surrender
Germany never stood a chance their fate was sealed at the Marne. As soon as it became a war of attrition the Central just couldn't compete with the Entente on the western front as all other fronts outside of Europe were won by the Entente and the sea was controlled by the British meaning raw material supplies were limited. Even without the Americans Germany would have collapsed by 1919 as the could not have survived the onslaught.

*tactically

well the first thing to realise is they werent winning, they couldnt really be said to be winning at any point after the marne, and after 1916 had to hope simply to exhaust the allies into asking for a peace settlement.

they were slowly being worn down, and every day came closer to defeat.

after 1917 they were forced to take gambles to try and pull off a miracle before the americans arrived in large numbers, these gambles failed - the russian revolution did succeed but the spring offensive failed- and with the allies finally getting the hang of beating german trench defenses, and the german army significantly impaired the allies crushed the hindenburg line and forced the germans to come to terms

not the guy you're asking but i live in the Marne
it seems that you have already been to the trenches system and museum at the site of Main de Massiges, which is awesome btw
in this area, there are french cemeteries south of Massiges: St-Jean-sur-Tourbe and Minaucourt-le-Mesnil-les-Hurlus (20.000 graves). North of Massiges, at Séchault, there is a german cemetery (6.000)
Best is to go west at Sommepy-Tahure, where a german trench is and the american memorial of 'Blanc-Mont'. Souain-Perthes-lès-Hurlus where the Navarin Farm memorial is with lots of remains of craters and trenches around the place. And Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand where there's a russian cemetery
Or go more far east from Massiges towards Vauquois. The 'Butte du Vauquois' site is incredible, worth the visite, google it. Closer to Massiges eastbound there is Vienne-le-Château, you can see a french cemetery and the 'bois de la Gruerie' (lots of remains from the combats of 1915) and 'Camp Moreau' (a german restored camp). There is also in the town a big tree called 'the bloody tree' where 19 french soldiers of the 129th Regiment got blown up onto in decembre 1914
25km north-east, you can find the Meuse-Argonne american cemetery at Romagne-Sous-Montfaucon and Montfaucon-d'Argonne (US sector in 1918): remains of the church and the american tower monument

there are several small sites, as one lost grave, along with a great story hidden here and there but it's too long to list
have a nice stay

>and underestimated the british.

The French*
The British were barely even there until late 1916

America.
The mere uttering of this word is enough to send any German into a spastic fit.

Yes, mostly in the French army and some in the U.S Army.
The British used black troops but never in combat as you see in BF1, at least in the European theater.

>The British were barely even there until late 1916
The fuck are you on about? All 6 divisions of the British army (That's 100% of the BEF in 1914) fought at the first battle of the Marne. Sure the British Army was tiny in 1914 compared to France and Germany but their troops were all professional full time regulars not conscripts.
Plus I imagine when he said under estimated the British it was in regards to their fighting ability during the opening stages of the war such as at Mons (in which the Germans really under estimated the British) and their ability to transform a small expeditionary force into a continental sized fighting force over the course of the war.

(((revolutionaries))) stabbed them in the back.

Also the British mastery of the new combined arms tactics in the latter stages of the war, which Germany was unable to effectively counter

This, but I disagree with mass surrender playing an important role, compared to the actual mass surrenders of Italian and Russian troops, most German surrender was the result of being encircled / overrun. Not shifting forces from the Eastern Front, after Russia had entirely devolved into infighting and revolution, played a much larger role in sapping manpower, than did surrendering German soldiers.

Germany was kneecapped from day 1 by the British navy blockading the North Sea. Despite early German naval victories in the North Sea and as far off as the Indian Ocean, they were almost entirely ineffectual compared to the tremendous size of the British navy, and the global reach of Britain's supply chain. They also were running out of all forms of supply, by the end of the war, and not just mass civilian starvation throughout the winters. Even church bells were being requisitioned for metal, to maintain the war effort.

Despite Germany solidly defending their gains, and the sudden sweeping aside of British and French forces in the Michael offensive, towards the end of the war, all supplies were exhausted, ammunition was dwindling, food scarce, the factories couldn't produce for lack of men and material, and all gains from the Michael offensive were completely unsustainable.

Rioting broke out from lack of food and other necessities. The Kaiser (having just seen the October Revolution in Russia) immediately wanted the rioters, Red or not, shot and imprisoned. His general staff had known how precarious Germany's existence as a functioning state had been for some time now, and knew this couldn't go on any longer. They initiated a soft coup, refusing to carry out his orders, usurping his authority and beginning talks under an armistice, which devolved into a surrender. Wilhelm knew things were entirely out of control from then on, and did not resist abdication.

Howdy Germanic servants, check it out! I'm made of gold!

T.Charlemagne

Why ?

The Germans had arguably lost by the end of 1916, with the failure at Verdun and the retreat across the eastern front. Millions had to be tied into overseeing Russian lands which meant the Germans lost any strategic initiative and the Entente only had to run out the clock without failing.

Yeah I believe the German legions were called Askarien

BEF is a joke and meh professional army a meme

BEF was a tiny and ridiculous army, just a kind of police to prevent uprising in the colonies ; only composed of 70K soldiers where as the professional armies of the french and German were about 750k soldiers

British army was little and irrelevant until 1917

It was in fact the french since the commandment was place in the head of Foch

I wonder what it would have taken for the Entente to accept peace terms in 1915/1916. Perhaps return to pre-war borders, plus return of Alsace Lorraine and yielding some other territories? But I doubt the political climate in Germany would have made this possible.

Eugene James Bullard (1895-1961), pilot in the Escadrille Lafayette, first black person to pilot an aircraft
his story is woth reading

also , US hellfighters

and all the africans from the french colonies who fought bravely on the western front

america

America had an inferior war industry at the time, even compared to the entente.

There were some, mostly in the french Army, but nowhere near the hundreds of thousands That other user is pulling out of his ass.

Every other Central Power was a living failure of a country. If Austro-Hungarian generals knew how to wage a war the Weltkrieg would've ended by 1916.

>The fuck are you on about? All 6 divisions of the British army (That's 100% of the BEF in 1914) fought at the first battle of the Marne. Sure the British Army was tiny in 1914 compared to France and Germany but their troops were all professional full time regulars not conscripts.
A ridiculously small amount of troops. Also, it seems you fell for the "small but élite force" meme. The english were not particularly skilled, or unskilled- even if it were to matter in an attritional, industrial, trenchwar.

Not him but the war was not a trench war in 1914 and not a war of attrition until Verdun.

That is true, however what would make you think 70 thousand men would matter in a front where millions of men fought?

tcm.com/mediaroom/video/1019160/Oh-What-A-Lovely-War-Movie-Clip-These-French-Generals.html

The blockade killed Germany in both wars.

British troops played a pretty substantial role in fucking up the quick victory that the Shifflin plan depended on. British troops could fire their rifles with such accuracy and rapidity that their fusillade was often mistake for machine gun fire.

A good wikipedia copy paste. Don't use their articles for anything serious.
Do you think fire rate has a correlation with skill? Or that the germans were blind and didnt notice a couple thousands guns firing? Or that they even made the same sound?

>5000 dead germans
Thats more dead than at rorkes drift, and the zulu only had spears

What makes you think 6 divisions is only 70,000 men? A full strength British division was around 18,000 strong. And they mattered because not all of those millions of men were fighting in the one place at one time. Six infantry divisions may not be a lot to the 60 or 70 the Germans had on the entire front, but they weren't using massively overwhelming numbers all along the line. The Brits were generally facing odds of 2:1 during August/September, numbers that weren't outrageous and they slowed the German advance, cost them more casualties than they took and retreated in good order.

I'm as much of a francophile as any man, (probably moreso) but to say the French taught the British anything or were in anything more than nominal control is just straight up false. Sure Foch was put in supreme command in 1918, well after the Brits had learned their lessons and trained their armies in the new tactics and developed effective technologies. Institutional learning, that is how an army actually learns lessons from battles, adapts doctrine and then trains forces was very insular. There was almost no cross-pollination between the French and British armies. They learned their lessons and came to similar conclusions separately. All Foch did as supreme commander was coordinate with Haig where and when each ally would attack. He didn't dictate, he didn't tell Haig what to do, he just made it clear how they could best work together.

Fucking nationalists are terrible at history, goddamn.

>unskilled- even if it were to matter in an attritional, industrial, trenchwar.
God, fucking I don't even.
Of course skill and training mattered. Small unit tactics, fire and movement, envelopment of enemy strong points and consolidation of defence systems. All of these things mattered and had to be trained into soldiers, thoroughly, to enable them to actually gain and hold ground. What do you think they were doing? Walking across a battlefield behind a barrage and then sitting in a trench? That's not actually how battles were fought and certainly not how they were won.

they did, but it was much more segregated. You wouldn't commonly see blacks, indians and whites all fighting together

Tell that to Lettow-Vorbeck.

The French alone had at least three colonial infantry divisions that I can think of and at least one colonial cavalry division, they even had a Colonial Army Corps. Over 400,000 colonial soldiers served in the French army alone. The Americans had two black divisions, the 92nd and 93rd, and US divisions were double the size of a European one, so those to alone would come close to 80,000.

East Africa was a whole nother thing and really felt like a completely different conflict in that regard.

The fighting in East Africa was really dank tho. You should read about it some if you haven't already. It was a bizarre mixture of guerilla fighting and "gentlemen's war" that I can't think of any appropriate comparison for.

About the surrenders, you would often get huge groups of germans crossing the trenches to surrender after artillery bombardments, particularly towards the end. I did get that information from a dudes diary though so yeah, pinch of salt. It seems realistic though, their morale would have been piss poor after consistently losing so much ground.

Not him, and I asked it earlier, but I'm not sure if you saw my previous question Do you have any sources on how the Germans divided their forces East and West and how that division shifted over the course of the war?

I don't personally, but I'm sure that any decent book on German strategy and high command would go into the detail you're after. The decision on where to concentrate forces, attack and defend was all done at the highest levels so you'd want to be reading on the German General Staff and what their plans were and how they changed.
German Strategy and the Path to Verdun: Erich von Falkenhayn and the Development of Attrition, 1870–1916 might be a good place to start and encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/pdf/1914-1918-Online-oberste_heeresleitung_ohl-2014-10-08.pdf
defenceindepth.co/tag/first-world-war/ also has some interesting stuff in it about German command and is a good academic resource.

>All 6 divisions of the British army (That's 100% of the BEF in 1914) fought at the first battle of the Marne

Which represented around 35,000 men
In a battle that opposed a million French to 1.4 million Germans...
That's what he meant by "barely even there"
British numbers were literally insignificant until the Somme

Trench warfare started right after the Marne
Germans entrenched themselves and the French copied them

The Naval blockade did its work. Germany was militarily more successful, but it was only a matter of time until they ran out of steam.

Soviet zerg rush

How are you getting 5800 men for a division? There's more men in two infantry brigades than that. A British division at full strength was close to 18,000 men.
Battalion ~1000 men
Brigade = 4 battalions
Division = 3 Infantry Brigades + Field Artillery brigade + Heavy artillery + Divisional troops (supply and transport, medical, engineers etc)

The US of A

Hanging around if anyone wants to talk WW1 for a bit.

*dies on the first offensive*
E-elite...

How significant were commando raids during WW1?

french army morale was close to complete collapse before the us intervened.

lol no.

Very. My office mate is just finishing up his thesis and it's on trench raiding in the British Imperial armies. They were extremely important for giving troops actual experience of combat, intelligence gathering, keeping pressure on the enemy, dominating no mans land and just generally taking the fight to the Germans.
Here's an article of his on Canadian trench raiding
scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol24/iss1/30/
many of the conclusions drawn can be applied to other British forces.

>German government starts proceedings to surrender: 5th October 1918
>German revolution begins: 29th October 1918

What did they mean by this?

Do you think the Russians could've avoided the mess that was Tannenberg had there not been conflicts among Russian generals?

But this is wrong, even if British became stronger and learned their lessons through defeats, this is the french doctrines used in the late 1917 that was applied in the Spring offensive and not the British ones.

So, no, this is not the British armies and their experience that made the differences but the news tactics adopted by the french and spreads out to Allies by Central commandment under Foch

The BEF was at best 80k men which is completely ridiculous and make no difference in the battlefield

35 k engaged in the Battle of the Marne.

There were 140k Belgians engaged in the battle .... With 1M french counter attacking...

foch and pétain.

I'm not denying they played a very subsidiary role in 1914, but they embarked with close to 120,000 men. Even with the casualties sustained during the retreat from Mons they lost less than 15,000 men.
I really don't understand how you're coming up with these British numbers. The British Official Histories pegs the BEF at 126,000 strong in France by September 1914. I get that you may want to hate the eternal anglo, and there's plenty of this to be justifiably angry at but your history on this is just bad.

In all my research on training and doctrine I've never seen anything that points to any real cross-fertilisation of French and British doctrine. American yes, but not British. They were developed simultaneously but separately. It's not that surprising or difficult to understand. They doctrines were similar but still distinct in methods of using artillery and armour in conjunction with infantry.

Probably not. Even had they not hated each other I doubt they would have been able to match the coordination of the Germans. And Russian communications systems were just bad in general, so had they actually wanted to talk to one another, it's pretty unlikely they could have effectively.

Those losses at Mons made them retreat 400km for two weeks, and almost entirely back to England had the prime minister not intervened.

I love this kind of pics (showing battle damage). Post moar if you have.

The losses at Mons amounted to under 2000. Given that the BEF casualties to December would amount to 89,000 I kinda doubt they would have been that squeamish over ~1800 but I dunno.

Just on tanks or battlefields too?

The losses at Mons had nothing to do with British retreat. Brits were retreating because the entire French army was falling back towards the Marne.

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On tanks.

The french army didn't plan on falling back towards London though.

Well I can give you busted up ones.

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really? I've literally only ever seen 5 examples of singular black German soldiers fighting in standard divisions. Where have you seen entire regiments of blacks in the German army?

I don't believe there was any black regiments in the German Army fighting on the western front due to the fact that it was impossible for the Germans to transport troops from Africa.

I remember reading about their being a black schutztruppe unit stuck in Germany during the War and unable to be sent back to Africa so they just used them at the front, but I can't seem to find anything on it now. If I ever do I'll make a note of it.

They would have won with Italy

Germany lost in 1914 when the Schlieffen Plan failed. It was a plan with an extremely tight timetable. Germany had 40 days to seal the deal in the Western Front, knock out France or allow the war to become a meatgrinder.

When that failed, it only became a matter of time before Russia, and later America, fully mobilized, bleeding Germany to death.

By 1918 the war was all but lost and German surrender inevitable. They were bleeding troops and supplies at a much faster rate than the Allies.

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Cute. Named after the best dog as well.