“Slaughtered” by the German machine gunners. One of them said this “you didn’t have to aim, we just fired into them”. Another new weapon was the tank. This, however, was prone to break down. When the Germans first saw a tank they were so scared of it they just ran away but all it was was a big tractor with armour plating around it. Gas was used first by the Germans this was a very nasty attack weapon but the problem was you could not use it and then attack after. By 1917 every soldier had an effective gas mask so gas was not used again. I believe that the new weapons that were invented played an equal part in breaking the stalemate because it gave men a new hope that these new weapons could be used in breaking the stalemate and every one of these new weapons pushed them closer to the Germans.
On the 6th of April 1917 the Americans joined the war, the Europeans thought that they should have joined a long time ago but to the Americans up until now it was a distant quarrel that had nothing to do with them. America had made an enormous profit out of selling things to the allies but also they had loaned Britain over two billion dollars. Money wasn’t the only reason why the Americans joined the war lots of their civilian ships had been destroyed by U-boats. After the U-boat attack on the Lusitania in which 128 people died the U-boat attacks diminished. The Americans patience ran out when the Germans asked Mexico if they would be willing to join in with their alliance. This provided us with more supplies and troops. After the Americans came in the Russians left the war because of a revolution in their country so this meant that Germany could send troops through Russia. For some months we had Russia and America on our side. I believe that this played an equal part in the breaking of the stale mate because America gave the older British and French troops new hope and it gave us supplies, funding and many more troops. It was very lucky that the USA decided to join because Russia had just gone out of the war and we would have defiantly lost.
After we had won the war at sea we blocked the German ports and so stopping all of the supplies getting into the German homeland. This deprived the German civilians of food, clothes and general supplies. Lots of the civilians were dying of starvation this caused the people to riot and in some cases to start a revolution. The people wanted an end to the war and so the government lost support from the public people. The Germans then sent out u boats to blow up the convoys that were blocking the port so we stopped the U-boats by putting mines into the water and more convoys. Now the war at sea was centred on supply ships so the supply ships were transported with battle ships to protect them. This then led to a stale mate at sea. I believe that this was an equal part in the stalemate being broken because this caused German the public to turn against the government and so they lost support for the war. This did not help the morale of the soldiers fighting and so they were weakened too.
On the 21st March General lundendorff lunched his attack. He used 6000 big guns and mustard gas to get the British out of their lines. It worked so this meant that the Germans had broken the stalemate. After this had happened the French and the British appointed Ferdinand Foch his job was to make sure that the British, Americans and the French all fought as one force rather than three separate forces. At first the Germans seemed to be unstoppable as they had already advanced 65 kilometres and by July they had reached the river Marne again. What they did not realise was that the plan had already failed. This was because he had sent too many troops forward and now had no reserves to back them up and they were now open to attack from both sides of where they were positioned so really the offensive was just delaying the end of the war. On the 18th of July Foch counter- attacked the Germans with the British led by 456 tanks and they drove the Germans back past the Hindenburg line which was a heavily defended German line. After this win the allies went on to win battles on the solonika front, against the Bulgarian army and the Austrians. While this was going on thousands of German civilians were dying of an outbreak of Spanish influenza. In other parts of Germany revolutions were happening because of ship’s crews mutinying. I believe that this was an equal part in the stalemate being broken because it was this attack that actually broke the stalemate when the Germans went over the top and took the English lines.
I believe that they all played an equal part in the stalemate being broken because without one thing happening then another may not have happened. Such as if we had never blocked the ports then the German U-boats would have never tried to get out and start to sink the American ships and so the Americans would had never joined at the right time. If that happened and Russia had still gone out, then the Germans may not have used the lundendorff offensive because there would have been no need for it, but then the stalemate may never have been broken.