Another reason why the First World War may have been affected and led to the First World War is the technological and tactical changes that were made, one of these changes was the invention of tanks, which the British had invented but these were way to slow and was and an obvious advantage to the Germans because the slowness of the tanks allowed the German troops to have time getting there accuracy destroying the tank and the people inside.
Machine guns were another technological advance that also affected the result of the First World War because it allowed a soldier to kill a full brigade in minutes. Machine guns was also fitted on aircraft behind the propellers which was synchronized with them firing bullets to shoot through the gap however one slight problem could lead to the plain crashing to the ground as the bullets could hit the propeller .camouflage was another technological change and they used to protect there troops and guns also troops were given gas masks this protected them from the new invention of poison’s gas bombs these burned ,blinded and slowly killed the victims over 4 to 5 weeks.
Trench warfare played a great role in the world war. Firstly enemy trenches were bombarded by shells to weaken the enemies’ resistance, and then the soldiers would then climb out of their trenches (going over the top) and advance towards the enemy across ‘no mans land’. When running across no mans land they would have to overcome many obstacles which were barbed wire, shell holes mud water and corpses. As the troops advanced no mans land they were often easy targets for the enemies deadly machine gunfire. Even when the enemy trench was captured they were not enough men to hold it. Position of the troops in the trenches moved little in 4 years and neither side appeared to win war by direct attack in order to end the stalemate the each side tried to wear the enemy down as much as possible and the battle of Somme made it clear that neither side would win a breakthrough in this new kind of war.
One of the main factors that affected the world war was the Ludendorff offensive, the German commander wanted to deliver a knockout blow to allies before the Americans arrived, so on the 21st march 1918 they launched operation Michael which was at first successful and led the Germans to the river mare where the allies just managed to hold their line. The allies then learnt an important lesson and appointed a single French commander marchel fock. The ludendorff first step was to invade France via Belgium ,they thought by taking the French ports out it would make it difficult for Britain to help France or bring supplies however the ludendorff offensive failed and Germany came to a stalemate and had no choice to retreat as they were low on food, ammunition and medical supplies . Now German troops were stretched too thickly along there line to achieve goal and because of this –too little ammunition etc… some stole food and others stopped fighting and over 400,000 German troops were taken prisoners.
Towards the end of the world war German civilians were unhappy about their lifestyle, less food made the people ill and they could not work which led to unemployment. This meant that Germanys industry failed, the potato crop failed due to lack of workers because most of them was fighting in the war. The weather also contributed to the crop failure and because the crop failed the Germans had a turnip winter this meant they had to mainly eaten turnips this caused low morale for the people. The Germans had to go to restaurants to get there potato peelings (for a vaned diet) they also killed 2/3 pigs this was one of the main downfalls as they had no pigs had the end of the war. Soldiers were began to steel food because they had little supplies, stretched and under a lot pressure and soldiers became worried about home ,families added to the discontent because refused to fight because they knew that they had lost the war and that it was over so they didn’t want to risk there lives. All this led to Kaiser leaving Germany and went to Holland this caused a lot of chaos in Germany because lots of different people tried to run.
In conclusion I thought the main reason which led to the First World War came to an end was the entry of the U.S.A because this lowered the opposition’s morale and raised the allied morale, it also gave the injured and tired soldiers to have a rest and it brought in young fit soldiers. Another reason was the technological and tactical changes this made the war a lot easier and without the technological changes the war would have lasted a lot longer than it did.
