How is the defeat of Germany by November 1918 best explained

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How is the defeat of Germany by November 1918 best explained?

There was great initial enthusiasm in Germany, Layton suggest that Germany had the best of the four years of fighting. After all Germany still occupied large parts of enemy territory, such as the Ruhr. Yet it was found to accept an armistice on allied terms in 1918 outlined by the treaty of Versailles. This essay intends to examine why this was the case.

I feel there are a number of reasons why Germany lost the First World War by November 1918. The first of these is the fact that Germany had weak allies. Germany’s main ally was the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They where not a great force in Europe, not compared with the English empire, which was said at one time that the sun never set on it. There other ally was the Ottoman Empire. They where also not very strong. This gave Germany a disadvantage before they even began the war. Germany could just not compete with the strength of Great Britain. Also Germany was fighting a war on two fronts with Russia on the east and France on the left. This meant that they had to divide their troops into two separate sections. Obviously this is at Germanys disadvantage as they have half as many troops in the same place, compared with the size of Russia’s army this was a severe handicap. As the war was coming to its later stages this became apparent as Germany was rapidly running out of men for their army, leaving them weak and bare on the ground.

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Another reason why Germany where defeated by 1918 was the fact that Italy joined the war on the Ententes side, Italy had been Allies to Germany but a month after joining the Entente Italy declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary. This meant that Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire where facing war on another front. The German troops just couldn’t cope. Although the German troops could not cope, the English where having the same problem, even though they had introduced compulsory conscription. Germany had defeated Russia by 1917, mainly due to the Russian revolution, but this meant Germany could ...

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