The Americans entry into the war was a big significance to the stalemate breaking on the western front because the Americans bought in millions of new, fit and healthy soldiers to help Britain and her allies’ tired soldiers to defeat the Germans. Not only did the Americans bring in men but they bought in many supplies to help the war, and these supplies were of the new technology mentioned and the new weapons gave Britain and her allies’ one more over Germany, and they had lots of money to lend to the allies so more supplies could be made and money could be spent on medicine to help the wounded soldiers. The strong American soldiers were able to fight back at the German soldiers but the German’s were to weak to fight back so Britain and her allies finally had a moving war and could finally break the stalemate.
The blockading of German ports was another reason to why stalemate broke on the western front because it stopped ammunition or any other vital things coming into the country. The blockade reduced Germanys trade from $5.9billion in 1914 to just $0.8 billion in 1917. Germany’s soldiers and public became weak and starved and so started striking to stop the war as the people could no longer take the starvation and poverty, the starvation slowed down war production which stopped the production of new technology. These strikes
started making Germany look weak and affected the production of weapons for the soldiers in the war and it looked inevitable that they would lose the war because everything was finishing and there was nobody to make more because they were on strike.
The German offensive was another reason to why stalemate broke on the western front; it was launched on March in 1917. It started with a typical huge bombardment and gas attacks, then instead of the usual infantry charge, the army followed it up with attacks by smaller bands of specially trained and lightly equipped storm troops because this way they would move quicker and easier than before. These troops attacked during a heavy fog in the night and they attacked along the entire front. At first this offensive worked very well and Germany advanced 64 kilometres and was nearly in Paris.
But 400 000 German soldiers were killed in the process of the advance and there were no reserves to call on as it was hard for Germany to train a lot of storm troops because of the blockade because there was low supply of ammo, clothes, food and money because Germany couldn’t export anything either. The surviving German soldiers were tired and lacked food, weapons and munitions. In result to this Britain and her allies fought back.
Overall I don’t think each reason mentioned was equally as important reason to the other for stalemate breaking but each reason lead to the other and soon the stalemate did break. I think that the American’s entry to the war was more important than the Blockade because if the blockade never happened and the Americans still did enter the war Britain and her allies still would have won the war because of the enormous amount of soldiers, money and munitions offered by the Americans to help Britain and her allies. I also think that the 1918 offensive played a huge part in the stalemate breaking because it made the German soldiers even more tired and so the strong and healthy American soldiers could fight back against them. All the reasons are interconnected because for example, the British blockade lead to the German offensive because the Germans had to do something to end the war because the country was in havoc, so they launched the Ludendorff offensive to end the war and hope to win, so if their was no blockade there might have not been a massive attack from Germany and so the stalemate may not have broken for years yet as the same old methods would have still been used and basically no progression would have taken place.
