There are four main factors which affected the final outcome of the war: the war at sea, the war in the air, the home front and the western front. The following essay will compare and dissect the aforementioned factors.

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The First World War was a new type of war. It brought about horrific scenes of violence on an unprecedented scale, never before witnessed. It became the cause of millions of deaths, and many more casualties. It affected everyone, failing to discriminate on the grounds of race, class, colour or nationality. New types of weapons were invented, capable of inflicting horrific injuries. A wave of blood thirsty patriotism spread throughout Europe and for the first time civilians became a legitimate target. For a war that was supposed to be over by Christmas, it lasted a long time.

There are four main factors which affected the final outcome of the war: the war at sea, the war in the air, the home front and the western front. The following essay will compare and dissect the aforementioned factors, demonstrating how each aspect was beneficial to the allies winning the war.

The War at Sea:

The navy was paramount to the success of the allies during the war. Britain relied (as an island) heavily on its navy to supply the country with various supplies. The navy was used to guard merchant ships and other vessels entering Britain, from the German U-boats and battle cruisers.

The Royal Navy guarded the path of the Merchant Navy and were often referred to as the soldiers of  the sea. If the Germans had been successful in trying to block supplies from entering Britain, starvation would have been indefinite. The Royal Navy were the soldiers of the sea and they guarded the path of the Merchant Navy, who carried the supplies. If the Royal Navy had been beaten this in turn would have led to the destruction of the merchant navy. If the Merchant navy was unable to supply Britain with supplies then all of the other fronts would suffer as a consequence. The soldiers in the Western Front would starve enabeling the Enemy Armies to advance. The Pilots and Soldiers would have no ammunition as metal was imported and so they would have nothing with which to attack the enemy. The Home Front would become demoralised through lack of food and would be left with the choice of surrendering or starving to death.

When the war first began it was expected that all of the major battles at sea wouyld be between the dreadnought battleships. There was infac6 only one major naval battle; this was the Battle of Jutland in May 1916. The Battle was between ships 15 kilometers away from each other. The Germans had an advantage over the British as their gunners were more accurate and their shells more destructive, and the Brirtish ships had thinly armoured gun turrets. At this battle the British lost 14 ships, 3 of them powerfull cruisers, and 6000 men killed. The German losses were 11 ships but only one of these was a battle cruiser; 2550 German men died. The Germans claimed victory as they had fewer losses.

The Germans were desperate to break the blockade of their ports by thre British fleets, and to set up their own blockades of the British Fleet. The Germans could not do it, and the British blockade continued up until the ned of the war, which starved Germany, that could bewhy the Germans last offensive failed. The German soldiers were weak and the last of them were inexperienced. This is one reason why the allies won the war.

Submarines became a key feature of the war at sea. Germans combated British sea power with its submarines called u-boats. In 1915 the Germans declared they would attack any boat that tied to get through their blockade of the British Isles. There after U-boats destroyed a great number of boats heading for Britain.

It was a new weapon called the torpeado that made submarine warfare so effective. Even the mightiest battleship was vulnerable to a torpedo from the smallest submarine. The mine also came into its own as a devastatingly affective weapon in the war at sea. Another tactic was for submarines to lay mines in harbours to atch enemy ships by surprise as the set out to sea.

In May 1915 a U-boat torpedo, without warning the British passenger liner the Lusitania off the coast of Ireland. Among the 11987 [passengers that died were 128 Americans. This caused tremendous outrage in Britain and the USA. The British government new that there was illegal ammunition on the ship, but basically lied to the public. This was one of the factors that brought the USA into the war. The Germans made a desaterouse mistake by bombing many more American cargo and passenger ships. A German general also tried to plot against the USA by attempting to get Mexico to invade America. The Americans were made aware of this and so camer into the war and helped the western front. With them they brought equipment and thousands of strong healthy men. The Americans turned the war around for the allied forces. The convoy system was introduced by the Royal Navy in April 1917 which meant that merchant ships were grouped and protected by anti submarine warships called ‘destroyers’. This was affective because the Germans chance of shooting a merchant ship was only one in twenty when all the other ships were surroungding it. The rest of the convoy could then make their escape.

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The war at sea had an impact as expected on the outcome of the war, but no more so than any of the other factors. The advantage was that without it the Americans might not have entered the war as soon as they did. The war at sea boosted the morale of people at home, as battles at sea were exciting to read and hear about. During the war, victories were crucial but not decisive. The war at sea successfully brought Germany to its knees, as the country like most of Europe, was both starving and weak. After four ...

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