For the whole war Britain warships had been blockading German ports to starve the country of raw materials and essential supplies such as food. This had taken its toll on the German morale effecting how the front line soldiers fought and how the civilians on the home front viewed the war. This blockading was the reason the German generals had to risk it all on the Ludendorff Offensive. They were fighting a war of attrition, of which they were losing. They had scarce resources left so everything had to be risked in an all or nothing offensive.
This leads me onto my next point, the Ludendorff Offensive; in March 1918 the German Commander Ludendorff gave the order to start the offensive. It started as normal with huge artillery bombardments, but then was followed up by small groups of well trained soldiers also known as ‘storm troopers’ attacking across the whole front to stop the Allies massing there defence in one place. These attacks were very successful but due to bad discipline soldiers stopped to loot towns and captured trenches for food. The Germans lost 400,000 men during the offensive and had no reserves to call on. The Allies then beat them back to finish the war.
Technology played a small part in the war effort overall. The new developments such as tanks and aeroplanes were primitive and unable to play and effective part in the war. Neither side developed either of these new technologies enough to allow them to be involved in strategies or planning of attacks. Tanks were used but proved inefficient and could not operate in battlefields with wetland or quagmires as they got stuck. They moved and low speeds and were easy targets for artillery.
Finally the Americans joined the war moving thousands of troops to France every month. This pressured the Germans to make decisive action before the Americans could make a large impact on the war. The American Expeditionary Force was well equipped and well prepared for the fighting which helped the Allies to win the war.
All these factors contributed to the ending of the stalemate and then the war. With the exception of new technology, each other factor is linked in some way. The blockade and the entry of the Americans forced Germany into the gamble that was the Ludendorff Offensive. This is leads me to the conclusion that the Offensive lead to the ending of the war making it the most important factor leading to the breaking of the stalemate on the Western Front. The American entry forced Germany to take the gamble, as they did not have enough resources to sit back and let the Allies attack. This was due to the blockading of German ports. As shown above each part is intertwined leading to the defeat of Germany. I believe that if there had been no technological advancements such as the tank and aeroplane the stalemate would of still been broken, but if there had been no blockade or the Americans had decided against joining the war there could have been an entirely different outcome.
By Nathan Flye