The First World War was a new type of war. It brought about horrific scenes of violence on an unprecedented scale, never before witnessed.

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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 enabling 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 would 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 kilometres 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 British ships had thinly armoured gun turrets. At this battle the British

lost 14 ships, 3 of them powerful 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 the 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 end of the war, which starved Germany, that could be why 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 torpedo 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 catch 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 disastrous 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 came 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 surrounding it. The rest of
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the convoy could then make their escape.

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 ...

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