The successes of the Allied armies had little to do with Germany’s defeat considering the fallacies entertained by German strategists, whose hopes of erasing the possibility of a two-front war saw the Kaiser’s forces critically delayed and overstretched due to miscalculations in the Schlieffen Plan. Belgian resistance, of which the Germans hoped there would be none, was exceptional in delaying German advance in to Brussels by two weeks. This allowed critical time for the British Expeditionary Force to land in key ports and begin organizing and fortifying areas of tactical interest as well as advancing to meet the enemy in more neutral territory, holding them off at Ypres. German military formations were also forced to make do with a North Easterly sweep down to Paris, rather than the planned attack from the West, as the delay had allowed for French reservists to arrive and counter attack. Lacking resources due to overstretched supply lines, German forces were pushed back to Verdun. Had Germany factored in for the tribulations caused by Belgian resistance as well as the up holding of almost outdated treaties of Belgian neutrality by the British Empire, large expanses of French territory could have been captured quickly, effectively cutting off the Western approach to Germany and allowing for troop turn overs to defend the Eastern Front from the advancing Russian Forces. Instead, Germany did not get the quick victory they desired and now faced war on multiple fronts. Theyhad become tied down in a stalemate with French forces, allowing the Allies the opportunity to take advantage of the situation. As a result of German delay in Belgium, the rapid mobilization of Russian troops had far more reaching effects than would have been possible. Invading East Prussia, the Tsar’s forces were initially successful against the Austrian forces and would prove to be troublesome for the German army, who had to continually rescue their far weaker Austrian ally. This drew resources from the critical fighting that continued in the West and allowed for exploitation of German forces by Allied troops.Germany’s choice of weak allies therefore provided the Allied forces with further leverage against the German forces.
German defeat in WW1 was more due to desire to make the failed Schlieffen Plan work rather than the success of the Allies. The lack of any alternative strategies regarding the failure of the Schlieffen Plan fuelled German resolve to keep pushing West, resulting in massive casualties that allowed the Allies to force Germany in to a surrender. Failure to “bleed them (The French) white by virtue of our (German) superiority in guns” saw Commander Erich von Falkenhayn throw countless waves of German troops in to the line of fire, demoralizing and crippling the German army formation at Verdun. With almost no territorial or tactical advantages gained, this war of attrition saw German forces devastatingly pushed back behind the Hindenburg Line. Such erroneous tactics on behalf of the German military allowed Allied forces to increase their battlefield effectiveness, shifting troops to areas exhibiting faltering German resolve in order to pressure Germany in to defeat. Germany’s consistent failure to fulfill their objectives caused its disheartened forces to suffer defeat at the hands of the Allied forces who otherwise would have faced a war in which they had the possibility of losing.
The fatal error of allowing German naval forces to exercise unrestricted warfare against merchant shipping heavily outweighed Allied strength as the cause of Germany’s defeat in WW1. Suffering from the horrors of the failing land campaign, German strategists allowed their submarines to rampage across the seas, destroying millions of tons of Allied shipping as well as ships belonging to nations that were external to the theatre of war. Coupled with outrage over German subterfuge in Mexico, the United States of America was prompted to enter the war on the side of the Allies after the sinking of multiple American ships including the famous Lusitania, providing Allied forces with the crucial reinforcement of more than four million fresh troops and millions of dollars in resources that saw them revived, fuelling the advance to the Hindenburg Line pressuring the Germans in to a hasty defeat. German naval strategy therefore backfired, allowing the Allies to again seize the upper hand and use their more numerous forces to full effectiveness counter-attacking Ludendorff’s Peace Offensive, which saw German forces overstretched and forced them back to the Hindenburg Line a second time.
The Allies evident strength and more numerous successes over the German forces in World War Onewere a pivotal factor in the defeat of Germany yet could have proved meaningless if they lacked the tactical advantages yielded to them by the incessant miscalculations and strategic failures of the German armed forces. The defeat of Germany in World War One is therefore primarily the result of German failure to fulfill the strategic objectives outlined in the Schlieffen Plan, further exaggerated by a bad choice of allies and tactical miscalculations inherent to their lack of back up plans.
