The defeat of Germany in the culmination of WWI marked the end of four years of brutal fighting that from the beginning seemed to go nowhere. Although the war ended with an armistice between the Allies and the Central power nations, every nation except for the Germans felt that Germany had been defeated. Even if Germany could’ve continued fighting, we generally assume that they would’ve eventually lost the war due to the path they had been going down since the beginning of the war. It could be considered that Germany lost the war the moment the Von Shlieffen Plan failed, for Germany wasn’t prepared for a two front war that would last so long; but the main culprit for leading them into its collapse, was the poor political structure and the poor choices made by the leadership of the nation, for its lack of foresight and organization lead them on a race downhill. I understand that there are many factors that lead to the downfall of Germany, but based on my personal insight, I’m attempting to narrow it down to one single factor, and even though my claim can be refuted, I will try to convince you otherwise.
Politically, Kaiser Wilhelm II was the impetuous German Emperor who in theory was in control of the country after he dismissed the Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and supported Austria-Hungary in the July Crisis of 1914, where Austria-Hungary sent an ultimatum to Serbia after the Serbian nationalistic group The Black Hand assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne; the event that sparked the outbreak of war. But as war broke out, the Kaiser sat back and his generals took control of all affairs, therefore making him only a figurehead. The major issue here is that the generals only consulted amongst themselves, often acting on their own without regards for the opinions of other government officials. The generals took into no account civilian populations or the Reichstag, the German equivalent to Parliament, in their military scheming. With no one to stop these generals, Germany became a state of war, headed by the military and concentrated only on what was beneficial for the army and their efforts, not the country itself. It is this initial error in properly organizing these militaristic leaders of the country that sets the wheels in motion for failure for any future militaristic feats they attempt to pursue.
One could contradict my claim by stating that the Kaiser was quite involved in WWI, with his numerous speeches for the German public urging them to mobilize; one might even argue that it was the Kaiser who is to blame for their faulty involvement in the war. But if we were to look at this war from a great leader historian’s point of view, he might agree with me that Kaiser Wilhelm II was quite the opposite of that, an that his leadership was quickly overshadowed once war started. Furthermore, although It’s true that he was involved in the cause for Germany’s involvement in the war, as for the loss of the war, since his involvement was so limited and generally left at the hands of his generals, we can dismiss him for any involvement in the actions during the war that lead to the defeat of Germany.
Feeling overconfident in their military prowess after recent Prussian success in the Franco-Prussian War, and the embarrassing defeat of the Russian Empire in the Russo-Japanese War, the German officials felt they could take on this war without much effort. Evidence of this can be seen in their limited and improper use of propaganda:
As we can see, the British and Americans terrorize their people, showing just how terrible the enemy is, while the Germans make it seem like it will be a quick and easy fight, which is indeed what they believed. If we take a prosopography view on these thee posters, which would be to put oneself into the skin of a common civilian who’s going to fight in the war, if you’re British or American, you fear your enemy and would be on edge at all times as well as desirous to protect your family at home of those terrible “brutes”. On the other hand, if a German sees a poster that states that they can easily win this war, they would go fight more relaxed and therefore not as effective as the American or British; and once faced with the horror and difficulty, their moral would go crashing down, while the American and British expected such horror. The lack of the German leadership to realize the value of properly used propaganda, cost them the lives of hundreds of soldiers as well as facilitating the world to blame them for the war.
It’s this overconfidence that lead them to fail in their first involvement in the war, the Von Shlieffen Plan. Before the war broke out, due to the high tensions amongst the European powers, every country was already prepared for war, and with the assassination of Francis Ferdinand on June 28th 1914, countries were one by one thrust into the chaos of war. It is during this time that Germany made it’s first mistake. They set out a plan that would avoid fighting a war on two fronts, France on one side and Russia on the other. Known as the Von Shlieffen plan, German generals set out to quickly attack France and gain control of Paris by crossing through Belgium, this way eliminating one enemy and therefore being able to focus on the Russian army, who although was more numerous, would take longer to get in order. The error of this plan, was that the German leaders didn’t take into account the possibility of failure, and due to their overconfidence, when it failed, they had no alternative strategy, and therefore, when England quickly got involved, they were forced to dig out trenches.
Once on a standstill, Germany was faced with another major dilemma: the reason why the Von Shlieffen plan needed to succeed, was because Germany wasn’t prepared to fight a long term war, even less now that it was on two fronts. As the war started, the German war officials were concentrated on the fronts, not back at home. There was no sector where military actions were coordinated between social and economic actions, and it wasn’t until Walter Rathenau approached the Prussian War Minister and gave him the idea for the KRA that the German heads started becoming more productive with their economy. But even then, although this plan was an attempt at facilitating the war, it too was fallacious from the start due to the incompetence of the German leaders in regards to the management of a country. (***ONE HOUR***)
The KRA, the German War Materials Office, was a poor system set up to provide the military with war materials. This office chose a few selected businesses to produce only for the government while those companies who remained private had to provide men to work on the machinery from their already limited number to the company working for the government in order to keep it strong. No ceiling was imposed on war profits by business, nor were these profits even taxed at all prior to 1916; and this slowly forced the private companies into poverty, widening the gap between the few wealthy and the many poor. The companies working for the war effort continuously got wealthier without injecting any of the wealth into the country’s economy, while the private companies became bankrupt; therefore Germany slowly sent itself into bankruptcy. In a poor attempt to revive the economy, they printed paper money and sold bonds to recover the costs, which in turn only created inflation. By the end of this cycle, Germany had forced itself into debt and most of the population was suffering for their government’s bad choices. The effects of this lack in judgment, was the heightening of tensions between German people, creating social instability and a cultural strain.
German leadership was also unable to use their supplies appropriately. After the Treaty of Brest Litovsk, Germany acquired resource filled lands from Russia when their communist government pulled out. Yet although they were being crippled by an Allied blockade at sea, the German leaders weren’t able to organize themselves and use the gained resources to their benefit, instead they let their citizens and members of the army starve, which only gave rise to more social issues. Germany’s inability to organize their economic effort directly affected their military efforts, which were directly dependant on the economy to keep succeeding. This in turn created further loss of morale and making the tensions between German people rise.
When the Allies formed the Naval blockade, preventing Germany access to their colonies with natural resources, the German people and army were starting to starve due to the lack of food. Instead of thoroughly thinking through the ripples of their actions, the German leaders precipitated themselves into unrestricted warfare. The moment they started sinking civilian ships, they completely lost the moral side of the war.
It’s true that this point can be argued that since they didn’t know for sure if the ships carried weapons or real civilians, it is therefore not the fault of the German leaders. But from a militaristic point of view, where you want to protect your country though all military means possible, taking the risk was a choice, even if they knew they were civilian ships. There was a possibility that the ship carried weapons, and therefore they made a choice in the benefit of their country to sink it. They didn’t realize the repercussions of their actions, but as leaders, they should’ve anticipated the then neutral U.S.’s reaction when their citizens were murdered for no reason. Therefore, we can see in this example that due to the poor organization presented by the German leadership, their country was deprived of food and natural resources to make weapons, and thus plunging their economy into a crisis, which in turn lead them to the extreme and erroneous military actions which caused them more harm than good.
Another issue that can be seen with the Unrestricted Submarine Warfare and the Allied blockade on Germany is the lack of involvement of their allies. Throughout the war, Germany’s allies were poorly organized and often needed Germany to bail them out of difficult situations, like Austria-Hungary’s continuous conflict with Russia. This distracted Germany from her own front and weakened her to her enemies. But the major piece in this is that although they were all allies, they all acted individually unless it was a case of extreme emergency. Unlike the Allies who organized their attacks collectively, the Central Powers were scattered and weak, and often times their plans conflicted because they couldn’t organize themselves. Especially after the involvement of the U.S. after the sinking of the Lusitania, Germany now had more issues at stake, for their allies were providing useless already with their enemy, and now that such a strong and fresh country such as the U.S. had joined the war, Germany was beginning to sink under. It is their lack of management in regards to international relations and foresight of the actions that would come in reaction to their strategy that lead to them loosing the moral side of the war as well as allowing the U.S to enter the war, who until then had no reason. This is a clear piece that shows how the lack of proper leadership by the Germans and their Allies lead to their defeat for they couldn't coordinate their military actions.
Culturally and Economically Germany was suffering extensively due to the inability for the German leaders to take care of both their home and the war. But now, even their military actions were going from bad to worse do to the poor choices made by their political leaders. The final example of this is Germany’s final offensive, the Ludendorff Offensive. Their plan was that before the American troops arrived, the Germans would quickly break the French lines and capture Paris with the use of storm troopers and heavy shelling. They had a slight numerical advantage over the French and British troops now that Russia was no longer a part of the war. Although they successfully broke the lines and made the biggest advancements since 1914, their lines thinned out as they advanced, and they left their gained land unprotected since the storm troopers were much faster than the rest of the soldiers who were carrying supplies. Eventually the storm troopers, due to lack of supplies were weakened, and it was an easy task for the Allies to get back the land. The great loss of men during this attack lead of the eventual collapse of the Hindenburg line, one of the many factors leading to the ruin of Germany.
They key culprit for these actions are the military generals in charge, who feeling pressured made rash decisions that cost them the war.
Overall, we can see that the disastrous political actions taken by Germany’s leaders, destroyed not only their economy and social structure, but also lead to rash military actions, which caused them to eventually fall under the pressure of the Allied forces. Although the Germans feel that they responsibly chose to give up the war and sign an armistice, and therefore didn’t “loose”, continuing on the path they were going on, it wouldn’t have taken much time for the Germans to fall. Even if the U.S hadn’t joined the war, the German people were fed up with mass unemployment and starvation due to the war, and would most likely have pushed for pulling out with due time. Therefore, although they did last long enough, the Allied powers most likely could’ve lasted longer, since their people weren’t in such a bad state as those of the Germans.
