World War I : Germany

The assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne on 28June 1914 triggered the outbreak of World War I. The question as to who was to blame for this war remains a matter of dispute. Certainly Germany and Austria on the one side, and France, Russia and Britain on the other, did not consciously seek it but they were prepared to risk it. From the start, all had definite war aims for which military action was at least not unwelcome. The Germans failed in their aim to quickly vanquish France.

After the defeat of Germany in the Battle of the Marne, the fighting in the west soon froze into trench warfare, ultimately peak-ine in senseless material attrition with enormous losses on both sides. With the outbreak of war, the Emperor receded into the background. As it progressed, the weak Reich Chancellors had to submit more and more to the will of the army supreme command, whose nominal chief was Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg but whose real head was General Erich Ludendorff.

The entry into the war of the United States of America in 1917 brought the decision which had long been developing and which could no longer be changed by the revolution in Russia and the peace in the east. Although the country had bled dry, General Ludendorff, completely misjudging the situation, continued until September 1918 to insist on “peace through victory”, but then he surprisingly demanded an immediate armistice. Military defeat also meant political collapse. Unresisting, Emperor William II and the princes yielded their thrones in November 1918. Not a hand stirred to defend a monarchy which had lost all credibility. Germany became a republic.