Can Any Specific Country Claim to Have Won The First World War?

World War 1, 1914-1918, was a war fought on the fields of Belgium and France, the steppes of Russia, the rugged Alpine mountain ranges, the narrow peninsula of Gallipoli, the dry and dusty deserts of the Middle East, even as far afield as Africa and Asia, tiny Pacific islands, and on the high seas.  It truly was a world war.  It was a war of terrible destruction, blighting the landscape and killing or maiming millions of young men in a callous war of attrition.  It was fought between the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire on the one side, and the Entente consisting of France, Russia, and Great Britain, with the late entry of the United States.  For four years it had been a bloody stalemate, courtesy of trench warfare, barbed wire, machine guns, and artillery shells.  Suddenly in March 1918 it became a war of movement as the Germans pushed through the allied lines only to be counterattacked by the allies and driven back to the borders of Germany forcing the Germans to request an armistice by November.  The German collapse was so sudden that a number of countries could claim to have won the First World War, but which country has the best claim?

Five months after the US army’s first involvement in World War 1, the war ended.  Can the Americans claim that it was their army that was responsible for the speedy end to the war?  The Americans declared war in April 1917 but had no army.  By the summer of 1918 the Americans only had four divisions at the front although 250,000 men were landing every month.  The trouble is that these men had no experience in combat.  At first the Americans fought under the leadership of the French and the British.  8 American divisions joined 44 French divisions to stop the Germans at the Second Battle of the Marne in July 1918.  The first all-American action took place at St. Mihiel near Verdun in September 1918.  The Germans were in the process of withdrawing from the area when the Americans attacked.  The Americans shelled empty German trenches.  The French sarcastically stated that this was the sector in which the Americans relieved the Germans.

The Meuse Argonne Offensive was the main American action of World War 1.  The purpose of the attack was to drain German reserves so the British could break through the Hindenburg Line.  The battle was in three phases, September 26, October 4, and November 1.  This first attack was disastrous.  The Americans outnumbered the Germans 8-1, but the country they were fighting in was very difficult.  In a heavily forested area the experienced Prussian Guards slaughtered the inexperienced Americans.  Patton lost two-thirds of his 189 tanks on the first day.  Communications broke down, supplies could not be brought up, and there was chaos in the rear areas.  The French PM unkindly remarked that the Americans would lose the Allies the chance of winning the war by Christmas because they were all tangled up in each other.  The second attack in October fared no better.  Attacking like the French in 1915 and the British in 1916, the Americans were mown down by machine guns and artillery.  They advanced in yards.  There were a hundred thousand stragglers in the rear areas and Pershing, the US commander, gave an order the shoot anybody who tried to run away.  After 100,000 casualties and three weeks fighting, the Americans finally achieved the objectives of the first day.  The third attack in November was far more successful because Pershing gave orders to stop attacking strongpoints and machine gun nests.  Eventually the Americans pushed the Germans back over the Meuse.  Events elsewhere were now forcing the Germans to seek an armistice.  Seething at the French, Pershing ordered his troops to take Sedan where the French had ingloriously surrendered to the Prussians in 1871.  This caused great confusion as American units crossed in front of each other and began firing on each other.  The final farce was when elements of the First Division caught Douglas McArthur, commander of the 42nd Division, and held him as a German spy.  The French were eventually allowed to take Sedan.

American troops

Thus the Americans did not win the war on the battlefield, but they did in the minds of the German HQ.  This was because while the German numbers were getting smaller day by day, the American numbers were increasing by 250,000 men each month.  The psychological effect of the American entry was important than the military impact in winning the war.

Can the French claim to have won the First World War?  At the beginning of the war in 1914, to face the 87 German divisions the French fielded 62 divisions and the British only 6 divisions.  This meant that the French had to bear the brunt of the war while the British raised an army.  By 1917 the French had lost 1.3 million men killed or wounded, one life for every minute of the war.   The 1917 Nivelle Offensive promised to win the war but was a complete disaster.  On the first day the French suffered 90,000 casualties.  The French soldiers felt betrayed.  One soldier exclaimed, “We have just taken place in one of the most glaring crimes of the war.”  Having already suffered on the Somme and at Verdun, the French army had had enough.  They mutinied.  The men refused to go over the top.  54 divisions were affected.  The men would go into the line to defend France, but would not attack.  The French would not attack in force again until the summer of 1918, and when they did, they did with caution.  Most of the attacks had American support.  The French suffered greatly in the First World War, but did not win it.

In 1914 when the British army of 6 divisions consisted of 150,000 professional soldiers, the French had 1.6 million men in the field and the Germans 1.8 million.  By the end of the First Battle of Ypres in October 1914, this army had been virtually destroyed and the British were raising an army of volunteers of 60 divisions.  Later conscription was introduced and the British army increased to 70 divisions.  The first major attack by the British was on the Somme in 1916, and after the French mutinies in 1917 they were the only effective allied army left in the field.

Britain was really famed for its navy, and even though they fought only one major engagement at Jutland, surprisingly they were probably most responsible for victory.  Due to fact that the British blockaded Germany, which stopped all resources coming into the country, the Germans were reduced to semi starvation leading to unrest at home which eventually flared up into a revolution.

There were some huge battles in World War 1.  1916 saw the Somme and Verdun.  1917 saw Passchendaele.  In 1918, the German Ludendorff offensive.  There were three reasons that led to the German offensive in 1918.  One was that the Americans were coming in large numbers, another that the Russians had surrendered which released many battle-hardened German soldiers to fight on the western front, and the third because of the effects of the British naval blockade on the home front.  The Germans attacked the British because they had the strongest army and actually broke through the line, but the British did not fold and instead they counterattacked.  The Battle of Amiens, August 8th, was described by Ludendorff as the Black Day of the German army.  The German official history said that it was the greatest defeat of the German army since the beginning of the war.  For the next six weeks the British army pushed the Germans back to the Hindenburg Line which they breached on September 29th.  On September 26th all three allied armies attacked the Germans in different sectors and with the British through the Hindenburg Line, they had pushed the Germans back to Mons.  Four-and-a-half years later the British and Germans were back to where it all started.  The Germans now asked for an armistice because of a military defeat at the front and revolution at home.  The British played a leading part in winning the war after bearing the strain of it at the Somme, Passchendaele, and the Ludendorff Offensive.  Foch, the Allied supreme commander, credited the British army’s successful unbroken offensive in the last 100 days as a major cause in winning the war.  For the first time in history the British army had fought against a first class adversary on a major battlefield and won.  However, the Germans were still far from being defeated, so why did they ask for an armistice?

The failed German Ludendorff Offensive cost the German Army 1,000,000 irreplaceable troops.  At the same time the Allies were getting stronger thanks to the Americans.  One by one Germany’s allies were surrendering.  At home there was starvation and revolution.  Possibly if Ludendorff had not launched the 1918 offensive and instead defended the Hindeburg Line, then the American numbers would have been reduced in another battle of attrition.  This could have led to a compromise peace.  You could argue that the Ludendorff Offensive lost the war.

In conclusion, the French did not win the war, but if she had not borne the brunt of the fighting while the British were building up an army, the Germans would have won.  The Americans did not win the war, but without their economic aid, the influx of hundreds of thousands of troops and the psychological effect of that, Ludendorff might not have wasted a million lives on trying to win the war before the Americans arrived in numbers.  The British did not win the war, but if they had not taken over the brunt of the fighting from the French and squeezed Germany through their naval blockade, defeat would have been inevitable.  In reality the war was only won through the combined efforts of all the Allied armies to defeat the military might of Germany.