On November the 11th of the year 1918 the Central Power participants of World War I gave up, put down their weapons and signed an armistice, signalling the end of one of the two greatest wars to ever occur in the history of the world. It was a surrender not so shocking based on the then recent events of the Central Powers. In this incredibly epic war, it seemed that Germany was pushed into it when they gave Austria Hungary the blank cheque who then decided to provide Serbia with an ultimatum. It was soon proved that this may have been, perhaps, the most crucial mistake which could have potentially, if not enacted, avoided two World Wars as a whole. Still, even at war, the Central Powers continuously found themselves making the same crucial mistakes, leading to their downfall. Germany and her allies were unsuccessful in World War I mainly due to the weakness of their propaganda, the lack of good alternative strategies, the limitations of the German’s economy and geography and the entry of the US.
It is a well published fact that Great Britain had the most powerful propaganda at the time of World War I. Great Britain had put George Krill in charge of all of the British Propaganda, both designing and promoting. With only one person controlling it, confusion was avoided and organization was maintained. Germany, on the other hand, had propaganda coming out of all corners and therefore no united idea on what to portray. With random people promoting whatever they wanted, complete chaos was sure to occur. When Germany had come up with what proved to be the failure that was the Von Schlieffen plan Great Britain had initiated the “Poor Little Belgium” campaign. When Germany had invaded Belgium in a desperate attempt to defeat France there was evidence of civilians and children being killed and women being raped. “Poor Little Belgium” became, what appeared to be, a global campaign. Political cartoons of Germans portrayed as gorillas (like that of King Kong) began being published worldwide, pinning the world against these “monsters”. Even Hitler had said that the Germans defeat was because of their own terrible organization of propaganda, a lesson he later drew from and effectively developed Germany’s propaganda for World War II. In an attempt to spare their nation the Germans began developing a psychologically vicious attack on the British. The Germans could see the British as a group of “lesser” peoples, rather than a nation to be feared. This strategy proved to be successful as the Germans were psychologically prepared, however, as were the British. The British went to war in complete preparation to battle the arrogant Germans.
Germany, as well as her allies, lacked sufficient alternative strategies in both defensive and attacking plans. The Germans had no real specific battle structure, simply a series of high risk attacks. They waited and looked for the event that was going to allow them to attack, almost always in a high risk situation, leading to catastrophe. The Allies, on the other hand, sustained the existence of a “United Allied Front,” that is to say, a well organized, well communicative alliance. In the case of the Allies, the leaders at the time were Haig, for the British, and Foch, for the French, who communicated and worked together leading to excellent results. Foch, in actuality, was in charge of Haig proving to be even more effective as only one leader controlled the armies, keeping everything organized and avoiding the confusion of the different tactics of diverse generals. Even with the entrance of the US, the American’s knew they were to send troops to be given orders by Foch. The Allies displayed a heavy amount of cohesive effort to win the war. The Germans have a leader by the name of Ludendorff, but he had almost no communication with the Austrians, leading to a crowd of generals each doing their own things, and leading to uncertainty and disorder.
The economy and geography of Germany was an exceedingly terrible drawback. At the time Germany had no national tax system. Essentially, they were simply asking their people to give everything they can to help the war. In places like the US, private companies design and construct weapons and then sell them to the military. In other cases, like that of France, the government structure companies build the weapons they need. Germany had no one to make these weapons for them so they had a lot of trouble finding military supplies. Geographically, Germany wasn’t in the best place either. With Russia to their right and France to their left, (even including Great Britain and Russia in very close proximity) Germany found herself completely surrounded. Her only allies in that area were Austria-Hungary and Italy. In addition, since the mileage of Germany’s coast was so minimal, they were given only a limited amount of naval ships. Britain, on the other hand, had the largest navy, due to their remarkably great coastline. They even went on to develop the “Dreadnought,” a brilliantly powerful submarine capable of massive destruction. Germany, on the other hand, only had their Gdansk port (in modern day Poland) which was considered the best one, still not allowing them to import enough supplies like materials, weapons and food.
The entry of the USA could be argued to have determined the outcome of the war, despite the fact that the allies were not doing so well already, their participation did them no good. Germany attempts to push their hardest in hopes that they could attack France and eliminate them before the US finishes arming their military. As per usual, this plan is extremely high risk and again, as usual, fails to a great extent. Suddenly, the US enters the war with their plentiful soldiers, supplies and money completely obliterating the Germans with their shipping of 250,000 troops every month. Germany can’t keep up with America’s numbers. It’s clear that Germany should have done more to keep the US neutral in hopes that it could buy them time in defeating the French and dealing with the American’s with ease.
Germany and her allies was almost completely ineffective in the Great War mostly because of their weakness in propaganda, their lack of good alternative strategies, the restrictions of the German’s economy and geography and the entry of the US. Perhaps, the evidence supports that in fact the Central Powers did not in actuality lose, instead the Allies simply won. However, the Central Powers were forced to eventually surrender when Germany’s allies began giving into the war, leaving them with the inevitable choice of surrendering as well. There is no question about it that the Central Powers in fact had certain things to their advantage. Despite the fact that many of their strategies and supplies didn’t aid with the war they did have some successes. One of the most known example being the effectiveness of poisonous gas. However, even that seemed to be a very short lived victory for soon enough gas masks were developed leaving the gas as a pointless weapon. Even with a weapon as powerful as the “invisible killer” that was the poisonous gas there was no escaping the powerful numbers of the American’s. Even if their troops weren’t so valuable, they had enough to make up for it. The Central Powers had a lot of trouble fighting against their great amounts of troops, supplies and food. Perhaps, it seems that the Powers could have continued to fight and won the war had it not been for the US. On the other hand, Germany certainly didn’t make only a few mistakes, but ended up losing quite a lot, even the psychological wars. Had Germany not given Austria-Hungary the “black cheque” perhaps they could have had only a mild participation and an even smaller failure during the Great War.
