I would think the Italian and eastern fronts would have been important in that they tied down large numbers of enemy troops and inflicted substantial casualties.
The Russian Army in the World War indicates that the Russians captured more prisoners than the French, British, Americans and Belgians put together on the western front. Chronicle of the First World War puts Austro-Hungarian casualties on the eastern front at 2,770,428+.
Pretty much irrelevant, as neither the Austro-Hungarians, Turks, or any of the other minor powers had much effect on the outcome of the war. This is a fallacy shared commonly by quite a few other people - notably the likes of Churchill and Lloyd-George, that they could somehow “knock the props out” from under the German empire. In reality of course the minor powers could keep fighting as long as the Germans could keep supporting them, and indeed did.
The war was won when the German field army was destroyed as a fighting force. This was done on the Western front, and principally by the British Expeditionary Force.
Wasn’t it the case that this was the result of a long process in which the French made at least as great, many might say greater, contribution?
I take your comment to mean that the BEF did the final damage in the final battles. If so, it’s rather like lionising the sportsman who scores the final and ‘winning’ goal, but without the efforts and successes of his team mates earlier his goal would not have mattered.
We could equally see the entry of America as the winning goal kicker running onto the field.
I don’t think the defeat of Germany can be apportioned primarily to any one nation, regardless of when they suffered unexpected early defeats (as the French did) or entered the war (although America often seems to think it won the war merely by arriving in time for the finish and etstablishing its tradition of arriving fashionably late in a world war 
).
Take any of France, Britain and its imperial forces, and America out of the equation at any of the points they fought and Germany was unlikely to have been defeated.
The defeat of Germany was a team goal, not an individual striker’s brilliant effort.
I wouldn’t limit the win to the field. German domestic problems contributed to the reaslisation that the jig was up.
Agreed on France - my attitude to them is that the French stopped the Germans and held them long enough for the British to create the force that beat them. It also follows from this, however, that the French contribution was one of time and space rather than one of the destruction of German forces. The battle which convinced the Germans that the war was lost (Amiens) and those which wore down the German army to the point we could inflict such a defeat on them (3rd Ypres and the Kaiserslacht mainly) were overwhelmingly British/Imperial battles. The French contribution to wearing down the German army - principally at Verdun and 2nd Marne - was significant but not as great as the British contribution.
I don’t agree on the US contribution - militarily the result would have been the same whether or not the US was in the war. Psychologically is an interesting question - both as to whether there would have been a negotiated peace in 1917 and as to whether the Kaiserslacht would have been launched. The latter was a massive defeat for Germany with minimal US involvement, arguably triggered by US entry to the war. Personally, I think that after Brest-Litovsk something similar would always have happened, but proving that is next to impossible.
It is also rather easy to overrate German domestic problems when it comes to the end of the war. It was the battle of Amiens for instance that convinced Ludendorff that the war was lost, and the effect of the home front problems was from then on one of timing - he wanted to be able to withdraw troops to deal with threatened revolution at home, thus hurrying the capitulation.
I was thinking less of the purely military / political and other strategic dimensions than the steady impact of the war upon the people, notably food and other shortages, which translated into political considerations of a different form which weakened whatever popular resolve might have existed to continue the war.
I was putting it as a significant, rather than decisive, influence among the many which brought Ludendorff and others to realise that they were on a hiding to nothing if they continued to fight. Food riots and so on by the lower orders demonstrated to the higher orders that conflict, and risks to the established order, were not limited to military defeat on the Western Front, while those domestic problems were a consequence of pursuing rather optimistic military ambitions on that Front and bleeding the nation for no demonstrable benefit after years of war and civilian privation.
If we go deeper we find that, for example, the food riots demonstrated that Germany had exhausted its food production capacity and could not sustain its population at home or the front at long term politically acceptable levels, which were already being tested by the food riots.
Germany was starting to fracture, militarily, politically and domestically. Certainly the military aspect bore down most upon Ludendorff and his crew, but they and, more importantly, other leaders who finally were asserting a bit of independence of Ludendorff et al were not ignorant of the other factors which indicated that continuing with the war would end in both military and domestic disaster.
Agreed that the other (non-army) leaders had a much clearer idea of reality at home, but the fact remains that Germany was ruled by what can only be described as a military Junta at that point in time, and said rulers were very disconnected from what was happening at home. To them the home population were not much above serfs, who would continue to play their assigned part no matter what and didn’t really have anything in the way of political conciousness. This idea changed of course as soon as they realised they had lost on the Western Front, but not really before then.
Um, firstly the French were very much a part of the “Hundred Days Offensive” as they pushed into Amiens and provided the bulwark of the Southern flank of the offensive. And I find it doubtful that any overwhelming victory could have been won by the Allies had swarms of US troops not been arriving in France and not balanced out decimated Allied formations. I dunno, a Grand offensive was in itself enabled by a successful Allied counteroffensive which answered the German “war winning” Offensive that was to knock France out before US soldiers could even deploy to the front. And it was US soldiers that led the assault on the Hindenburg Line…Quite simply, if the Americans hadn’t been there, Germany still would have had more options and I seriously doubt a decisive Allied victory would even have been possible as Germany, and her Austro-Hungarian partners still had the manpower to deal with Britain, Italy and France.
The German social order was collapsing by the end. I’ve read that in addition to food shortages, that it was noticed by his captors that even the German soldier had a pallor from malnutrition and that German isdustrial output was only about half of what it was pre-war…
They were there, but theirs was very much a secondary contribution. At Amiens, the French attack didn’t particularly get anywhere due to limited tank support (Whippets only). The main axis of attack was the Australian and Canadian corps, with III (British) Corps north of the Somme hardly getting anywhere (so far as I can figure out, they had little or no armoured support, and were never intended to get much further due to the presence of the town of Albert and the Army boundary on their left flank).
Oh, sure, the US were there in great numbers. However, how many of those actual US divisions actually fought, and of those that fought what was their performance/persistence like compared to allied divisions? If you read up on it, it was a stunningly low percentage of US forces that actually got into combat, and those that fought rarely did as well as comparable allied divisions, taking far heavier casualties and often being rendered ineffective by supply problems. It is surprisingly hard to make a case that the US army of mid-late 1918 was all that effective a fighting force. Had the war continued into 1919 the US army would have been fearsomely effective by the standards of the day, but by the end of the war in 1918 they were still on a very steep learning curve and hampered by some truly awful doctrine. (Pershing at the time still adhered to the concept of Infantry as the decisive army, with limited support from other arms subordinated to the infantry and the idea that unlimited offensives leading to breakthroughs were possible. These ideas were what caused the horrendous bloodshed at Verdun, the Somme and parts of 3rd Ypres - and had accordingly been abandoned by the other allies because they simply didn’t work. Pershing wasn’t willing to learn from this.)
Also, by the end of the Kaiserslacht the British at least were receiving major reinforcement from both the UK, Italy and the Middle East. Lloyd-George finally released the very large numbers of troops he had been keeping at home (deliberately to hamstring Haig), while the improving situation in Italy and Turkey allowed further troops from there to be moved to the Western Front.
By the counteroffensive (2nd Marne), or by the various defensive battles fought in stopping the German offensive in the first place? 2nd Marne came right at the end of the German offensive when it was starting to peter out after the casualties suffered by the storm troops. Since it is the relative condition of two armies, rather than the ground held, which determined the fitness to attack or otherwise, I would suggest that casualties taken and inflicted is a better measure of what battles enabled the allied counteroffensive.
Bollocks. The Hindenburg line (specifically the Siegfried Stellung, generally considered the strongest) was first penetrated by British, Newfoundland and Indian troops in 1917 at Cambrai. In 1918, the first to break through it in parts were the ANZACs on the 18th of September. Two US divisions were involved on the 27th of September at the St Quentin canal, but even there they had major issues with mopping-up and coordination with artillery. US reports from the time (linky) indicate that the majority of German machine-gunners, etc. were killed with bayonets rather than anything else.
In any case, the US involvement was rendered rather moot when the British 46th (North Midland) division launched a successful assault crossing of the St Quentin canal and outflanked the German positions in front of the US forces.
Oh, and the total US forces involved were as far as I can tell 2 divisions. The British had 4 whole armies involved, plus a French army. That’s a total allied force of just under 50 divisions…
Did they? I know the allies at the time thought they did, but that isn’t the same thing. Looking at the way the German forces fell apart in late 1918, I’m far from convinced this is true.
Storm of Steel is quite illuminating on this point, when Junger describes his attacks as part of the Kaiserslacht. The amazement at the living standards and level of food supply in the captured British trenches is well worth noting, as are his mentions of the general physical weakness of the German troops of the time. Right from the start his descriptions of the diet available to the German soldiers are surprising for how poor it is, and by the end of the book there is enough to give the strong suspicion that a large number of frontline troops were suffering from malnutrition badly enough to decisively affect their fighting ability.
Despite all the blood-letting and attritional warfare Germany was slowly ground down behind its borders. One could argue a very valid point that the Royal Navy actually won ww1 by using the tried and tested blockade tactic. The USA entered the war for the sole reason that German subs were ordered to carry out unrestricted warfare in order to try and impose their own blockade on the UK.
So for all the armies valiant efforts it was ultimately the failure of the Kreigsmarine to lift the blockade or indeed the wrong strategic choice of Germany to instigate unrestricted U boat attacks.
Sure, by 1918 the British/Dominion Army was probably better than any other in the field at the time, but by this time they were already fighting a very much diminished foe, crippled by a blockading RN.
Taking a broader view, one could argue that WW1 and WW2 and the intervening years were all a part of the same conflict, and even with the re-uniting of Germany and the collapse of the Soviet Union, it isn’t over yet.
We are, historically speaking, very close to the event. For instance: after the Cr’ecy (1346) and Poitiers (1356) campaigns the first peace was agreed in 1360, which lasted until 1369. Other campaigns (Azincourt 1415) and treaties followed, but now we look at the whole series of campaigns and events as the Hundred Years War.
The Royal Navy’s contiribution was a part of the overall strategy.
Similar arguments have been made as to who won the Battle of El Alamein, on account of the RN’s and RAF’s blockading North Africa.
Perhaps we should ask ‘Who lost?’
Austria-Hungary and Turkey might be less powerful than Germany but their soldiers were still perfectly capable of killing allied soldiers. Trying to argue that somehow inflicting massive casualties on them is irrelevant seems rather odd. Care to elaborate on this point?
Churchill cites figures for casualties suffered by the British and the French during different periods of the war on the western front. Although British casualties are higher than French casualties through most of 1917, French casualties are higher than British empire casualties throughout 1918. This would appear to contradict the notion that the British empire forces were doing the vast majority of the fighting.
Acco
In terms of infantry they were pretty similar, but that doesn’t mean very much - WW1 was an industrial war, and the infantry didn’t actually do very much of the killing. Industrially, Germany was supporting the entire Central Powers effort. Only when Germany was prostrate could the war be won - and thus the German army had to be defeated in the field before anything else.
As I’ve previously mentioned, during the last hundred days the BEF took almost as many prisoners and artillery pieces as all the other allied armies put together. The Kaiserslacht was mainly aimed at breaking the right flank of the BEF on the Somme, and didn’t really hit the French badly until just before 2nd Marne.
The difference may be in the ratio of enemy to friendly casualties. While the BEF (in the shape of the New Army) was finding it’s feet it suffered far higher casualties for the same effect on the enemy than the French - a good example of this is the fate of the British and French troops on the Somme, with the French being a great deal more successful. The BEF of 1918 however was arguably the first recognisably modern army, as evinced in their victories of the hundred days - still the greatest string of victories in British military history.
The number of prisoners captured is not the only important factor when looking at levels of contribution. The number of enemy soldiers killed and wounded also seems important. The British empire forces appear to have captured more Germans from July 18-November 11, 1918 than they did in all of 1917 and all of 1918 prior to July 18th but I am doubtful that they killed more Germans in this period than in the earlier period.
Churchill mentions the following figures on French casualties on the western front by period
Aug-November 1914–854,000
Dec 1914-Jan 1915–254,000
Feb-Mar 1915–240,000
Apr-June 1915–449,000
July-Aug 1915–193,000
Sep-Nov 1915–410,000
Dec 1915-Jan 1916–78,000
Feb-June 1916–442,000
July-Oct 1916–341,000
Nov-Dec 1916–93,000
Jan-Mar 1917–108,000
Apr-July 1917–279,000
Aug-Dec 1917–182,000
Jan-Feb 1918–51,000
Mar-June 1918–433,000
July-Nov 1918–531,000
One thing I find interesting is that the Americans are credited with capturing nearly as many guns as the French from July 18-November 11th (1421 vs 1880) yet the figures given for French casualties from July through November appear to be far greater than the casualties suffered by the Americans during this period. Some people have suggested that the Americans were not very effective on inflicting casualties on the enemy but these figures would seem to suggest otherwise.
Do people think the American forces were also considerably more effective than the French?
Nope - the Americans were still learning how to fight a modern war (Pershing had some VERY obselete ideas), something the French had over the course of 4 years become very good at. However, from July onwards the French really were bled white and couldn’t really participate fully in most of the offensives - there was some limited participation, but largely they were just holding in place. The Americans were doing little but attack - thus explaining their higher number of captured guns - but the forces they had in action were dwarfed by the French ones, thus explaining their relatively low casualties.
The stats I have seen for captures by the allies from July 18-November 11, 1918 are as follows. The first figure is the number of enemy soldiers captured while the second figure refers to guns captured.
BEF 188,700–2,840 French and Italians 139,000–1,880 Americans 43,300–1,421 Belgians 14,500–474.
I believe that Chronicle of the First World War credits the BEF with taking 319,138 German prisoners on the western front during the entire war. The total figure of captured Germans is given as 774,000 but I haven’t found a breakdown for the other allies.
It appears that the British and commonwealth forces are credited with taking 34,046 POW in the battle of Vittorio Veneto.
188,700 POW taken by the BEF in the last months of the war looks a bit low. Everyone probably knows what BEF means but that it should include all, British Empire Forces, usually.
If we do a breakdown.
British First Army- 23,000
Second Army - 17,200
Third Army - 67,000
Fourth Army - 79,743
Fifth Army - 1,000
For a total of 187,943 POW taken
Canada was with Fourth Army for a couple weeks but with First Army for the remainder and counted 31,537 POW taken in the hundred days. I assume, since the number of POW taken by Canada is larger than the First Army number, the number of POW taken by First Army does not include POW taken by Canada. So, from that I also assume that the POW taken by Australians is not included in the Fourth Army number. Also, and somebody stop me if you think I’m blowing chunks here, 4 CEF divisions were able to take 31,537 prisoners so it is very likely the 12 UK divisions of the Fourth Army, not counting 5 AIF divisions, would take at least 79, 743 by themselves considering they were fighting near continually from near beginning of August on and a main offensive army. The Canadians spent most of September waiting. So with an additional 29,144 POW taken by the Australia til Oct. 5, the British Empire’s tally is 248,681 and perhaps without POW taken by NZ.
You said captured “Germans” first but POW taken at Vittorio by the British were Austrian.