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Unlock This CourseBy mid-July 1918 the German attacks you met in the lesson The Ludendorff Spring Offensive, 1918 had run out of strength. On 18 July Foch hit back. French and American troops, with hundreds of tanks, struck the side of the German salient on the Marne and forced a retreat. From now on the Allies did the attacking.
The biggest blow came on 8 August 1918 at the Battle of Amiens. The British Fourth Army under Rawlinson, led by Australian and Canadian troops, attacked in thick fog with more than 500 tanks and no warning bombardment. In one day it advanced more than ten kilometres. Germany lost about 27,000 men, and well over 10,000 of them had surrendered. Ludendorff called it 'the black day of the German Army'. What shocked him was not the lost ground but the number of soldiers giving up.
Amiens began the Hundred Days. Foch ordered a string of attacks at different points, so German reserves never had time to recover:
By November the Germans were in steady retreat. The British armies alone had taken nearly 190,000 prisoners since 8 August.
Key terms:
The Allies had learned from years of failure. Attacks now began by surprise. Tanks crushed the wire, aircraft spotted targets, and infantry moved forward behind a creeping barrage. This was the all-arms attack. When one attack slowed, it was stopped and another began somewhere else.
Allied factories turned out far more tanks, guns, shells and aircraft than Germany's. Fresh American soldiers kept arriving. Germany could not replace the men it had lost in the spring, and it was short of fuel, rubber and horses.
Since 1914 the British blockade had cut off Germany's imports of food and fertiliser. After a bad potato harvest came the 'turnip winter' of 1916-17, when many families lived mainly on turnips. By 1918 bread, meat and fats were tightly rationed. Hundreds of thousands of German civilians died from hunger and the illnesses that came with it.
Hunger wore down the will to fight. In January 1918 hundreds of thousands of workers in Berlin went on strike for peace and food.
In the autumn of 1918 Germany's partners gave up one by one.
Germany now stood alone, with its southern border open. Bulgaria's collapse mattered most. On 29 September, the day the Hindenburg Line was breached, Ludendorff told the Kaiser that Germany must ask for an armistice.
On 3 October a new chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, took office and asked President Wilson for an armistice based on the Fourteen Points. The fighting went on while notes were exchanged. Ludendorff resigned on 26 October.
Then Germany's home front broke. At the end of October the navy ordered the High Seas Fleet to sea for a last battle. The sailors refused. On 3 November the mutiny reached the port of Kiel, and within days councils of workers and soldiers had taken over towns across Germany. On 9 November, with strikes in Berlin, the Kaiser's abdication was announced and Germany became a republic.
At about 5 am on 11 November 1918 a German group led by the politician Matthias Erzberger signed the armistice in Foch's railway carriage in the forest of Compiègne. The guns stopped at 11 am. Germany had to leave France and Belgium, hand over its heavy guns, U-boats and fleet, and let Allied troops into the Rhineland. The blockade stayed in place. Germany could not start the war again.
Do not write that Germany was invaded or that its army was destroyed. On 11 November the German army was still on French and Belgian soil, retreating but in order. Do not treat the reasons as separate. Hunger and losses weakened the army, defeat in the field made the generals ask for peace, and that news set off revolution at home.
Source A: From a statement by Field Marshal von Hindenburg, head of the German army, given to the new German Chancellor on 3 October 1918 (translated).
'As a result of the collapse of the Macedonian front ... and in view of the impossibility of making good the very heavy losses of the last few days, there appears to be now no possibility ... of winning peace from our enemies by force of arms. The enemy, on the other hand, is continually throwing new and fresh reserves into the fight. The German Army still holds firmly together ... but the position grows more acute day by day ...'
Source B: From the diary of Evelyn, Princess Blücher, an Englishwoman married to a German prince, who lived in Germany throughout the war. She wrote this in October 1918, when Germans heard that their new government had asked for peace.
'For the wealthier classes and the militarists things bear a different aspect. They could very well support another year or so of the war materially, as they are not half-starved and overworked like the greater mass of the people ... I wonder what the feelings of a Ludendorff and a Hindenburg must now be? ... the hopelessness of their position and the defeat of their plans.'
Extract C: From a modern history textbook (a practice extract written for this lesson).
'Germany lost the war on the battlefield. From 8 August 1918 the Allied armies, using tanks, aircraft and artillery together, drove the German army back without a pause. Hunger at home and the fall of Germany's allies mattered, but they only hurried an end that defeat in France had already made certain.'
(The Macedonian front was the front in the Balkans held by Bulgaria. Making good means replacing. More acute means more serious.)
Study Extract C. Extract C suggests that the main reason for Germany's defeat was the Allied victories on the Western Front in 1918. How far do you agree with this interpretation? Use Extract C, Sources A and B and your own knowledge to explain your answer. [16 marks]
I agree with Extract C to a large extent, although it makes the other reasons seem smaller than they were.
There is strong evidence for the interpretation. Extract C says the Allies 'drove the German army back without a pause' from 8 August. At Amiens that day more than 500 tanks attacked without warning, and well over 10,000 Germans surrendered. By the end of September the Hindenburg Line was breached, and by November the British armies alone had taken nearly 190,000 prisoners. Source A supports this. Hindenburg admits the 'impossibility of making good the very heavy losses' and that the enemy is 'throwing new and fresh reserves into the fight', which points to the Americans. Source B also links the generals with 'the defeat of their plans'.
However, the sources also show other reasons. The first cause Hindenburg gives is not in France at all: it is 'the collapse of the Macedonian front'. Bulgaria's armistice of 29 September opened Germany's southern side, and Turkey and Austria-Hungary followed. Source A also says the army 'still holds firmly together', which challenges the idea that it had been beaten outright. Source B points to the home front. 'The greater mass of the people' were 'half-starved and overworked', the result of four years of British blockade, and it was they who wanted peace. As early as January 1918, hundreds of thousands of Berlin workers had gone on strike for peace and food. From my own knowledge, the war ended when the home front gave way: the sailors' mutiny at Kiel on 3 November spread across Germany and the Kaiser abdicated on 9 November, two days before the armistice.
Even so, these reasons are tied to the fighting. The blockade had lasted four years without ending the war, and the revolution began only after the generals had admitted defeat and asked for an armistice.
Overall, I agree to a large extent. The test is what made Germany's leaders ask for peace, and that was the defeats in the west. But Extract C goes too far in saying the other reasons 'only hurried' the end. Without hunger and the loss of its allies, Germany might have fought on into 1919.
What lifts this to the top level: it uses the extract, both sources and its own knowledge on both sides, then judges 'how far' against a clear test.
Use each source twice if you can. Hindenburg's statement supports Extract C (heavy losses, fresh enemy reserves) and also challenges it (the Macedonian front). For more help, see the Exam Skills lesson Paper 2 Section A Question (c): Judging an Interpretation.