The First World War, which occurred a hundred years ago, brought deep disasters to mankind, and this war that should have been fought by European warriors behind closed doors eventually spread across the globe.
In more than four years, tens of millions of people in dozens of countries were unfortunately involved in this conflict, and it is even more unfortunate that the rapid development of science and technology at that time gave birth to a number of new weapons, aircraft, tanks, long-range artillery and even poison gas began to appear on the battlefield, and human beings vividly interpreted science and technology as a double-edged sword with their own actions.
The causes, course and results of this war are well known, but in the twenty years from the end of World War I to the outbreak of World War II, the defeated Germany repeatedly mentioned the "injustice" of the war, and the phrase that Germans often hang on their lips is "Germany was stabbed from behind."
Of course, when the aggressor launches a war, he will always find some excuses, and when he loses the war, he will always shirk his responsibility. However, after all, the First World War is different from the Second World War, it is a naked fire and fire carried out by imperialism due to the uneven division of the spoils, and it can be said that there is no justice.
Leaving this aside to examine the war, 1918, which determined the outcome of world war, did have some miraculous events that occurred at a point in time that was crucial to both sides of the war, culminating in the collapse of the Allied territories and the abrupt end of the war.
It should be known that at the end of the war in November of that year, Kaiser Wilhelm II was still under the personal command of the Belgian headquarters on the Western Front, and a million German troops were also distributed in various battlefields on the Western Front waiting for offensive orders, and the Allied army did not hit germany alone.
What really happened in the last year of the war? The Allies felt that the victory had come so suddenly, and so had the surrender of the Allies, especially Germany.
From the declaration of war on Serbia by the Austro-Hungarian Empire on July 28, 1914, to the surrender of Germany on November 11, 1918, the First World War, which lasted more than four years, was roughly divided into three phases.
1914 was the first phase. In that year, the Germans first launched a large-scale offensive on the Western Front, based on the "Schlieffen Plan" formulated before the war. In battles such as the Marne, the French, British, and Belgian armies struggled to resist, and the Germans' plan for a quick battle was declared bankrupt. After that, the trenches built by both sides turned into a fierce trench battle.
On the Eastern Front, russian offensives left the Germans at the back, and Moltke Jr., the German Chief of the General Staff, complained about the shortage of troops on the Eastern Front. In the first year of the war, neither side made a major breakthrough, and the war entered a state of stalemate confrontation.
The second phase was from 1915 to 1916. In the spring of 1915, while the main German forces were concentrated on the Eastern Front, the British and French forces launched two rounds of large-scale offensives, but the result was heavy casualties on their own side. In April of that year, the Germans used poison gas for the first time in a counterattack. This year, the Anglo-French casualties reached one million, and the Germans suffered more than 600,000 casualties, and the war was still in a state of stalemate.
In 1916, both sides regarded this year as a decisive year, and "three major battles" broke out, namely the "Battle of Verdun" and the "Battle of the Somme" on the Western Front, and the "Summer Offensive" of the Russian Army on the Eastern Front. From February onwards, the Germans fought fiercely for more than 7 months and still failed to capture Verdun, and the fierceness of the battle can be imagined.
The Battle of the Somme was even more tragic, with the British using tanks for the first time, but there was no major breakthrough on the Western Front, and by November of that year, there were about 1.2 million casualties on both sides. After the Battle of Jutland, Britain still firmly controlled the sea, and the initiative of the war began to shift to the Side of the Allies.
From 1917 to 1918, the third stage was held. This year, several things happened that changed the tide of the war. The United States declared war on Germany in April of that year and officially entered World War I. Led by the United States, the Allied camp quickly increased to 27 countries.
The February Revolution broke out in Russia, which had suffered defeats, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated, and the huge Russian Empire collapsed first. Later, the Provisional Government of Russia decided to continue the war, hoping to consolidate power by winning the war, but more than half a year later, the "October Revolution" occurred, the Bolsheviks successfully seized power, and the Soviet Union immediately fell into a civil war, and there was no longer energy in foreign wars.
The Spring Offensive launched by the French in 1917 was again thwarted, and after paying a price of 100,000 casualties, the French army made no progress. This incident not only led to the dismissal of the Commander-in-Chief of the French Army, but also almost triggered a mutiny among the French soldiers.
In the second half of the year, a large amount of equipment provided by the United States arrived in Europe, and the British army began to launch a fierce attack on the Western Front, and after losing millions of people, the war was once again stuck in a stalemate.
Magical 1918
Although the Bolsheviks seized power, there was a fierce internal debate over whether to withdraw from the war. In the negotiations with Germany and Austria, the delegation led by Trotsky took a tough attitude and even angrily withdrew from the negotiations. Subsequently, the German-Austrian coalition launched a "boxing operation" aimed at the submission of Soviet Russia, and in just a few days it was under the city of Petrograd.
Russia hastened to move its capital to Moscow and promised to resume negotiations. In March 1918, the Treaty of Brest was issued, and after ceding large tracts of land and paying huge reparations, Soviet Russia announced its withdrawal from World War I. Obviously, the absence of war on the Eastern Front was in the interest of the Allies, and Germany immediately transferred a million troops on the Eastern Front to the Western Front.
From March to July 1918, the Germans concentrated their forces to launch five major offensives on the Western Front. The balance of victory was at this time tilted in favor of the Allies, and the Germans were so ambitious that they were ready to defeat Britain and France before the Americans could fully reach Europe. However, no one expected that the strange and terrible Spanish flu would come uninvited this spring.
In just half a year, the Spanish flu claimed tens of millions of lives, more than the number of deaths in world war I that lasted 52 months. By the second year, the Spanish flu had disappeared without a trace, making it elusive. It can only be said that the heavens were very angry when they saw humans bloodily slaughtering with all kinds of new weapons.
Affected by this, a series of Offensives launched by the German Army also made unfavorable progress, but it successfully broke through the French defense line in the third offensive, and the German army pressed more than 30 kilometers away from Paris. Although the German army did not have to suffer from both sides, its own allies were really powerless. Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Turkey, and Bulgaria seemed to have no intention of fighting.
As U.S. troops continued to land in Europe, the Allies gradually gained the upper hand. From August to November, the Allies launched the Hundred Day Offensive, Marshal Foch commanded the Allied forces to launch a counterattack, and the Germans were forced to turn to the defensive. At this time, the German high command was still not dead hearted, trying to fight a final decisive battle with the British navy.
In September, Bulgaria surrendered to the Allies, and in October, Ottoman Turkey signed an armistice with the Allies. In the first week of November, the Austro-Hungarian Empire disintegrated, and Austria and Hungary signed separate armistice treaties. Allies fell one after another, and Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was still in the Belgian front command, still had to fight "alone".
On November 4, the unintended sailors of Kiel Harbor mutinied, and the soviets that were formed quickly spread throughout the navy and the country. On the 9th, the "German November Revolution" took place in the capital Berlin, and workers and soldiers held a general strike and an armed uprising. The leader of the Social Democratic Party, Scheidemann, announced the establishment of a republic, and the Prime Minister, Prince Baden, announced the abolition of Wilhelm II's titles of German Emperor and King of Prussia.
In desperation, Kaiser Wilhelm II was forced to announce his abdication, and then went into exile in the Netherlands, where the last empire of the Allied camp fell. It now seems that the Soviets on fire in the backyard were the last straw that crushed Germany, and this may be the Germans' "stabbed in the back".