Imperial Germany country famous for
military fashion and war plans in fact
in this video we are going to see what
were the German plans to win World War
one and how they changed in early 20th
century the Alliance of Germany and
Austria was opposed by the alliance of
Russia and France the strength of the
Alliance's was quite equal so an
inconclusive and bloody war was to be
expected the German army wanted none of
it and looked at its potential enemies
for weaknesses it was believed that one
of the weaknesses of the untaught
nations was that due to its size and
poor infrastructure it would take Russia
several weeks more than Germany to get
its entire army to the front until that
time Germany had to contend only with
France and had an opera hand the Germans
wanted to use the first weeks of the war
to inflict a blow from which their
enemies would not be able to recover the
question was where to do it
they could attempt to destroy the
Russian forces stationed on the border
but due to the long distances of the
Eastern Front the damage would have been
limited the distances in the West were
much shorter and it was possible to
inflict more damage to the French army
for this
the Germans had to draw the French into
a decisive battle the best way to make
the French to fully commit their troops
was to invade France but the French had
prepared just for this occasion and had
built a line of fortifications on the
franco-german border so the Germans
decided to bypass the line by moving
through Belgium then defeat the French
Army in a decisive battle forcing France
to make peace then they will move the
bulk of their forces east and used the
newly gained superiority to defeat
Russia the pieces were all set and all
that was needed for someone to light the
fuse on the 28th of June 1914
austro-hungarian Archduke Franz
Ferdinand was assassinated and
declarations of war followed now Germany
was able to implement its plan and moved
into Belgium they managed to advance
into France but the plan as a whole
proved to be too optimistic and they
failed to trap and destroy the French
army and fighting resulted in a
stalemate also Britain joined the
untanned
and enacted a maritime blockade on
Germany trench warfare sitting on the
Western Front making attacking difficult
it
that it would be more complicated for
Germany to defeat France but at the same
time made it unlikely that Britain and
France could invade Germany meanwhile in
the East the absence of the German army
had made itself felt they managed to
keep control over East Prussia but
Russian army had made inroads into
austria-hungary threatening to knock it
out of the war and tied up many central
powers units in 1915 the Germans decided
to go over and offensive in the West and
stabilized the situation in the east to
free up the troops the Russian army had
prepared for a short war and it's weak
weapons industry could not yet
adequately supply its troops they were
unable to resist the Central Powers and
took a defensive stance by shortening
the length of the front to fold in this
time bulgaria was convinced to join the
Central Powers which allowed them to
defeat Serbia this was however offset by
the entry of Italy into the war the
Eastern Front was now secured although
Russia still remained in the war in the
early 1916 the situation of the Central
Powers had been stabilized but the
British blockade was slowly sapping
their strength and in order not to lose
the war they had to inflict a decisive
defeat on the untanned in the east it
would be difficult for them to reach the
areas vital for Russian war effort due
to vast distances and poor
infrastructure even if the Germans would
be able to make substantial advances it
was hard to make Russia surrender
operations in the East would be more
difficult than in the previous year
as the Russian army had shortened its
defensive lines and was beginning to
overcome the supply shortages
although the Central Powers could have
been successful in Russia they would
probably find themselves committing a
lot of their troops without removing
Russia from the war in the West there
was trench warfare and German attacks
needed to expend a lot of men and
material resources to break through the
untanned defences in case of German
advance the French and the British could
pull back inflicting vast casualties and
winning slowly by attrition or they
could counter-attack thus making the
losses more equal but denying the
Germans any territory neither of the
options could lead to a decisive German
victory instead the plan was to make the
ant ant attack the Germans and expend
their manpower on strong defenses after
they had sustained enough losses the
Germans would have disappear it
needed to go on an offensive and win the
war he was not an easy task to make the
untanned adopt such a suicidal strategy
so a complicated and cunning plan was
devised the Germans would attack the
fortress of Verdun
where they could create a great tactical
advantage for themselves but which was
symbolically vital for the French the
plan relied on three assumptions
after the initial German successes the
French will not withdraw from Verdun but
will at any cost attempt counter-attacks
to regain the land around it the British
and the French to launch an attack on
the German defenses in other sectors to
ease the German pressure on well done
during these operations the French and
the British would suffer much more
casualties than the Germans the first
two assumptions were correct
the French held on to well done and the
ant ant attack that Somme to help with
the defence but the third assumption was
not during these operations the ant ant
had suffered the loss of 1 million men
but the German casualties were only
slightly smaller the Germans had made
another miscalculation they had assumed
that in 1916 the Eastern Front would be
quiet but the entry of Italy to the war
in the previous year had divided the
austro-hungarian forces and the measures
to improve the armament of the Russian
army began to kick in the Russians
carried out a successful offensive
pushing the austro-hungarian forces back
soon the situation deteriorated even
further as the success of Russian
attacks convinced Romania to join the
war against the Central Powers and now
German reserves had to be dispatched to
save the Eastern Front from collapse the
Central Powers had failed to inflict the
decisive defeat on their enemies and
were mostly on the defensive again with
the British blockade bringing their
defeat nearer by the day it was time to
think outside the box and adopt creative
and risky strategies or war was lost the
risks associated with these strategies
were huge Germany now attempted to knock
Russia and Britain out of the war a
revolution had taken place in Russia but
the new government decided to carry on
with the war German plan was to support
the influence of the left-wing political
parties in Russia hoping that they would
create internal strife causing Russia to
make peace they allowed Lenin to travel
back to Russia from Switzerland and
allegedly gave large subsidies to his
Bolshevik Party the
strategy was risky as the success of
socialists in Russia could very well
cause instability or even revolution in
Germany itself the other plan was to
starve Britain into surrendering by
using the German submarine fleet to sink
the British shipping for this strategy
to be effective the Germans had to sink
all the ships carrying cargoes to
Britain which included the ships from
neutral countries this carried the risk
of war with these nations unrestricted
submarine warfare had been adopted
earlier but later discontinued in the
fear that America would declare war on
Germany now the situation was deemed to
be desperate enough to risk it and
unrestricted submarine warfare was
reintroduced at the same time Germany
attempted to free up troops by reducing
the length of the Western Front and
substituting men with weapons despite
these efforts during 1917 they couldn't
spare troops for more than maintaining
the current state which would ultimately
result in two feet on Tonto offensives
in the West were repelled and sizeable
forces were dispatched to Romania in
order to seize its resources Italian
army was pushed back in order to keep
austria-hungary in the war it was all on
the out-of-the-box measures by this time
the strategy directed against Britain
failed totally as the adoption of convoy
system reduced the efficiency of the
German submarines and the United States
did enter the war against Germany Russia
however was another case Russian army
was weakened by the Revolution which
allowed the Central Powers to advance
and improve their positions
the Bolsheviks managed to increase their
influence in Russia and depose the
government they had to demobilize most
of the army but refused to make peace
with Germany and attempted to incite
revolution the Germans managed to keep
the situation under control in order to
resolve the situation in the east the
Germans went on an offensive the Russian
army had lost its fighting capabilities
and the German advance took over large
parts of the former Russian Empire
forcing the Bolsheviks to agree to their
terms by this time the resource stocks
had become critical and it seemed that
unless the situation improved defeat was
only a question of time despite that a
window of opportunity had been created
the freed up troops from the east gave
the Germans the numbers needed to have a
chance to learn
an offensive in the West by now both the
aunt aunt and the Germans had developed
better ways to break through the enemy's
trenches and it was possible to
undertake a decisive offensive however
there was a catch
the Germans needed to defeat the aunt
aunt before the newly arriving American
troops would make the also were warming
they launched an all-out offensive the
attacks took large amounts of territory
but caused many casualties to the
Germans in the end the line held and the
Germans were unable to deliver a
decisive blow it became clear that
Germany was unable to win and the
untanned armies launched a
counter-offensive the Germans attempted
to hold on to captured lands in order to
secure a better peace settlement but
their army was spent and began to fall
back towards the German border as all
was lost Germany finally agreed to
surrender so was Germany doomed from the
start
can you think of strategies which could
have ended the war in a German victory
share these ideas in the comments the
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here you can watch how Germany attempted
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