1918.
After three and a half years of war, the Allies are in crisis.
Russia has been rocked by Revolution, and its new Bolshevik government has signed an
armistice with the Central Powers.
Thousands of German troops will be freed up to fight on the Western Front, where the carnage
of trench warfare has already claimed more than a million lives.
But Germany is also desperate.
Britain's long naval blockade has led to shortages and social unrest at home...
While America's entry into the war brings fresh manpower and vast resources to the Allied
cause.
Germany faces inevitable defeat, unless it can win a quick victory on the Western Front.
US President Wilson announces his 'Fourteen Points'.
They outline his vision for a post-war world, including an end to secret treaties, a reduction
in the size of armed forces, self-determination for the people of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
and an international organisation to settle future disputes.
But most European leaders dismiss his ideas as wishful thinking.
At Brest-Litovsk, Bolshevik Russia signs a peace treaty with the Central Powers.
Russia gives up vast amounts of territory in exchange for peace.
Half a million German troops can now be redeployed from the East to the Western Front, where
German General Erich Ludendorff plans an all-out, last-ditch offensive to win the war.
Ludendorff's Spring Offensive catches the Allies off-guard.
German stormtroopers, using new infiltration tactics, help to overwhelm the British 5th
Army, which is soon in full retreat.
The German advance threatens to split the British and French armies, with disastrous
consequences.
So French General Ferdinand Foch is appointed Supreme Commander of Allied Forces, to co-ordinate
strategy.
Outside Amiens, British and Australian troops improvise a defence, and finally halt the
German advance.
The German offensive switches to the north, targeting the Channel ports.
But the British inflict heavy losses on the Germans, and prevent a breakthrough.
Above the trenches, the first air war continues to escalate.
Each side now has more than 3,000 aircraft in service on the Western Front.
But by 1918 the Allies have won air superiority, thanks to greater resources.
On 21st April, Germany's most famous pilot, Manfred von Richthofen, the 'Red Baron', is
shot down and killed near Amiens.
With 80 victories, he's the war's highest-scoring ace, and is buried by the Allies with full
military honours.
Britain's new 'Independent Bombing Force', launches a daylight raid against Cologne.
It marks the beginning of Britain's own strategic bombing campaign.
On the ground, Ludendorff's offensive switches south, targeting the French.
German troops advance 30 miles, but are halted at the River Marne, just as fresh American
divisions enter the line.
The US 1st Division is the first to see combat, at the Battle of Cantigny.
Three days later the US 2nd Division wins victory at the Battle of Belleau Wood.
By now there are nearly a million American soldiers in France, with 10,000 more arriving
every day.
The fourth phase of the German Offensive leads to a 9 mile advance, but is finally halted
by a French counterattack.
In Italy, Austria-Hungary launches an attack at Asiago and the Piave River, to support
Ludendorff's offensive in France.
But it's repulsed with heavy losses, and morale amongst the Austro-Hungarian army collapses.
British and French troops land at Murmansk in northern Russia.
It's the beginning of Allied intervention in Russia's Civil War, on the side of so-called
'White', or anti-Bolshevik, forces.
On the Western Front, the Germans' final attack is defeated in the Second Battle of the Marne.
Ludendorff's Offensive has cost the Germans more than 600,000 casualties, and has failed
to make a decisive breakthrough.
Germany's final gamble has failed.
The Allies now go on the attack.
At the Battle of Amiens, British, Australian, Canadian and French troops, supported by tanks
and aircraft, advance 7 miles in a single day.
General Ludendorff calls 8th August 'the Black Day of the German army'.
German troops are exhausted, hungry and demoralised, and begin to surrender in their thousands.
The Battle of Amiens begins the Allies' 'Hundred Days Offensive': trench warfare is over; the
Germans are in full retreat.
In the Balkans, a new Allied offensive at Dobro Pole breaks through Bulgarian positions.
The overstretched Bulgarian army collapses, and two weeks later Bulgaria signs an armistice.
In the Middle East, British-led forces defeat the Turks at the Battle of Megiddo, taking
25,000 prisoners.
Allied troops soon occupy Damascus and Aleppo.
On the Western Front, Marshal Foch orders a general attack.
British, French and American armies reach the Hindenburg Line, a line of reinforced
German defences, and break through.
Ludendorff informs the Kaiser that the military situation is hopeless, and that Germany must
seek an armistice.
Germany sends a request to US President Woodrow Wilson, who, in return, demands German withdrawal
from all occupied territory, and the Kaiser's abdication.
On the Italian Front, the Allies deliver the final blow to Austria-Hungary at the Battle
of Vittorio Veneto.
The Austro-Hungarian army disintegrates, and 300,000 prisoners are taken.
With the Central Powers facing collapse, the Ottoman Empire signs an armistice with the
Allies at Mudros.
Four days later, Austria-Hungary signs an armistice with the Allies at Villa Giusti.
At Kiel, the German High Seas Fleet is ordered to make a suicidal attack on the British navy,
but instead, it mutinies.
Revolution spreads through Germany.
The Kaiser abdicates and a German republic is proclaimed.
On 11th November 1918, a German delegation signs an armistice with the Allies, inside
Marshal Foch's railway carriage at Compiègne.
It comes into force at 11am, but fighting continues until the last moment.
American private Henry Gunther is killed charging a German machinegun at 10.59.
He is thought to be the last soldier killed during World War One.
Three days later, in East Africa, German General Von Lettow-Vorbeck surrenders his army on
the Chambezi River.
For four years he has tied down huge numbers of Allied troops, remaining undefeated, while
cut-off from home.
He is still considered one of history's greatest guerrilla leaders.
The Paris Peace Conference opens at the Palace of Versailles, just outside the French capital.
Delegates accept a proposal to create a 'League of Nations', to settle future international
disputes.
The Versailles Treaty, signed in June, imposes harsh terms on Germany: its military is restricted
in size, it must pay war reparations to the Allies, it loses territory to its neighbours,
and its colonies are seized by the victors.
Germany must also accept responsibility for the war in a 'war guilt' clause – a source
of lasting resentment in Germany.
The boundaries of Europe are redrawn: Poland re-emerges after a hundred years of foreign
rule.
While Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and an enlarged Romania emerge from the ashes
of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
The Ottoman Empire is dismantled.
New states, most under European control, are created in the Middle East.
Here, as in Europe, the seeds of future conflict are sown.
While in the Far East, former German possessions in China are handed to Japan, to China's outrage.
World War One claimed the lives of nine and a half million soldiers, 1 in 8 of those who
fought.
21 million more were wounded.
7 million civilians also lost their lives.
Huge areas of Europe were left devastated.
Old empires vanished; new states were born; lives across the world were transformed.
The world was never the same again.
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