When was ww1 won

After the war, Britain, France and the US wanted to ensure that there was peace for a long time. They met up to decide how they could do this, but Germany, Austria and Hungary were not invited.

Once they had made up their minds, they invited the other countries' leaders to meet them in Versailles in France, where they were presented with an agreement called the Treaty of Versailles.

Germany was shocked by how strict the treaty was. For example, it said that it had to accept total blame for starting the war. It also demanded huge costs in repayments, called reparations, to be used to help rebuild civilian areas after the devastation. But many experts now say that these costs were far higher than Germany could ever pay. Not meeting these payments caused many people lots of problems in the following years. It has also been argued that the results of the penalties put on Germany in this treaty contributed to the causes of World War Two.

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Home Menu. How did WW1 come to an end? Getty Images. Millions of people lost their lives as a result of World War One. Everything that had been learned from four years of war would be put into the operation. A five-hour bombardment, high-explosive and gas, would neutralise enemy positions, interfere with their artillery, and so disorientate the defenders that they could not resist properly.

German divisions went through an unrelenting process of training and preparation for the assault. The opening of the German spring offensive on 21 March ushered in a series of massive battles that would only cease with the armistice of November Perhaps as many as 21, British soldiers were taken prisoner on 21 March, and with the Allies in disarray, the moment of German victory appeared close.

Faced with what seemed like imminent defeat, the British and French agreed to appoint General Ferdinand Foch supreme commander in order to co-ordinate their efforts in defence of Amiens, where their two armies joined. The German army had mastered the techniques required to break through a trench network, combining artillery, infantry and air power, to impressive effect, but they lacked the logistical support to sustain such a large offensive over succeeding days, and had little way of moving their troops around the battlefield quickly.

The result was impressive initial gains as seen in the attacks on 9 April, 27 May and 9 June that proved harder to repeat as Allied reserves arrived, which they were now doing at speed. By the summer of , the United States which had entered the war in April was finally able to deploy significant manpower on the western front — thus turning the tide of the war.

All the elements of combined-arms warfare that would define the 20th century — infantry, artillery, armour and air power — had come together by the summer of The Franco-American counter-attack on the Marne on 18 July wrested the initiative away from the German army and ushered in the final phase of the war. Now the horrors of trench warfare had been banished as a new kind of fighting emerged: more mobile and decisive.

Utilising a surprise tank attack — led by the new Renault FT, the first modern tank with a revolving turret — French and American divisions launched themselves against the German lines and took 20, prisoners in a matter of hours. Our defence was not adapted to this mass employment on a wide front and was effective only in spots.

Over the next three months the Allied armies mounted a final advance that brought the German army to defeat. Victory had been the result of one of the most impressive and consequential technological and tactical transformations in the history of war.

Human flesh had been replaced by technology and industry. A violent, bloody birth of a new age in warfare had taken place that was worlds away from the two-dimensional battlefield of The western front deserves to be remembered not as an unchanging arena of futility, but as a radical moment in history.

Sign in. Back to Main menu Virtual events Masterclasses. The armies had weapons of great power, such as quick-firing artillery and machine guns. But they had only limited ability to move quickly.

During the bloody battles of , the British went through the same process of trial and error that the French had undergone. The disparity between Allied armies awash with guns, shells and tanks, and a threadbare enemy, was stark. More on: United Kingdom. Haig suffered nearly half a million additional casualties in , and so did the French.

They spent their dwindling strength breaching the Hindenburg Line and had little left for the Meuse, Moselle, or Rhine lines, where the Germans would stand fast.

As winter approached and the Allies sagged, everything hinged on the pending American thrust northward from Saint-Mihiel and Verdun toward Sedan— aimed at the vital pivot of the whole German position west of the Rhine. The American battle in the Meuse-Argonne, from September 26 to November 11, , pierced the most redoubtable section of the Hindenburg Line, reached Sedan on both banks of the Meuse—denying the Germans the river as a defensive shield—and cut the vital four-track railway there, which carried German trains a day.

With it, the Germans had moved five divisions every two days to any point on the Western Front; without it, they could barely move a single division in the same span.

The Doughboys won the war by trapping the German army in France and Belgium and severing its lifeline. Looking at in this new way, restoring the enormous impact of the U. First, it fundamentally revises the history of the First World War. Second, it brings out the thrilling suspense of , when the fate of the world hung in the balance, and the revivifying power of the Americans saved the Allies, defeated Germany, and established the United States as the greatest of the great powers.

Contact us at letters time. By Geoffrey Wawro. More information can be found at geoffreywawro. TIME Ideas hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary on events in news, society, and culture.