For Germany, the withdrawal of the Russians from the
war in March 1918 offered renewed hope for a favorable
end to the war. The victory over Russia persuaded Erich
von Ludendorff (1865–1937), who guided German military
operations, and most German leaders to make one
final military gamble—a grand offensive in the west to
break the military stalemate. The German attack was
launched in March and lasted into July, but an Allied
counterattack, supported by the arrival of 140,000 fresh
American troops, defeated the Germans at the Second
Battle of the Marne on July 18. Ludendorff ’s gamble had
failed. With the arrival of two million more American
troops on the Continent, Allied forces began to advance
steadily toward Germany.
On September 29, 1918, General Ludendorff informed
German leaders that the war was lost and demanded that
the government sue for peace at once. When German officials
discovered that the Allies were unwilling to make
peace with the autocratic imperial government, reforms
were instituted to create a liberal government. But these
constitutional reforms came too late for the exhausted
and angry German people. On November 3, naval units
in Kiel mutinied, and within days, councils of workers
and soldiers were forming throughout northern Germany
and taking over civilian and military administrations.
William II, capitulating to public pressure, abdicated on
November 9, and the Socialists under Friedrich Ebert
(1871–1925) announced the establishment of a republic.
Two days later, on November 11, 1918, the new German
government agreed to an armistice. The war was over.
The final tally of casualties from the war was appalling.
Nearly 10 million soldiers were dead, including 5 million
of the Allied side and 3.5 million from the Central Powers
(as Germany and its allies were known). Civilian
deaths were nearly as high. France, which had borne
much of the burden of the war, suffered nearly 2 million
deaths, almost one-tenth of the entire male population of
the country.
World History
