World war I, (also known as First World War, the Great War, or The War to End All Wars) was a total war that started in 1914 and ended in 1918. It ended when Germany surrendered. In this essay, I will try and explain why Germany surrendered.
I think one of the most important factor that made Germany decide to surrender was the fact that Germany got off to a bad start when the Schlieffen plan failed. The Schlieffen plan was a plan devised by Alfred Graf von Schlieffen.The plan was to invade France and take over Paris in only two weeks. He went over and over it on paper and it worked over and over again but when he pu itinto real life, it wasn't quite as successful.
The first part of the plan that failed was going through Belgium. The Belgium's forces retaliated more than von Schlieffen expected. He thought it would be easy to get through Belgium. Once he did get to France, the British came in to lend a Hand to their ally's, the French. Von Schlieffen hadn't expected this either. After a while, the two sides got into a stalemate position. They started building trenches and then, The Schlieffen plan, had turned into a war.
To start off, the Germans were right in the middle of French territory so it was hard for the German troops to get food. The Schlieffen plan had stranded the German troops from supplies. Without the food and supplies, the Germans cant do very much. On top of this, the new general, general Kaiser, orders a full on attack using all the artillery. This is good for the British and French because all they have to do is hide until the attack is over. The Germans support lines were destroyed so the kaiser had no Idea his plan was failing. The kaiser then fleed to Holland, leaving his troops destroyed.
