The United States intervened
Explanation:
World War I's deadliest and most decisive battles were fought in Europe, on the Western Front, slashing through the muddy fields of northern France and Belgium.
Germany allied with Austria-Hungary and Italy against Britain, France and Russia in the war which stretched from July 28th 1914 to November 11th 1918.
The German cost of involvement
The German government saw entering the war as a way to end ongoing disputes they had with Britain, France and Russia. The Foreign Minister of the time, Bernard von Bülow, had said – amid rising nationalism -that going to war was needed to “secure our place under the sun.”
Kaiser Wilhelm II hoped that the war would unite the public, and lessen the threat he saw posed by the quick growth of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) of Germany, which was critical of the Kaiser.
Yet it soon became apparent that Germany wasn't prepared for the war, which raged on for four years. The German economy was dependent on imports of food and raw materials, which were severely limited during the British blockade of Germany which lasted throughout the war, until 1919.
Germans became used to rationing for what little food supplies they had, turning to mass slaughter of pigs or at one point even eating animal feed during the so-called Turnip Winter of 1916-1917 when people were desperate to survive.
In December 1918, the German Board of Public Health stated that nearly 800,000 German civilians had died from starvation and disease caused by the blockade.
An older woman collapses while waiting in line for food in Frankfurt am Main in 1916. Photo: DPA
A halted German attempt
The front line stretched more than 700 kilometres, from the North Sea to France's Vosges mountains near Switzerland.
But the Great War also raged on Russian, Balkan and Italian fronts, and spread rapidly to the Middle East, colonial Africa and Asia, where Japan sided with the Allies to seize German islands in 1914.
The United States intervened late – but decisively – in 1917, drawing in several Latin American nations. In the aftermath the Middle East was entirely redrawn as the Ottoman empire collapsed.
Just weeks after war was declared, German troops marched into Belgium on August 17th, 1914, crushing defences and driving a flood of refugees before them as they advanced on Paris.
As France's government fled southwest to Bordeaux, the French were driven back and suffered heavy losses. Some 27,000 soldiers died on the single day of August 22nd, the deadliest in French military history.
The French General Joseph Joffre regrouped his retreating armies to fight the First Battle of the Marne on September 5-12nd, which halted the German advance.
