It was truly a war of illusions. Pre-war German strategy was haunted by the fear of a war on two fronts, against France in the west and Russia in the east. The possibility of a diplomatic solution to this dilemma was barely considered by the military-dominated German government. A military solution was sought instead. The German high command decided that the best form of defense was attack. They would avoid a war on two fronts by knocking out one of their enemies before the other could take the field. The enemy with the slowest military mobilization was Russia. The French army would be in the field first. France was therefore chosen to receive the first blow. Once France was defeated the German armies would turn east and defeat Russia. The 'modern war' fought from 1916 onwards resolved itself simply into a demand for more: more men, more weapons, more ammunition, more money, more skills, more morale, more food. Some of the demands were contradictory. More men meant more men for the armies and more men for the …show more content…
And of course, there were the Americans. American troops arrived in France at the rate of 150,000 a month in 1918. Truly the new world had come in to redress the balance of the old. The cost of all this in human terms was 8.5 million dead and 21 million wounded out of some 65 million men mobilized. The losses among groups, especially young, educated middle-class males, were often severe, but the demographic shape of Europe was not fundamentally changed. The real impact was moral. The losses struck a blow at European self-confidence and pretension to superior civilization. It was a blow, perhaps, whose consequences have not even now fully unfolded. Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles (the so-called "war guilt" clause) stated Germany accepted responsibility for "all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected because of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her