I've done a lot of research about world war 1. About how the weapons and gear changed throughout it and the impact that it had. And in the end my conclusion is that the only reason germany really lost the war is because they lost in numbers. Their weapons, training and gear were all superior compared the all the other country's. Is this conclusion correct?
And in the end my conclusion is that the only reason germany really lost the war is because they lost in numbers. Their weapons, training and gear were all superior compared the all the other country's
Is this conclusion correct?
Not really; when Germany lost the war, 1918, the United States had barely begun to get it's forces into the field, meaning that the bulk of the fighting was done by the Franco-British forces. In Quantity and Quality, the Franco-British armies were superior to the Germans: their air forces controlled the skies, allowing their artillery to support their ground forces more effectively; they possessed large amounts of tanks to support their armies, where the Germans did not; finally, their infantry methods did not possess the same flaws that the German Stosstruppen did. Whereas the Franco-British armies emphasized training whole units, the Stosstruppen system removed the best soldiers from units, and concentrated them in units that bore the brunt of German offensives. This process gutted the best of the army, although what remained still put up a fight.
So, Allied training was (IMO at least) better over all than the Germans. Gear and weapons was more or less the same. Allied artillery was organized around corps, air-to-ground coordination was high, tanks were utilized, and when it came to infantry weapons, the Vickers and Hotchkiss and the Lewis and Chauchat were more than a match for the MG 08 and MG 08/15, the latter of which was plagued with problems.
Although allied resources should not be discounted, the advantage was deceptive; Being the greatest industrial power in Europe, and second in the world, certainly helped Germany, as did the Central Powers interior lines of communications, while Britain and France were divided from Italy and Russia. Paul Kennedy estimated in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 that the Central Powers had the advantage of internal lines of communication that roughly balanced the Triple Entente's industrial advantage by a ratio of 1.5: 1 in industrial potential. It wasn't until the United States entered the war that the western powers had a decisive industrial advantage; the ratio was then 2.7:1.
And yet by 1916-17, the Allies were winning the war, before US entry, so Allied success cannot adequately be explained purely by numbers alone. Nor can alleged German superiority account for the failures and blindspots that prevented German success.