I've been listening to Dan Carlin's podcasts on WW1 and I'm continually surprised to hear about how every battle seems to be 2-3 nations at a time against solely Germany. Perhaps my (lack of) contextual understanding of the world of the time makes it hard for me to see the big picture but what were the conditions which allowed Germany to stand up so well to what seems like SO many opponents on multiple fronts? Was it just that they had so people / resources it was doable? From Carlins explanations (or my understanding of them) it seems like Germany's allies were more of an obstacle than an assistance. Is there something I'm missing?
This answer I've given previously should help
Perhaps my (lack of) contextual understanding of the world of the time makes it hard for me to see the big picture but what were the conditions which allowed Germany to stand up so well to what seems like SO many opponents on multiple fronts?
It wasn't really that many fronts. Looking at the situation in 1916, the Germans had only two major fronts to worry about, and that was the Western Front and the Eastern Front. On the Western Front, c. 110 German divisions were dug in in formidable defensive positions which were themselves enhanced by terrain multipliers, the Chemin-des-Dames Ridge, Vimy Ridge, the Picardy Plateau, and the Wytschaete-Messines-Geluveldt Plateau ridge line southwest of Ypres. On the Eastern Front, the Germans had the Austro-Hungarians to hold half the line, and the Pripyet Marshes protected the area where the two armies met.
Above all, Germany had been the second largest economy in the world in 1914, only slightly behind America and well ahead of Britain, and could utilize it's industries, the captured territories it occupied, and it's allies resources, as well as foreign materiel that passed the blockade or came from Scandinavia, to maintain the Central Powers war effort. Combined with interior lines of communication (ie railways, canals, roads) that in this war could not be targeted by air campaigns, 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 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.
Throw in the weakening of Russia and France's armies in 1914-15, and the fact that Russian attacks afterwards primarily targeted Austria-Hungary, the Germans were able to maintain a fairly stable position until the Battle of the Somme. After that, the chaos brought on by the French Army Mutinies in 1917 forced the British to go it alone at 3rd Ypres, buying the Germans more time.