The major European adversaries who fought World War I began by following offensive plans designed to win victory quickly, but all these failed. The war became one of grinding attrition, and by 1918, the European adversaries were exhausted. That year, the desperate Germans launched one last offensive to win the war on the Western Front, but it stalled. After the Allies drove the Germans back, fighting ended with the Armistice of November 11. This armistice was a German surrender in all but name. It disarmed German forces, demanded immediate withdrawal from all conquered territory, and imposed an Allied occupation of Germany west of the Rhine. The Treaty of Versailles elaborated the details, imposing staggering war reparations and German acceptance of guilt for the war itself. Much of the German population believed that German forces had not been defeated in battle, instead blaming German liberal politicians and Jews for undermining the war effort. This misconception contributed to the onset of World War II. World War I was the first war in which belligerents adhered to the Hague Conventions concerning the treatment of prisoners of war. There were abuses, but nothing like those that occurred in World War II.

As the war plans of the great powers unfolded, few foresaw the stalemate that would set in by the end of 1914. Under Germany’s Schlieffen Plan, seven of its eight field armies were to attack France and achieve victory within six weeks, after which most of the troops would be withdrawn for action against Russia. In the meantime, Russia would have to be checked by Austria-Hungary, which Germany expected to abandon its own priority of crushing Serbia. The French, with the help of the British Expeditionary Force, won at the Marne against the Germans, who then dug in to consolidate their conquests. In “the Race to the Sea,” a series of failed flanking maneuvers by both sides established trench lines north to Flanders. By December 1914 a continuous Western front existed from the English Channel to Switzerland. Meanwhile, in the east, Germany’s Eighth Army, under Hindenburg and Ludendorff, defeated two Russian armies at Tannenberg, but Austro-Hungarian forces divided between Serbian and Russian objectives failed to conquer Serbia, were defeated by the Russians at Lemberg, and ultimately held the line of the Carpathians in a bloody winter campaign. The Ottoman Empire entered the war, creating another front against Russia in the Caucasus.