The chapter analyses the general mood in Germany at the end of 1917, the deep desire for peace, and the general view that only military victory in the west could bring the peace, because it was considered that the Allied Powers refused negotiations and their war aims were made open by the Bolshevik government publishing the secret agreements between the Allied Powers. This chapter concludes with Delbrueck’s retrospective observation that Germany was already lost, despite having won in the east: a policy of understanding and negotiation did not work, and neither did the offensives with which Germany tried to end the war.

This chapter deals with the Allied all-front attack in summer 1916 (Somme, Brussilow, Isonzo), the military crisis, the defensive strategy and final success of the Central Powers.

On 26 October 1918 the Swedish military attaché to Germany, Colonel Nils Adlercreutz, called on Lieutenant Colonel Nicolai, the head of German military intelligence, who, like many Europeans at the time, was in bed with flu. He apologised to Nicolai for coming with an unusual but urgent request which was hardly in line with his duties as a neutral military attaché, but explained that after observing four years of ‘our fight’, he felt obliged to speak as a soldier and brother in arms.  ‘He urged me’, Nicolai reported, ‘not to lay down our arms’, as ‘he knew the reports of his colleagues from Paris and London.’ Nicolai did not ask for details, but gathered that the governments in both those capitals ‘faced the same internal opposition to a continuation of the war, as we do. If Germany would just remain firm, the enemy’s will to fight on would collapse in the face of the Bolshevik danger.’ Nicolai thanked the Swedish colonel for his intervention, but it had come too late ‘because Ludendorff was dismissed this morning’.

This chapter deals with the internal situation and the home front during the first two years of the war. It analyses Germany’s economic situation, the question of blockade, foodstuff, shortages and internal unity, as well as war finance. It concludes that Germany could cope, during the first half of the war, with the enormous challenges of the war.

The chapter deals with Erich von Falkenhayn, his understanding of the European stalemate, his plans for a new strategy in November 1915 and Bethmann Hollweg’s hesitation to accept Falkenhayn’s separate peace strategy. It also covers the Ottoman intervention and its consequences.

It describes how the new OHL wanted to enforce German war production through the Hindenburg programme, by recruiting a Polish army, and by using Belgian enforced labour for the German war industries.

The chapter analyses German strategy in 1915, from the offensives in the east in early 1915, the negotiations with Italy to keep it neutral; the Russian conquest of Przemysl; the German and Austro-Hungarian attack at Gorlice-Tarnow and its consequences; the Dardanelles and the conquest of Serbia in late 1915.

Ther chapter analyses the German leadership in the moment of military defeat in autumn 1918 and the decision to ask for an armistice.

The chapter decribes German war planning before 1914

The chapter deals with the negotiations between Germany and the victorious Allied Powers and the events leading to the armistice, among them the change of government and the abdication of Wilhelm II.