The slaughter continued.

Huge battles of attrition like Verdun and The Somme kept the body count climbing into the millions. By 1917 both battles were finally over,  but the stalemate continued on The Western Front.

In 1917 the allies began another offensive, at Passchendale, but it too was unsuccessful in resolving the stalemate. Rain turned no-mans-land into a mud pit, and many soldiers were drowned in the mud. Movement in those conditions was virtually impossible, and the allies met with great resistance, including mustard gas, from The Germans. In 1917, most of the French army mutinied. They were tired of the war. It was a curious uprising, on the part of the army, as the soldiers were demanding that the offensives be halted - they were quite willing to defend France when The Germans launched an offensive, but they refused to attack. The mutiny was a success as French army conditions were improved. France waited for a new ally, The United States, to begin sending their army to France before they would once again go on the offensive.

Germany had renewed the submarine war in The Atlantic and any ship that was headed for the allies was liable to be fired on. The most famous example of American ships was The Lusitania in 1915. But America did not wish to become involved in the military conflict. In 1917, a telegram was intercepted by British Intelligence, sent by The Germans to Mexico, encouraging Mexico to enter the war with the central powers and attack the United States. The telegram was handed over to American President Woodrow Wilson. In 1917, America declared war on Germany. It would take a year to train and ship this army, but by 1918, 2 million American soldiers were in France.

When war began in 1914, The Allies began a blockade of Germany. This caused shortages that were placed on the German people that their counterparts in England and France never had to endure. The winter of 1916-17 was brutally harsh and Germans at home began to question what the war was all about. Where was the great victory promised in 1914? Social unrest began to spread. The Kaiser and the ruling princes were symbols of the German order that had attacked France through Belgium in 1914, and were seen as running the war, even though Wilhelm was much in the background throughout the war. His cousin in Russia, Czar Nicholas, faced the same criticism. Nicholas had taken command of the army, and he had become associated with its poor performance. He was forced to abdicate in 1917. Nicholas, and his family were executed in 1918. The Russian provisional government under Kerensky continued to fight the war but with no success. There was a second revolution and Lenin, the new Russian leader, sued for peace. The result was the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918 and Russia lost millions of square miles, and millions of people in the settlement. Finally there was a victory for Germany to celebrate. But Czarism was dead, and Czarism was the greatest identifiable enemy for the German citizenry in 1914. With the privations at home, Germans began to sympathize more with their soviet working-class brethren in Russia, than with their rulers at home. 

Germany knew they were running out of time. Anticipating that America would be ready to fight by the spring of 1918, a major offensive was launched in March of 1918. It was Germany's last chance and most likely a futile one in a military sense, but necessary to preserve German honour. Initially, the offensive was a success, as the allies began to pull back all along the western front - the first territorial gains in the west since 1914. But the offensive eventually ran out of steam. The only tactic left was mass assault, and German soldiers were simply mowed down by the allied guns. In the fall of 1918, the allies attacked with American units plugging in the gaps between the British and The French. The American presence in the trenches was maybe the last factor introduced that caused Germany to surrender - more by the sheer numbers rather than any specific military contribution. The tank had now become a viable weapon and was utilized in, finally, a successful assault by the allies on The Western Front. The allies broke through in 24 hours and The German military collapse began. 

A naval arms race had been one of the conditions that had lead to war in 1914. Yet, with the exception of  The Battle of Jutland in 1915, no major battles were fought at sea. It was decided in the fall of 1918 that the German navy would fight one last great battle for the prestige and honour of the empire. The Navy, at port for almost the entire war, met this order with skepticism. It was well known that it was only a matter of time before peace terms were arranged and the war would be over. The Navy mutinied. Sailors simply jumped off of their ships and left! Fuelled by the naval mutiny, the entire Bismarkian German order began to collapse. There had already been a transformation under way to democratize Germany, by Ludendorf and Hindenburg, at least to some extent, in order to be able to negotiate more favourable terms with the allies for an end to the war. The Kaiser was the symbol of the old order and the allies made it known that they would not negotiate with Wilhelm. Effectively, especially since 1916, Germany had been led by the Military with the Kaiser as only a figurehead. The Kaiser's image and persona had been propagandized by the allies as the embodiment of the merciless "Hun" war machine. In November, 1918, The Kaiser and all of the princes stepped down without a fight. Wilhelm fled to Holland. Bismarck's empire was no more. 

The American commander, Pershing, advocated continuing the attack until Berlin fell. But the French and the British, like Germany, had had enough of war. An unconditional surrender was offered by Germany and accepted by the allies.  On The eleventh hour, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the guns fell silent. Shells were fired right up until the last minute. The bloodiest war in history, the first large-scale war of the industrial age, the first world war, The Great War, was over. Nine million soldiers were dead. Another million were "missing" (and they have never been "found"). In 1919 an influenza epidemic, brought on by the devastation of the war, killed forty-three million more.