least not unless foreigners ceased to regard them as tolerable credit risks. Finally, the
Allied maritime economic blockade of the Central Powers played an important, if
incalculable, role in weakening morale on the home front and generally helping to induce
war-weariness. There has long been a school of thought in Britain which holds to the
view that it was the Royal Navy and its blockade which ranks first among the causes of
the Allied victory (Liddell Hart, 1970a: 464). The German High Seas Fleet won a tactical
victory at Jutland on 31 May 1916, in the only main fleet action of the war, but it was
bested strategically. The Germans effectively blockaded themselves for the remainder of
the war, too fearful of the Royal Navy to risk venturing forth again in large numbers.
Conclusion
The strategic history of World War I is dominated by a political context that was of over-
whelming significance. Governments required more of their armed forces than those
forces could deliver, virtually no matter how competently they were handled in combat.
It is commonplace to observe that the leading problem in the land warfare of 1914–1 8
was tactical, rather than operational or strategic. The troops could not penetrate the
sophisticated continuous field fortifications of a flankless enemy. But to focus near-
exclusively upon the tactical crisis and its several partial solutions is to miss the forest
while being fascinated by the trees. The real problem was not tactical at all; rather, it was
political. The armies struggled bloodily to resolve, or at least alleviate, the tactical
impasse, because they were the instruments of policies which insisted upon decisive
military victory. Such a victory was obtained, albeit barely, but only after four and a
quarter years of attritional combat. If there is blame to assign, its proper targets should
not be the generals and their staffs who had to learn how to wage modern warfare, still
less the mass of conscripted victims of the military learning curve. Rather, blame must
be heaped at the door of the people who demanded more from the use of force than such
use was capable of delivering at reasonable cost.
Why did the Central Powers lose? Given that the major belligerents achieved an
approximate equality of military effectiveness, as happens in all protracted conflicts, and
given the impracticality of bold operational strokes, the better-resourced side was bound
to win in the end. That end was a long time coming, as was predictable, given the strength
of Germany and the skill and determination of its soldiers, but provided no essential
member of the Allied coalition succumbed to terminal war-weariness at home, the defeat
of Germany had to be only a matter of time. It is true that Russia was just such an
essential coalition member, but it was replaced by the United States, albeit with a perilous
military time lag.
The Allies held the strategic trump cards. Germany proved in 1914–1 8 , as it did again
in 1939–45, that it was superior in the conduct of warfare: in the first half of the twentieth
century the Germans were unsurpassed at fighting. But there is much more to war than
fighting. Germany did not function in a purposefully strategic manner. It had no strategy-
making machinery to advise the Kaiser, and Wilhelm II was not gifted as a strategic
thinker. However, to be fair, Germany’s military leaders had long recognized their
fundamental strategic problem: the relative shortage of means. The Schlieffen–Moltke
Plan was nothing if not daring. It was a reckless attempt to finesse by operational
dexterity and sheer military tempo both the tactical crisis caused by modern firepower
World War I: modern warfare 95