German reservists leaving Berlin for the front by train at the outbreak of the First World War.
Germany was one of the Central Powers and joined the First World War following a declaration of war against Serbia by its ally, Austria-Hungary.
The Germans began the First World War with high hopes of a quick victory. During the first week of August 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm II told departing troops: 'You will be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees.'
The optimism soon evaporated, and Germany, as with other warring nations began preparations for a long war.
Nevertheless, there was a great upsurge in patriotism, with citizens subscribing for war loans and surrendering their precious metals.
Life became increasing difficult over the war years. Dancing in public was banned as was ragtime music. Almost from the start, the Allied naval blockade began to bite, and despite the government's best efforts to control the distribution of consumer goods, severe shortages occurred. Clothes were rationed and often made of ersatz (substitute) materials, much in German life became a poor substitute for the real thing.
In response to Britain's blockade, Germany launched a campaign of unrestricted U-boat warfare, in February 1915 in an attempt to blockade Britain. But the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in May 1915 ultimately brought the United States into the conflict.
By the early summer of 1915, food was becoming scarce and expensive, prices having increased by 65 per cent since July 1914. Rationing was introduced but was badly handled, and in one Silesian city troops had to be called out to control rioting.
In August 1916 military commander Paul von Hindenburg was appointed Chief of the General Staff of the armed forces, and exercised a virtual dictatorship over Germany, conducting its military and civil policy.
Despite such measures, there remained considerable industrial unrest, the harsh winter of 1916 to 1917 led to a major food crisis, and some estimates put civilian deaths from malnutrition at 700,000 by 1918. At the same time the Hindenburg Programme to mobilise the home front was introduced.
Long before the Armistice, the German population's enthusiasm for the war effort had all but dissolved.
In 1918, the Allies were preparing for the final phase of the First World War, the campaign that would take them into the heart of Germany.
They expected the offensive into Germany to last well into 1919. Instead, 1918 saw a catastrophic collapse in the German will to fight.
Watch curator Laura Clouting discussing the physical and psychological battles of waging war, the critical psychological dimensions of conflict and how the collapse of German morale brought the First World War to an end.
November 1918 brought an end to hostilities before any of the fighting reached German soil. The Kaiser's abdication's on 9 November 1918, allowed the belligerent nations to agree to end hostilities. But for Germany this also brought defeat, revolution, turmoil on the streets, a continued Allied blockade; and in 1919 all the indignities of the Treaty of Versailles.
In the 1930's the Nazi Party, led by Adolf Hitler exploited this humiliation, claiming that Germany was not defeated on the battlefield but by the collapse of morale on the home front.
During the First World War, Britain intended to use its powerful navy to starve Germany and Austria-Hungary into submission. By maintaining a blockade of enemy ports it hoped to cut off supplies from the outside world. The consequences of this strategy were complex.
The reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II as King of Prussia and Emperor of Germany from 1888 to 1918 saw the meteoric rise of Germany as an economic and military power. It also saw the fragmentation of Europe into opposing camps of mutually-mistrusting alliances, a world war ending in Germany’s humiliating defeat and the abolition of German monarchical rule.
