Germany and the central powers won more battles than the allies and lost less men winning those battles. Could it not be said that even though they surrendered they still beat the allies due to the facts stated earlier? They only surrendered due the massive amount of manpower evident with the entry of the U.S. to the war. Please remember that this is the first world war, not world war 2.
How can you even make the argument that the Central powers won? Sure the Allies lost more soldiers than the Central powers did, but look what happened to the Central powers after the war. The German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman empires all ceased to exists after world war 1. Making the argument that the Central powers beat the Allies just because they lost less troops in battle would be like saying the Axis beat the Allies in World War 2 just because they lost less troops.
To me the only way you can say that the Central powers won, is that the anger caused by the Central powers would lead to the Allies to come up with the treaty of versailles, which would lead to World War II, but it's not like they were planing that. The Allies won the war.
The reason that the Armistice happened in the first place is because the Germans knew they were going to lose. They thought (probably) that they could get better terms, i guess. But, obviously, with the Treaty of Versailles, that didn't happen.
The Central powers were very much winning, and were not beaten, they're leaders simply surrendered. That is why World War Two happened.
The Central Powers were not winning. Despite the defeat of Russia, Austria-Hungary was crippled by dissent, they still had not managed to kill off the Serbians and they hadn't even managed to advance into Italy. They were being ground down and always on the point of a great rebellion. Same goes for the Ottoman Empire, they were already finished. Germany was starved. The British blockade killed hundreds of thousands of Germans, they could not get anything in or out, they were being strangled. They could no longer advance into France, it just wasn't possible. Everybody wanted an end to the war and the German citizens were especially desperate to end the war as they were being quite literally starved. Why aren't you gone yet?
World War 1 was just a prologue to World War 2, and in both cases, the Allies won because of overwhelming manpower and industry with the inclusion of the US (still don't understand why Hitler declared war on the US), and in the case of WW1, Germany was blockaded and slowly being starved, the Ottoman Empire was collapsing due to Britain.
The allies barely won, but even if it wasn't the case, the central powers were the eventual losers anyway. The treaties were so heavy, that the nations were almost destroyed. The whole war teaches one lesson: Don't make war.
The allies were also suffering from all of these problems, disent, manpower, industry everyone was suffering from this . Russia leaving the war, gave the germans the extra manpower they needed to push the western front forward, and they were succeeding and made it to a few miles outside of paris, and then the US entered the war and turned the tide. The majority of german citizens were convinced they were winning the war, which is why after they surrendered there was such great disent and anger, which a certain dictator was able to use to his advantage. If the US had stayed out of the war, the central powers could have emerged victorius.
The Allies weren't suffering from industry and manpower problems. Do you know how many British people volunteered, let alone were conscripted? Dissent is another story. Dissent did effect France. That is a certainty. It certainly didn't effect Britain on as much a scale as France or Russia. Germany launched the Kaiserschlacht, to attempt to push forward on the Western Front, with the additional reinforcements from the Russian front. Needless to say, the Entente held out, despite the overwhelming men and equipment that Germany unleashed. It was a well and true stalemate. The majority of German citizens weren't convinced they were winning the war. In fact, huge amounts of Germans were affected by low food supply. The Spanish Influenza was also ravaging Germany, killing significant amounts of people. The only reason they were angry after the Treaty of Versailles was because they were very unfairly treated, it was not about how successful they were in the war. At this point everybody wanted an end to it, the Germans kind of got fucked over by it. By the time the USA came into play, there were hardly and Central Powers left - Austria-Hungary was never stable, and the Ottoman Empire was dead.
Hmm I admit i did not know as much of wwI as I do wwII. After reading up the spring offensive I realise that it would not have worked, but not for the reasons you have stated. The main problem with the Kaiserschlacht was that it lacked clear stragey. there was no real main objective, and having a goal is pretty godamn importan to a military campaing. The objective would change for each sitution, thus they had no real plan to capture any important stategic positions. However the very fact that the germans were able to get as close to paris as they did, shows that if they had developed a better more organized strategy, the offensive would have been much more succeseful. Plus, we are also forgetting about how close they came in 1914 and they were suffering from none of the problems you have pointed out.
we lost. as much as a would like to say we won i cannot, simply because of the treaty of Versailles, i do believe that we held the best opportunity to win but our alliance with the Austro-Hungraians held us back. mostly because of the russian front and that we had to help them in serbia and italy. in the long run though i think that both sides lost because of the war that followed it