It's fascinating. I just finished "To End All Wars," by Adam Hochschild. He points out that Germany's military was doing quite well in July 1918 ... but that blockades had ruined Germany's ability to feed its people. Folks were getting by on 1000 calories/day; starvation was common, and with the Bolsheviks having stirred up Russia, socialist/pacifists were totally tired of fighting. After modest military setbacks, Germany's will to fight collapsed.

Large German units started surrendering to small Allied forces. Yes, tanks and the U.S. arrival helped clinch everything. But the meltdown inside Germany was quite amazing. Think of the U.S.'s final decision in 1973-75 to get out of Vietnam no matter what. And then multiply that breakdown of the warrior mentality by 100.

The Kaiser lost control of his country in the war's final weeks, and the German authorities naively hoped that they would get an OK armistice/settlement if they called it quits. When they didn't, that created such deep German resentment over the next 20 years that a resumption of the war became inevitable.

As if WW 1 and 2 are in fact a single event with a strange picnic pause in the middle.

It's a stretch, but some have linked those two with the Franco-Prussian War as well.

Bismarck predicted:

"Jena came twenty years after the death of Frederick the Great; the crash will come twenty years after my departure if things go on like this"

"One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Bismarck#Forced_to_res...

Quite the opposite. Tanks were a decidedly underwhelming weapon due to the initial use being squandered by the British - though it was part of the push to relieve pressure on Verdun and thus keep France in the war.

The real lesson from tanks is the impression on the German psyche which led to Manstein, Guderian and Rommel, the concept of Blitzkreig and the fall of France in 1940. Post war tank warfare on the allied side was (generally) very staid comapred to German thinking. Though there were some good thinkers, included Liddell-Hart who showed you could take tanks through the Ardennes...

WW1 ended because Germany exhausted herself utterly in the failed Spring offensive of 1918. The UK's blockade of Germany was having horrific consequences on the home front. Meanwhile the advances that were made in Spring 1918 by Germans led to them capturing lots of supplies from the newly entered USA, thus undermining their morale further.

Obligatory anti-Lidell-Hart comment:

He was an idiot. There is no such thing as "Blitzkrieg", just dumb luck and huge mistakes on the French's part.

If you haven't -- check out the "Hardcore History" podcast. The last 4-5 episodes have been on WW1 and have been a fantastic introduction to a lot of the complexity (and horrors) of WW1 for me.

The most interesting version I have read is that the naval mutinies rendered Kaiser Wilhelm unable or unwilling to continue the war.

Pershing being a West Pointer, noted that there was no decisive victory on land in WWI and that it would be resumed in a generation. Remarkable prediction.

World War 1 Ended when Russian troops stormed what was left of the Reichstag in 1945.