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With the Portuguese proving unable to defeat the German forces, the British had to bear the brunt of the fighting in Mozambique, and thus began to aggressively pursue Lettow-Vorbeck's small army. By August 1918, the Schutztruppe was heading north to return to German East Africa, while the British under Jacob van Deventer had begun to concentrate their forces in the area of Regone and Lioma in an attempt to encircle their enemy. Though Lettow-Vorbeck had received intel about the British plans, his forces were once again in dire need of supplies and Regone harbored a large supply depot. As result, the German commander planned a quick assault against the vulnerable village in order to capture as many supplies as possible: Speed was crucial for this plan, as Lettow-Vorbeck would have to outrace the British before they could reinforce Regone or catch up with him. Rough terrain, rain and fog hindered and delayed the Schutztruppe, however, so that when it reached Regone on 26 August, the British had already fortified and reinforced it. At this point, the Germans could only have taken Regone by a prolonged siege for which they had no time, so that Lettow-Vorbeck chose to call off the attack. His forces bypassed Regone and instead began to march to Lioma, another supply depot. Unknown to the Germans, a British battalion (1/1st KAR) already managed to reinforce the village on 28 August, while two other battalions also force-marched toward Lioma. Between the British forces at Regone and the units that gathered at Lioma the Schutztruppe would be trapped, and if everything went according to van Deventer's plans, destroyed. While British skirmishers harassed the approaching German forces, the 1/1st KAR under Maj Alexander Charles Masters dug in at Lioma: They formed a square defensive perimeter south of the village, and three small platoon outposts were also set up west, east and south of the British positions. Thus prepared, the Lioma garrison waited for the Schutztruppe, which would arrive in the area on 30 August. By 1918, the once strong Schutztruppe, which had successfully resisted the allies for four years, was much depleted and exhausted. Of its peak strength of around 15,000 soldiers in 1916 just about 1,600 were left. Many African as well as European soldiers had deserted or surrendered as the allies overran their home areas in German East Africa, wages were no longer paid, and life in the army became harder and more brutal.

Captain Caulfeild ordered the harbor swept for mines during 2 November and well into the next day. During the sweeping, the Force "B" commander, Aitken, began the unopposed landing of troops and supplies in two groups at the harbor and three miles east of the city on a mine-free beach. By evening on 3 November, the invasion force was ashore with the exception of the 27th Mountain Battery and the Faridkot Sappers. At noon on 4 November, Aitken ordered his troops to march on the city. Well concealed defenders quickly broke up their advance. The fighting then turned to jungle skirmishing by the southern contingent and bitter street-fighting by the harbor force. The Gurkhas of the Kashmiri Rifles and the 2nd Loyal North Lancashire Regiment of the harbour contingent made good progress; they entered the town, captured the customs house, and Hotel Deutscher Kaiser and ran up the Union Jack. But then the advance was stopped. Less-well trained and equipped Indian battalions of the 27th (Bangalore) Brigade scattered and ran away from the battle. The 98th Infantry were attacked by swarms of angry bees and broke up. The bees attacked the Germans as well, hence the battle's nickname. British propaganda transformed the bee interlude into a fiendish German plot, conjuring up hidden trip wires to agitate the hives. The 13th Rajputs failed to play a significant role in the battle as their morale had been shaken when witnessing the retreat of the 63rd Palamcottah Light Infantry. Dead Indian soldiers of the British force on the beach at Tanga The colonial volunteers of the 7th and 8th Schützenkompanien [rifle companies] arrived by rail to stiffen the pressed Askari lines. The normally mounted 8th Schützenkompanie had left their horses at Neu Moshi. By late afternoon on 4 November, Lettow-Vorbeck ordered his last reserves, the 13th and 4th Askari Feldkompanien (field companies) – the 4th had just reached Tanga by train), to envelop the British flank and rear by launching bayonet attacks along the entire front to “bugle calls and piercing tribal war cries.” At least three battalions of the Imperial Service Brigade would have been wiped out to a man, if they had not taken to their heels. All semblance of order vanished as Force B's retirement “degenerated into total rout.” Still outnumbered eight to one, caution overtook some of the German officers. Through a series of errors by the buglers and misunderstandings by an officer to disengage and consolidate, Askari withdrew to a camp several miles west of Tanga. As soon as Lettow-Vorbeck learned of this, he countermanded the move and ordered a redeployment that was not completed until early morning. “For nearly all of the night [before sunrise 5 November], Tanga was Aitken's for the taking. It was the most stupendous irony of the battle.”

The second prong would be an attack on the German defences at Longido in the north around Kilimanjaro, then swing south and seize Neu Moshi, the western terminus of the Usambara or Northern Railroad. According to author Charles Miller, "the objective for the capture of Longido was to squeeze the German Schutztruppe in the upper end of a two-hundred-mile pincer." The region was a major German settlement area with established plantations of sisal, coffee and other cash crops at the northern edge of the Usambara highlands. Since small German raiding parties had already begun to ambush British detachments and attack the Uganda Railway, the destruction of German forces in the area bordering British East Africa was a key objective of the British plan of operation. Miller later wrote that "the strategy was faultless on paper." By late October 1914 the British Indian Expeditionary Force "C" gathered with 4,000 men near the border of British and German East Africa, commanded by Brigadier General J. M. Stewart. The brigade included colonial volunteers who called themselves the East Africa Mounted Rifles. Flawed intelligence reports estimated the German military presence in the region at 200 men; however, there were 600 askaris in three companies plus the colonial volunteers of 8th Schützenkompagnie [rifle company] of 86 young Germans on horseback. On 3 November 1914, some 1,500 Punjabis of the British force came up the slope at night near Longido and, at daylight in the morning fog, were caught in the crossfire of a strong German defensive position. The large force of Indian infantry fought well when counterattacked, however, during the day the British attackers made no headway, but suffered substantial casualties.By mid-morning, a mounted patrol of the 8th Rifle Company ambushed a British supply column; roughly 100 mules carrying water for the troops were stampeded away by the German horsemen. Some of the carriers in the column panicked and dropped their loads leaving food, ammunition and equipment behind. The British officers with their now widely scattered troops waited until darkness, determined their situation to be untenable, pulled out and down the mountain and marched back to British East Africa having accomplished nothing. This defeat of the invaders by a force less than half their size cooled the enthusiasm for war especially among the British colonial volunteers. The northern prong attack at Longido had been intended as little more than a diversion. Byron Farwell recounts that "the main effort was [the] ambitious amphibian assault on the port of Tanga" that commenced on 2 November 1914. With the northern prong accounted for, the askari companies were shuttled by rail to Tanga to assist in opposing the southern prong.

Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, the Austro-Hungarian Chief of the General Staff, attributed the defeat to a Serbian "thunder bolt from the south". The battle did not achieve any of Austria-Hungary's objectives: it failed to knock Serbia out of the war, it failed to induce Bulgaria to join the Central Powers and it failed to convince Romania to stay neutral. Austro-Hungarian historians concluded after the battle that defeat by Serbia constituted "a serious diminution in the Dual Monarchy's prestige and self-confidence". The battle, like the Battle of Cer before it, drew considerable attention to Serbia and many foreigners came to the country in late 1914 to offer political and humanitarian aid or to fight alongside the Serbian Army. German publicist Maximilian Harden wrote: "Serbia has risen from its grave on the field of Kosovo. From the source of the Kolubara River it will draw courage for the greatest battles of the whole century." The Austro-Hungarians suffered about 225,000 casualties, including 30,000 killed, 173,000 wounded and 70,000 taken prisoner. They reported that 200 of their officers were taken prisoner during the battle and more than 130 cannon, 70 heavy machine-guns and a large quantity of matériel were captured. The Serbs also suffered heavy casualties, with 22,000 killed, 91,000 wounded and 19,000 missing or captured. The Western press was appalled with the scale of atrocities committed by the Austro-Hungarian troops against Serbian civilians, including women and children. William Shepard, of the United Press, confirmed as an eyewitness that at least eighteen towns were fully abandoned, and the whole of northwestern Serbia was nearly depopulated. Mišić was promoted to the rank of vojvoda for his command during the battle. Potiorek, on the other hand, was relieved of command on 22 December for "this most ignominious, rankling and derisory defeat". The decision reportedly made him suicidal. He was replaced by Archduke Eugen of Austria, who the Austro-Hungarians hoped would "restore Habsburg forces to the glory days of Prince Eugene". Von Frank was dismissed as commander of the 5th Army and replaced by Karl Tersztyánszky von Nádas, who had commanded the 4th Corps at the Battle of Cer. The 5th and 6th armies were then merged into a single 5th Army consisting of 95,000 men. Dobrica Ćosić's novel A Time of Death revolves around the battle. It was adapted into a stage play in 1983, titled The Battle of Kolubara.

Henrys left Fez for Meknes from which he telegraphed Lyautey promising to "strike hard and fast" so that the "Laverdure disaster" did not threaten the French position in Morocco. He said that "everyone, everywhere must be aware of the fact that our forces are numerous, that strong columns are already on their way to Khenifra, and that the repression will be swift". Henrys dispatched Garnier-Duplessix's Groupe Mobile to Khénifra from El Graar and ordered Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Dérigoin to form another Groupe at Ito for mobile support. Garnier-Duplessix was forced to fight his way through groups of Zaian tribesmen and did not reach the town until 16 November. Henrys joined Dérigoin and entered the town himself two days later, encountering no resistance on the way. Another part of the Khénifra relief force was the 6th battalion of the 2nd French Foreign Legion who marched from Mrirt and saw action at El Hammam and along the Oum er Rbia. By the end of the month the French garrison had swelled to 7,000 troops, an all-time high. Henrys, Garnier-Duplessix and Kroll were all promoted shortly after the battle in recognition of their actions to prevent the loss of Khénifra. As a show of force Henrys led excursions from Khénifra to El Herri on 19 and 20 November. He observed many campfires and some groups of tribesmen but on the whole the Zaian, who had moved their main camps away from the area, kept their distance. Henrys observed the field of battle and ordered the burial of the French dead, finding many stripped of their clothing and some mutilated or decapitated by post-mortem dagger wounds. Laverdure's body and those of six of his officers were missing, having been removed by Hammou for use as trophies but were later exchanged for Hammou's captured wives. The Zaian leader displayed these trophies and captured weapons to nearby tribes to encourage them to support him, a tactic that proved particularly successful with the tribes to the north. Although French forces subsequently fought several successful actions against the Zaian and recovered the captured weapons, El Herri showed that they could be beaten. The battle, along with the siding of the Ottoman Empire with the Central Powers in the First World War and slow French progress on the Western Front, led to increasing numbers of recruits for Hammou. The Zaian war continued for many years after El Herri with Henrys changing tactics from negotiation and bribery to "submit or starve". Subsequent victories in the Middle Atlas restored the French image of superiority in force and led to increasing submissions and the withdrawal of the Zaian deeper into the mountains. By 1917 the French had managed to establish a military road straight through the Middle Atlas, limiting the free movement of the Zaian. The end of the war came through political rather than military means with Hammou's sons submitting, on his advice, to the French in June 1920.

The battle was a shock to the French who had not expected the tribes to get the better of a well-armed column. Lyautey himself said that "in our entire colonial history there has never been a case of the destruction of such an important force, of the loss of [almost] all its officers ..., of the disappearance of so much materiel and booty of war". The battle has been described variously as the worst ever defeat of French forces in Morocco, the worst in North Africa and one of the worst in the French colonies. The heavy losses suffered at El Herri overshadowed the planning of French military policy for Morocco during the First World War. Today the battle is celebrated by the Moroccan press as a historic event in Moroccan history, alongside other instances of resistance against French and Spanish occupation. An obelisk was erected near to the battlefield in 1991 and was unveiled by two Moroccan ministers, Moulay Ahmad Alawi and Muhammad El-Ansar, listing the names of the 182 Moroccan dead. Hammou is recorded on the obelisk as being a "proud champion" of "national resistance". The monument's Arabic text contains some mistakes, recording the French dead at 700 in number (Henrys recorded 623) and giving the year of the battle as 1912. The Battle of Łódź took place from November 11 to December 6, 1914, near the city of Łódź in Poland. It was fought between the German Ninth Army and the Russian First, Second, and Fifth Armies, in harsh winter conditions. By September 1914 the Russians had defeated the Austro-Hungarians in the Battle of Galicia. The Austro-Hungarian retreat isolated their fortress of Przemyśl, which was besieged by the Russian Eighth Army. The armies on the Russian Northeast Front, commanded by Nikolai Ruzsky, had driven the outnumbered Germans back out of Poland in the Battle of the Vistula River, although the German incursion had postponed the projected Russian invasion into German Silesia. The Russian high command considered how to capitalize on their recent successes. Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolayevich favored an offensive into East Prussia, while his Chief of Staff, Mikhail Alekseev, favored an invasion of Silesia, as soon as they had repaired the extensive damage the Germans had done to the roads and railways on the Polish side of the border. On 1 November, Paul von Hindenburg was appointed commander of the two German armies on the Eastern Front. His Eighth Army was defending East Prussia. It was withdrawn from the frontier to occupy a defensive line. The Russians followed, attacking the line and re-occupying the eastern parts of the province, so its inhabitants fled once again. The Battle of Łódź ウッチの戦い

The Fao Landing occurred from November 6, 1914 to November 8, 1914 with British forces attacking the Ottoman stronghold of Fao and its fortress. The landing was met with little resistance from the Turkish defenders who fled after intense shelling. It was the first military operation of the Mesopotamian Campaign of World War I which was carried out to protect the British Empire's oil supplies in the Persian Gulf. When the Ottoman Empire entered into World War I, the British feared for the safety of the Persian Gulf oil facilities. To protect their facilities, the British decided to capture the Ottoman-controlled section of the Persian Gulf coast. The Fortress of Fao was the main Ottoman fortress on the Persian Gulf coast and to Anglo commanders seemed like the logical jumping off point for any Ottoman attack on British oil facilities. The British assigned Indian Expeditionary Force D (IEF D) which consisted of the 6th (Poona) Division led by Lieutenant General Arthur Barrett, with Sir Percy Cox as Political Officer. The initial landing force was a contingent of Royal Marines from the HMS Ocean and British Indian troops of the 16th (Poona) Brigade under Brigadier General W.S. Delamain. The British sloop HMS Odin shelled the Turkish positions near the old fortress of Fao, silencing the enemy batteries and clearing the way for the landing force. A six-hundred strong force came ashore in the shallow, muddy waters with two mountain guns in tow and faced little resistance. The combined British and Indian force captured the poorly prepared Ottoman positions swiftly, seizing a large amount of largely undamaged material including several artillery guns, many of them still in position and loaded. Evidently, the weak Ottoman garrison was abandoned by its soldiers when the fort commander known as the "Bimbashi of Fao Fort" was killed by a shell. The landing and capture of Fao was a strategic blunder for the Ottomans from which they would never truly recover as evidenced by the subsequent string of defeats suffered by the Empire at the hands of the British in the following year. The Ottomans also no longer controlled a key access point to the Persian Gulf, and the British facilities were largely safe. However, the British felt that their facilities would not be truly safe until they managed to capture Baghdad. This led to several campaigns against Baghdad that would result in the capture of that city by the British in 1917. The Fao landing and the subsequent battle for the fortress were prominently featured in video game Battlefield I. The Fao Landing occurredアル＝ファオ上陸戦

The British Second Army, with some 275,000 veteran soldiers, entered Germany in late 1918. In March 1919, this force became the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR). The total number of troops committed to the occupation rapidly dwindled as veteran soldiers were demobilized, and were replaced by inexperienced men who had finished basic training following the cessation of hostilities. By 1920, the BAOR consisted of only 40,594 men and the following year had been further reduced to 12,421. The size of the BAOR fluctuated over the following years, but never rose above 9,000 men. The British did not adhere to all obligated territorial withdrawals as dictated by Versailles, on account of Germany not meeting her own treaty obligations. A complete withdrawal was considered, but rejected in order to maintain a presence to continue acting as a check on French ambitions and prevent the establishment of an autonomous Rhineland Republic. The French Army of the Rhine was initially 250,000 men strong, including at a peak 40,000 African colonial troops (Troupes coloniales). By 1923, the French occupation force had decreased to roughly 130,000 men, including 27,126 African troops. The troop numbers peaked again at 250,000 during the occupation of the Ruhr, before decreasing to 60,000 men by 1926. Germans viewed the use of French colonial troops as a deliberate act of humiliation, and used their presence to create a propaganda campaign dubbed the Black shame. This campaign lasted throughout the 1920s and 30s, although peaked in 1920 and 1921. For example, a 1921 German Government memo detailed 300 acts of violence from colonial troops, which included 65 murders and 170 sexual offenses. Historical consensus is that the charges were exaggerated for political and propaganda purposes, and that the colonial troops behaved far better than their white counterparts. An estimated 500–800 Rhineland Bastards were born as a result of fraternization between colonial troops and German women, and whom would latter be persecuted. The United States Third Army entered Germany with 200,000 men. In June 1919, the Third Army demobilized and by 1920 the US occupation force had been reduced to 15,000 men. Wilson further reduced the garrison to 6,500 men, prior to the inauguration of Warren G. Harding in 1921. On 7 January 1923, after the Franco–Belgian occupation of the Ruhr, the US senate legislated the withdrawal of the remaining force. On 24 January, the American garrison started their withdrawal from the Rhineland, with the final troops leaving in early February.

In 1923, the British newspaper The Times made several claims about the state of the German Armed Forces: that it had equipment for 800,000 men, was transferring army staff to civilian positions in order to obscure their real duties, and warned of the militarization of the German police force by the exploitation the Krümper system. The Weimar Government also funded domestic rearmament programs, which were covertly funded with the money camouflaged in "X-budgets", worth up to an additional 10% of the disclosed military budget. By 1925, German companies had begun to design tanks and modern artillery. During the year, over half of Chinese arms imports were German and worth 13 million Reichsmarks. In January 1927, following the withdrawal of the Allied disarmament committee, Krupps ramped up production of armor plate and artillery. Production increased so that by 1937, military exports had increased to 82,788,604 Reichsmarks. Production was not the only violation: "Volunteers" were rapidly passed through the army to make a pool of trained reserves, and paramilitary organizations were encouraged with the illegally militarized police. Non-commissioned officers (NCOs) were not limited by the treaty, thus this loophole was exploited and as such the number of NCOs were vastly in excess to the number needed by the Reichswehr. In December 1931, the Reichswehr finalized a second rearmament plan that called for 480 million Reichsmarks to be spent over the following five years: this program sought to provide Germany the capability of creating and supplying a defensive force of 21 divisions supported by aircraft, artillery, and tanks. This coincided with a 1 billion Reichsmark programme that planned for additional industrial infrastructure that would be able to permanently maintain this force. As these programs did not require an expansion of the military, they were nominally legal. On 7 November 1932, the Reich Minister of Defense Kurt von Schleicher authorized the illegal Umbau Plan for a standing army of 21 divisions based on 147,000 professional soldiers and a large militia. Later in the year at the World Disarmament Conference, Germany withdrew to force France and the United Kingdom to accept German equality of status. The United Kingdom attempted to get Germany to return with the promise of all nations maintaining an equality in armaments and security. The British later proposed and agreed to an increase in the Reichswehr to 200,000 men, and for Germany to have an air force half the size of the French. It was also negotiated for the French Army to be reduced. In October 1933, following the rise of Adolf Hitler and the founding of Nazi regime, Germany withdrew from League of Nations and the World Disarmament Conference.

After the battle, German naval experts were baffled at why Admiral Spee attacked the base and how the two squadrons could have met so coincidentally in so many thousands miles of open waters. Kaiser William II's handwritten note on the official report of the battle reads: "It remains a mystery what made Spee attack the Falkland Islands. See 'Mahan's Naval Strategy'." It was generally believed Spee was misled by the German admiralty into attacking the Falklands, a Royal Naval fuelling base, after receiving intelligence from the German wireless station at Valparaiso which reported the port free of Royal Navy warships. Despite the objection of three of his ships' captains, Spee proceeded to attack. However, in 1925 a German naval officer, Franz von Rintelen, interviewed Admiral William Reginald Hall, Director of the Admiraltry's Naval Intelligence Division (NID), and was informed that Spee's squadron had been lured towards the British battlecruisers by means of a fake signal sent in a German naval code broken by British cryptographers. (Similarly, on 14 March 1915, Dresden was intercepted by British ships while taking on coal at sea in a location identified by NID codebreakers). The Battle of Qurna, (3 to 9 December 1914) was between British forces and Ottoman forces that had retreated from Basra, which they lost at the Battle of Basra (1914) during the Mesopotamian campaign of World War I. By capturing Basra, the British had taken an important communications and industrial centre. The Ottomans retreated up the Tigris River. The British needed to secure their position in Basra and the oil fields at Abadan. After the defeat at Basra, the Ottomans decided to take up a defensive position at the small town of Qurna to the north. Since both the Tigris and Euphrates join together at Qurna, it made for an ideal position to make a stand since the British would have to cross the two rivers. The Ottomans had about 1,000 men under the command of Colonel Subhi Bey, the Wali or Governor of Basra. The British had about 2,100 under Major General C.I. Fry. On 3 December, the Ottomans were dug in at Qurna. A British force of two Indian battalions; the 104th Wellesley's Rifles and the 110th Mahratta Light Infantry, and a double company of British soldiers from the Norfolk Regiment accompanied by several gunboats attacked them. Qurna　クルナ

The Royal Navy vessels on the Euphrates kept the Ottomans under fire while British troops managed to cross the Tigris. The British and Indian troops advanced across open ground but no crossing could be made across the river into Qurna itself. The British force retired. On the 6th, reinforced by the rest of the Norfolk Regiment, the 7th Rajputs and 120th Infantry and some mountain guns, they tried again. The Ottomans had moved back into positions they had lost in the previous engagement so the British and Indian troops had to re-take those positions. Again they drove the Ottomans back but could not cross the river into Qurna. On the 8th the 104th and 110th Infantry were sent up the Tigris to find a place to cross. They did, and in doing so cut the Ottomans off from retreat to the north while the gunboats kept up an effective bombardment of their positions in the town. The night of the 8th an Ottoman steamer sailed down the river with lights and sirens blazing. Lieutenant Commander Wilfrid Nunn of the British gunboat Espiegle took aboard three Ottoman officers. The Ottomans wanted to surrender the town and march away. Nunn, who was not in touch with Fry, insisted on unconditional surrender which upset the Ottomans. However they eventually agreed. On 9 December, the Ottoman commander, Colonel Subhi Bey, the Wali or Governor of Basra, surrendered his forces. Going into captivity were 42 Ottoman officers and 989 soldiers. The British/Indian losses were 27 soldiers killed and 242 wounded and two sailors killed and 10 wounded. Despite being more of a skirmish than a battle, the Battle of Qurna is important because it gave the British a secure front line in Southern Mesopotamia. Basra was secure, and the oil refineries at Abadan in Persia were safe. However, the Ottomans would try again at Shaiba and the British would later launch an offensive to take Baghdad. The Battle of Limanowa took place from 1 December to 13 December 1914, between the Austro-Hungarian Army and the Russian Army near the town of Limanowa (40 kilometres (25 mi) south-east of Kraków). The Austro-Hungarian high command had assumed that the German success would weaken Russian forces in the north and that the Galician front would remain quiet. Both these assumptions were incorrect. Though the Habsburg 2nd army offensive opened on 16 November and met early success, the Russians proved stronger than expected and their 4th Army yielded little ground. Meanwhile, further south the Russian 2nd Army advanced across the San river and moved into the Tarnów area by 20 November. Further north, the Habsburg 4th Army, supported by the 47th German Reserve Division, moved onto the offensive in the last days of November. In fierce battles around the towns of Łapanów and Limanowa, the Russian 3rd Army was beaten and forced to retreat east, ending its opportunity to reach Kraków. To avoid being surrounded, the Russian 8th Army also had to retreat, stopping its advance toward the Hungarian plains. Limanowa リマノバ

Austria-Hungary's third invasion of Serbia commenced on 6 November 1914, with intense artillery fire strafing a series of Serbian border towns. On 7 November, the Austro-Hungarian 5th and 6th armies attacked across the Drina. Outnumbered and in desperate need of ammunition, the Serbian Army offered fierce resistance but was forced to retreat. The 3rd Army fell back against a road by the Jadar River in an effort to block the Austro-Hungarian advance towards Valjevo, while the 1st Army retreated southward into the Serbian interior and the Užice Army managed to prevent the Austro-Hungarians from crossing the Drina. On 8 November, the Austro-Hungarians attacked the Serbian 2nd Army near Cer Mountain and came within 1.6 kilometres (0.99 mi) of the Serbian frontline, entrenching themselves at the foot of the mountain. The 2nd Army was given orders to hold the Austro-Hungarians down for as long as possible and, if its position became untenable, retreat towards the right bank of the Dobrava River and position itself so as to block the approach to Valjevo. Elsewhere, the Austro-Hungarians drove a wedge between the 1st and 3rd Army and forced another Serbian retreat. Later that day, the Serbian Government held a joint session with the Serbian Supreme Command with regard to Serbia's worsening military position. Putnik stressed that it was critical for Serbia to hold the Kolubara and the towns within its vicinity and suggested that the Serbs make a separate peace with Austria-Hungary if this proved impossible. This notion was rejected by the Prime Minister of Serbia, Nikola Pašić, who urged further resistance to the Austro-Hungarians and threatened the resignation of his government if peace discussions began. The session ended with the Serbian Government and Supreme Command agreeing to fight on. Putnik reasoned that Austro-Hungarian supply lines would become overstretched as their forces pressed deeper into Serbia while the Serbs would continue to hold the railheads in the Serbian interior. On 10 November, he ordered a general retreat from the Jadar and withdrew the Serbian 2nd Army to Ub and positioned the 1st and 3rd armies north and west of Valjevo. Meanwhile, the Užice Army took up positions to defend the town from which it took its name. The Austro-Hungarians pressed after the Serbs, hoping to capture the Obrenovac–Valjevo railroad. Clashes ensued and the Serbian Army managed to prevent the Austro-Hungarians from taking the railroad for a time. It quickly became clear to Putnik that he had underestimated the Austro-Hungarians, who managed to bring their heavy artillery through the muddy Serbian country roads. They established firing positions on the Serbian side of the Drina and began targeting the Serbian Army, which suffered heavy casualties.

The Battle of the Avre (4–5 April 1918), part of the First Battle of Villers-Bretonneux, constituted the final German attack towards Amiens in World War I. It was the point at which the Germans got the closest to Amiens. It was fought between attacking German troops and defending Australian and British troops. The attack was an attempt to take Amiens, where other aspects of Operation Michael had failed. The Avre marked the beginning of the end for Ludendorf's March Offensive.Preliminary moves (29–30 March) across the southern battlefields by German 2nd Army proved so slow and difficult that offensive operations were suspended between 1–3 April to allow German forces to recover. 4 April The final German attack was eventually launched towards Amiens. It came on 4 April, when fifteen divisions attacked seven Allied divisions on a line east of Amiens and north of Albert (towards the Avre River). Ludendorff decided to attack the outermost eastern defenses of Amiens centred on the town of Villers-Bretonneux. His aim was to secure that town and the surrounding high ground from which artillery bombardments could systematically destroy Amiens and render it useless to the Allies. The subsequent fighting was remarkable on two counts: the first use of tanks simultaneously by both sides in the war; and the night-time counterattack hastily organized by the Australian and British units (including the exhausted 54th Brigade) which dramatically re-captured Villers -Bretonneux and halted the German onslaught. From north to south, the line was held by British and Australian troops, specifically the British 14th and 18th Divisions, and the 35th Australian Battalion. However, by 4 April the 14th Division fell back under attack from the German 228th Division. The Australians held off the 9th Bavarian Reserve Division and the British 18th Division held off the German Guards Ersatz Division and 19th Divisions First Battle of Villers-Bretonneux. 5 April An attempt by the Germans to renew the offensive on 5 April failed and by early morning British Empire troops had forced the enemy out of all but the south-eastern corner of the town. German progress towards Amiens, having reached its furthest point westward, had finally been held. Ludendorff called a halt to the offensive.

The Battle of the Lys (7–29 April 1918), also known as the Lys Offensive, the Fourth Battle of Ypres, the Fourth Battle of Flanders and Operation Georgette (Portuguese: Batalha de La Lys and French: 3ème Bataille des Flandres), was part of the 1918 German offensive in Flanders during World War I, also known as the Spring Offensive. It was originally planned by General Ludendorff as Operation George but was reduced to Operation Georgette, with the objective of capturing Ypres, forcing the British forces back to the channel ports and out of the war. In planning, execution and effects, Georgette was similar to (although smaller than) Operation Michael, earlier in the Spring Offensive.The German attack zone was in Flanders, from about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) east of Ypres in Belgium to 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) east of Béthune in France, about 40 kilometres (25 mi) south. The front line ran from north-north-east to south-south-west. The Lys River, running from south-west to north-east, crossed the front near Armentières in the middle of this zone. The front was held by the Belgian Army in the far north, by the British Second Army (under Plumer) in the north and centre and by the British First Army (under Horne) in the south. The German attacking forces were the Sixth Army in the south (under Ferdinand von Quast), and the Fourth Army in the north (under Sixt von Armin). Both armies included substantial numbers of the new stosstruppen, trained to lead attacks with the new stormtroop tactics. The British First Army was a relatively weak force; it included several worn-out formations that had been posted to a "quiet sector". This included two divisions of the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps, which were undermanned, lacked almost half of their officers, had very low morale and were set to be replaced the day of the German attack. The German plan was to break through the First Army, push the Second Army aside to the north, and drive west to the English Channel, cutting off British forces in France from their supply line which ran through the Channel ports of Calais, Dunkirk and Boulogne. Battle of Estaires (9–11 April) The German bombardment opened on the evening of 7 April, against the southern part of the Allied line between Armentières and Festubert. The barrage continued until dawn on 9 April. Operation Georgette ジョルジェット作戦

In late 1917 and early 1918, the end of the fighting on the Eastern Front allowed the Germans to transfer large numbers of men and equipment to the west. Buoyed by this but concerned that the entry of the United States into the war would negate their numerical advantage if they did not attack quickly and that massed tank attacks like that at Cambrai in November 1917 made far more areas on the Western Front vulnerable to attack, the German commander, Erich Ludendorff, chose to use the temporary numerical advantage to punch through the front line and then advance north towards the sea. In March, the Germans launched the Spring Offensive, against the Third Army and the Fifth Army on the Somme, which were understrength due to the small numbers of replacements being sent from Britain. In unfinished defences, the Fifth Army was forced back quickly after the first two days, as the Germans advanced under a heavy bombardment of high explosives and gas. As the Germans advanced steadily west, the Third Army also fell back on its southern flank and the railhead at Amiens was threatened with capture; Paris was bombarded by long-range guns. The Allies moved reinforcements to the Somme front and by the end of May, the German advance of the 1918 Battle of the Somme had been halted in front of Hamel. In preparation for a further attack, German railway construction companies were brought up and work undertaken to repair damaged railways in the captured ground. In early April, the Germans renewed their efforts, simultaneously beginning the Battle of the Lys in Flanders. The Germans managed to advance towards Villers-Bretonneux, a town on the high ground to the south of the Somme River. The terrain allowed artillery observers to see bombardments on Amiens, which was only 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) away, which was of great tactical value. On 4 April, the Germans attempted to capture the town with 15 divisions but were repulsed by troops from the British 1st Cavalry Division and Australian 9th Brigade during the First Battle of Villers-Bretonneux. After the first battle, the forces that had secured the town were relieved and by late April the area around Villers-Bretonneux was largely held by the 8th Division. Although it had been one of the best British divisions it had suffered badly in the German attacks of March, losing 250 officers and about 4,700 men, reducing its infantry by half. Replacements in the latest draft from Britain included 18-year-olds with little training.

White crosses and Stars of David mark 2,289 graves, 250 for unknown service members, and the names of 1,060 missing men adorn the wall of a memorial chapel. Visitors also stop at the nearby German cemetery where 8,625 men are buried; 4,321 of them—3,847 unknown—rest in a common grave. The German cemetery was established in March 1922, consolidating a number of temporary sites, and includes men killed between the Aisne and the Marne in 1918, along with 70 men who died in 1914 in the First Battle of the Marne. German Cemetery in Beaulieu-Ecuvilly. On 18 November 1955, a black marble monolith with a bronze relief of a fighting Marine was dedicated at a road clearing near the site of the battle. Simply entitled The Marine Memorial, it was sculpted by Felix de Weldon, the artist who had also sculpted the Marine Corps War Memorial in Washington, D.C. The memorial honors the 4th Marine Brigade for their bravery here in June 1918, and is the only memorial in Europe dedicated solely to the United States Marines. Below the statue is a commemorative plaque with a large Eagle, Globe, and Anchor. The plaque includes a brief history of the battle, with text in both English and French. Officiating at the monument's dedication ceremony was then Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr., who had fought and was twice wounded at Belleau Wood, and later awarded the Army Distinguished Service Cross and the Navy Cross for his gallantry in action, 37 years earlier. In New York City, a 0.197 acres (800 m2) triangle at the intersection of 108 Street and 51st Avenue in Queens is dedicated to Marine Private William F. Moore, 47th Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. Two U.S. Navy vessels have been named for the battle. The first USS Belleau Wood (CVL-24) was a light aircraft carrier active during World War II in the Pacific Theater, from 1943 to 1945. From 1953 to 1960, she was loaned to the French Navy under the name Bois Belleau and served in the First Indochina and Algerian Wars. The second USS Belleau Wood (LHA-3) was active from 1977 to 2005. A shortened version of Lloyd Williams' famous quote is the basis for the motto the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, his unit during the battle. Williams himself has been honored with a building on the campus of his alma mater Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University named in remembrance of him. In April 2018, French President Emmanuel Macron gifted the United States a sessile oak sapling from Belleau Wood as part of his state visit.

On January 11, 1918, the special decree On Armenia was signed by Lenin and Stalin which armed and repatriated over 100,000 Armenians from the former Tsar's Army to be sent to the Caucasus for operations against Ottoman interests. On January 20, 1918, Talaat Pasha entered an official protest against the Bolsheviks arming Armenian army legions and replied, "the Russian leopard had not changed its spots." Bolsheviks and Armenians would take the place of Nikolai Nikolayevich Yudenich's Russian Caucasus Army. On March 3, 1918, the Armistice of Erzincan was followed by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk marking Russia's exit from World War I. Between March 14 - April 1918 the Trabzon peace conference was held between the Ottoman Empire and the delegation of the Transcaucasian Diet (Transcaucasian Sejm). Enver Pasha offered to surrender all Turkish ambitions in the Caucasus in return for recognition of the Ottoman reacquisition of the east Anatolian provinces at Brest-Litovsk at the end of the negotiations. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk provided some relief to Bolsheviks who were tied up in fighting the civil war. However, the oil fields of Baku were not under control of the Russians and Germany had a high demand for oil. During March 30 to April 2 in 1918, thousands of Azeris and other Muslims in the city of Baku and adjacent areas of the Baku Governorate of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic were massacred by Dashnaks with strong support from Bolshevik Soviets. The Azeris refer to this as a genocide (Azerbaijani: soyqırım). This event is known as the March Days or March Events. On April 5, the head of the Transcaucasian delegation Akaki Chkhenkeli accepted the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk as a basis for further negotiations and wired the governing bodies urging them to accept this position. The mood prevailing in Tiflis was very different. The Armenians pressured the Republic to refuse. They acknowledged the existence of a state of war between themselves and the Ottoman Empire. Hostilities resumed and Ottoman troops under Vehip Pasha overran new lands to the east, reaching pre-war the frontiers. On May 11, a new peace conference opened at Batum. At this conference the Ottomans extended their demands to include Tiflis as well as Alexandropol and Echmiadzin; they also wanted a railroad to be built to connect Kars and Julfa with Baku. The Armenian and Georgian members of the Republic’s delegation began to stall. Beginning on May 21, the Ottoman army moved ahead once again.

The Allied general, General Ferdinand Foch, ordered a counteroffensive which led to the Second Battle of the Marne, after which victory he was promoted to Marshal of France. The Germans, recognising their untenable position, withdrew from the Marne to the north. Foch now tried to move the Allies back onto the offensive. Foch disclosed his plan on 23 July 1918, following the Franco-American victory at the Battle of Soissons. The plan called for reducing the Saint-Mihiel salient (which would later see combat in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel) and freeing the railway lines that ran through Amiens from German shellfire. The commander of the British Expeditionary Force, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, already had plans in place for an attack near Amiens. When the British retreat had ended in April, the headquarters of the British Fourth Army under General Sir Henry Rawlinson had taken over the front astride the Somme. Its left hand corps was the British III Corps under Lieutenant General Richard Butler, while the Australian Corps under Lieutenant General John Monash held the right flank and linked up with French armies to the south. On 30 May, all the Australian infantry divisions were united under the corps HQ, for the first time on the Western Front. The Australians had mounted a number of local counter-attacks which both revealed the suitability of the open and firm terrain south of the Somme for a larger offensive and also established and refined the methods which were to be used. Rawlinson had submitted Monash's proposals to Haig in July and Haig had forwarded them to Foch. At a meeting on 24 July, Foch agreed to the plan but insisted that the French First Army, which held the front to the south of the British Fourth Army, should participate. Rawlinson opposed this as his and Monash's plans depended on the large-scale use of tanks (now finally available in large numbers) to achieve surprise, by avoiding a preliminary bombardment. The French First Army lacked tanks and would be forced to bombard the German positions before the infantry advance began, thus removing the element of surprise. Eventually, it was agreed that the French would participate, but not launch their attack until 45 minutes after the Fourth Army. It was also agreed to advance the proposed date of the attack from 10 August to 8 August, to strike the Germans before they had completed their withdrawal from the Marne salient.

Rawlinson had already finalised his plans in discussion with his Corps commanders (Butler, Monash, Sir Arthur Currie of the Canadian Corps and Lieutenant General Charles Kavanagh of the Cavalry Corps) on 21 July. For the first time, the Australians would attack side by side with the Canadian Corps. Both had a reputation for aggressive and innovative tactics and a strong record of success over the past two years. The tactical methods had been tested by the Australians in a local counter-attack at the Battle of Hamel on 4 July. The German defenders of Hamel were deeply dug in, and their position commanded a very wide field of fire. Similar positions had resisted capture for two months in the Battle of the Somme. The Australians had used surprise rather than weight at Hamel. The artillery had opened fire only at the moment the infantry and tanks advanced, and the Germans were rapidly overrun. A key factor in the final plan was secrecy. There was to be no pre-battle bombardment, only artillery fire immediately prior to the advance of Australian, Canadian, and British forces. The final plan for the Fourth Army involved 1,386 field guns and howitzers and 684 heavy guns, making up 27 medium artillery brigades and thirteen heavy batteries, in addition to the infantry divisions' artillery. The fire plan for the Fourth Army's artillery was devised by Monash's senior artillery officer, Major General C. E. D. Budworth. British sound ranging advances in artillery techniques and aerial photographic reconnaissance made it possible to dispense with "ranging shots" to ensure accurate fire. Budworth had produced a timetable which allowed 504 out of 530 German guns to be hit at "zero hour", while a creeping barrage preceded the infantry. This method was similar to the Feuerwalze which the Germans themselves had used in their Spring Offensive, but its effectiveness was increased by the surprise achieved. There were also to be 580 tanks. The Canadian and Australian Corps were each allocated a brigade of four battalions, with 108 Mark V fighting tanks, 36 Mark V "Star", and 24 unarmed tanks intended to carry supplies and ammunition forward. A single battalion of Mark V tanks was allocated to III Corps. The Cavalry Corps were allocated two battalions each of 48 Medium Mark A Whippet tanks. The Allies had successfully moved the Canadian Corps of four infantry divisions to Amiens without them being detected by the Germans.

This was a noteworthy achievement and reflected well on the increasingly efficient staffwork of the British armies. A detachment from the Corps of two infantry battalions, a wireless unit and a casualty clearing station had been sent to the front near Ypres to bluff the Germans that the entire Corps was moving north to Flanders. The Canadian Corps was not fully in position until 7 August. To maintain secrecy, the Allied commanders pasted the notice "Keep Your Mouth Shut" into orders issued to the men, and referred to the action as a "raid" rather than an "offensive".[Although the Germans were still on the offensive in late July 1918, the Allied armies were growing in strength, as more American units arrived in France, and British reinforcements were transferred from the Home Army in Britain and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign. The German commanders realised in early August that their forces might be forced onto the defensive, though Amiens was not considered to be a likely front. The Germans believed the French would probably attack the Saint-Mihiel front east of Rheims, or in Flanders near Mount Kemmel, while they believed the British would attack along either the Lys or near Albert. The Allies had indeed mounted a number of local counter-offensives in these sectors, both to gain local objectives to improve their defensive positions and to distract attention from the Amiens sector. German forces began to withdraw from the Lys and other fronts in response to these theories. The Allies maintained equal artillery and air fire along their various fronts, moving troops only at night, and feigning movements during the day to mask their actual intent. The German front east of Amiens was held by their Second Army under General Georg von der Marwitz, with six divisions in line (and two facing the French 1st Army). There were only two divisions in immediate reserve. There was some concern among the Allies on 6 August when the German 27th Division actually attacked north of the Somme on part of the front on which the Allies planned to attack two days later. The German division (a specially selected and trained Stosstruppen formation) penetrated roughly 800 yards (730 m) into the one-and-a-half mile front.. This attack was made in retaliation for a trench raid by the 5th Australian Division north of the Somme on the night of 31 July, which had gained many prisoners, before the Australian Corps was concentrated south of the river.