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The Great War 1918 - The Wonderful Year

The year 1918 was truly a wonderful year for the Allies, crowded with events and amazing contrasts; beginning with the most discouraging reverses which the Allies had ever undergone and ending with glorious triumph - with the overthrow of the Kaiser and Prussian military autocracy in a series of stupendous battles involving men and destructive machinery on a scale hitherto unheard of.

For months, after the discouraging close of 1917, one disaster followed another. On 2 March, 1918, the Bolshevist plenipotentiaries signed the humiliating Treaty of Brest Litovsk, and its ratification by the Congress of Soviets, 14 March, definitely eliminated Russia from the war, with large portions of her territory and resources in German hands. Next Rumania was bound hand alid foot when (6 May) she was compelled to concluded the Treaty of Bucharest. France seemed exhausted, while Italy, grimly holding the precarious line of the Piave, was threatened with inundation from the mountain passes which commanded the Venetian plain. In spite of tremendous and hurried preparations, there seemed little indication that the United States would be able to make her power felt to any appreciable degree for another year.

Great Britain, at last thoroughly aroused and equipped, had seen her splendid army thrust at Cambrai largely offset by an unexpectedly effective German counter-offensive ; moreover, it was evident that she was to bear the chief burden in a new onslaught, designed to sweep her armies to the sea and seize the Channel ports. Yet, in spite of loud clamors from a few defeatists and a steadily growing pacifistic element, she was doggedly determined, and Mr. Lloyd George reiterated again, in uncompromising terms, the war aims which she must realize before she would consent to peace.

German Offensive / Kaiserschlacht ("Kaiser's Battle")/ Ludendorff offensive (1918)

The German spring offensive, or Kaiserschlacht ("Kaiser's Battle"), also known as the Ludendorff offensive, was a series of German attacks along the Western Front. At the beginning of 1918, events had seemed to be turning the war in Germany’s favour. The collapse of Russia’s resistance during 1917 and the Russian decision, following the Bolshevik revolution in November, to seek an armistice dramatically altered the strategic situation.

The Germans were able to transfer nearly 50 divisions to the Western Front. With its forces greatly bolstered by this influx, the German high command launched a massive offensive with the goal of ending the war before the full might of the United States (which had entered the war in April 1917) could be brought to bear against Germany.

The German spring offensive, which began on 21 March 1918, created the biggest crisis of the war for the Allies. General Erich Ludendorff was the driving force in the preparation of this onslaught, despite his position subordinate to the nominal commander, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg.

Essentially an opportunist, Ludendorff envisaged breaking through the Allied lines in the Somme area, after which he would determine the next move in light of the new situation created. But his general intention was to swing north and roll up the British front. As would become apparent, such an approach was self-defeating because maintaining momentum depended upon logistic support of the advancing forces, which could only be ensured by careful preparations in advance.

The Allies were also close to exhausting their available manpower, but had the reassurance of growing American support as the US presence on the front expanded. Unlike the Germans, they were also able to keep increasing the firepower of their artillery and infantry.

Although many of the uninitiated thought it might never materialize, the long-heralded German attack was launched 21 March, with unexampled fury, clearly a supreme effort to force a decision before the United States could come in at her full strength. The chief concentration in the first thrust was directed against the British third and fifth armies on a front of some sixty miles from the Scarpe to the Oise. This tremendous major offensive, before it was stopped early in April, drove a bulging salient into the British line which, at its blunt tip, marked a gain of over thirty-five miles and reached within striking distance of Amiens; moreover, another, and perhaps the main objective was almost achieved, of breaking through at the junction between the British and French forces, rolling up the British right wing, and circling round the French, thus opening again the road to Paris. On 9 April, the enemy started a second and smaller offensive in the Flanders sector, where they pushed the British off the high ground which served as the key to their northern defenses and the Channel ports.

On April 24, 1918, a historical event took place, which was hardly a historical one due to an absolutely insignificant scale. Not far from the French village of Viller-Bretonne, the first ever tank battle took place. To help their infantry, the Germans allocated 14 of their heavy A7V tanks, but they did not have more. In the same area, there were 10 British tanks, including 7 "Whippet", 2 "females" and only one "male" with cannon armament. At first, the Germans calmly shot all three "females", without paying any attention to the senseless rattling of machine guns. But then came the "male", commanded by Lieutenant F. Mitchell. He joined the battle and achieved 5 hits from his 6-fn guns, knocking out the A7V. At this time, other German tanks, unhindered, as at the test ground, burned 4 "Whippet". Mitchell fired several shots at them, after which both sides were completely satisfied with the results; returned to starting positions.

The combined effect of the two offensives was to regain for the Germans what the Allies had painfully acquired after months of the heaviest fighting. Owing to a feeling on the part of the French that the British had not been doing enough and that the attack would be divided, Marshal Haig had reluctantly extended his line south of St. Queutiu. Thus weakened, and exposed to heavy discharges of high explosives and poison gas, followed by concentrated attacks of dense masses of troops amply supplied with machine guns, the British, though they manfully held with their backs to the wall, were only able to make a final stand in Picardy and in Flanders. However, reinforcements of upwards of 300,000 men were speedily hurried from England.

The last German offensives (Operations Gneisenau and Marneshutz–Reims) in June–July failed. The latter, later dubbed the Second Battle of the Marne, was notable for a devastating counter-attack by the French Tenth Army, supported by American and British forces, which threw the Germans off-balance.

On 8 August, the British Fourth Army struck a powerful blow (the Battle of Amiens). A carefully prepared attack by Australian and Canadian troops, with British support, won a stunning victory, capturing 50,000 Germans and 500 field guns. These huge losses prompted Ludendorff to label the first day of the battle the ‘Black Day of the German Army’.

The Drives against the French

Next came the turn of the French. The Germans began, 27 May, with a thrust across the river Aisne between Soissons and Rheims, which forced a pocket or broad loop from Soissons and Rheims down to Chateau-Thierry on the Marne, less than fifty miles from Paris. In this fighting, American troops, including marines, nobly won their spurs in checking the enemy advance at Chateau-Thierry, 2 June, and in the capture of Belleau Wood with a nest of machine guns, 10 June. This first great offensive against the French was followed by a second, 15 July - extending from Rheims to the Argonne Forest, north of Verdun - coupled with another subsidiary offensive south of the Marne. Irresistible as the torrent seemed, it was soon stemmed and turned back with terrible effect.

The Beginning of the Allied Counter-Offensive (18 July)

Meantime, the Allies had taken a momentous step which should have been taken early in the War - on 29 March a supreme commander had been placed over all the forces on the western front. General Foch - most properly chosen for the position - had the formidable problem of holding the road to Paris without weakening too far the defenses in Picardy and Flanders and thus exposing the Channel ports; indeed, while defending these vital points he was obliged to keep his whole line strong enough to prevent the enemy, who had the initiative, from striking at any particular spot in overwhelming numbers.

When General Foch became Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies in April 1918, he immediately gave consideration to the matter of passing to the offensive as soon as possible. However, at that time, the enemy was clearly superior from the three standpoints of effectives, matériel and lateral railroad lines for strategic maneuver. Moreover, the enemy had the initiative in operations and temporarily imposed his will on the Entente.

At first, Foch was hampered by insufficient reserves, but soon the 300,000 British reinforcements were available, and the Americans, in response to urgent appeals, were hurried across the ocean in constantly increasing numbers- 1,000,000, it was announced on 4 July, and by autumn 2,000,000. Thus supported, Foch began (18 July) his remarkable series of counter-attacks which wrested the initiative from the enemy and were continued until the whole German army was forced back, overwhelmed and compelled to surrender. The German thrusts between 21 March and the middle of July had resulted in three salients. One was between Soissons and Rheims which looped down to and crossed the Marne in places; here a counter-attack was started 18 July by the French and Americans with such pressure on the two sides that the Germans were forced to withdraw to avoid capture. This was the Second Battle of the Marne.

In July, 1918, the Allied effectives, even counting the early American divisions, were still inferior to the German effectives. On the other hand, the Allied armies were at their apogee in matériel, and the superiority of this matériel over the adversary's, already quite marked, was to be more and more pronounced as the usury of the enemy's matériel progressed. The battle of matériel which was about to be waged, led to final success.

The British Counter-Offensive

The second salient extended over an eighty-mile front from Soissons on the south to Arras on the north, where Foch launched a second counter-offensive 8 August. In this Third Battle of the Somme the British, with the French cooperating in the south, dealt a series of terrific blows both at the sides and against the front of the salient, with the result that the Germans were driven back to the Hindenburg Line whence they had issued for their great offensive in March. The third move in Foch's decisive counter- offensive was designed to break that line, which consisted of "the most intricate and elaborate works ever fashioned by the ingenuity of man." Furthermore, by striking north and south, the Allies aimed to cut off the German army by the only two lines of retreat open to them, through the valley of the Meuse by way of Liege, and through Metz by way of the Maubeuge, Mczieres and Metz railway. On the German right in Flanders - the area of the third salient - were the Belgians under King Albert and a British contingent; in the center, the British were to lead the attack from Cambrai to St. Quentin with more French contingents from St. Quentin to the Oise; while on the enemy left, in the Argonne region threatening Metz, the offensive was intrusted to French and American troops.

The importance of the results which had been obtained and the usury and the disorganization of the enemy at the end of August, permitted the Allied High Command to hope for more rapid and full success than it had counted on in the Memorandum of July 24th. The operations in progress could enter into their decisive phase. The battle was to be extended from the Scarpe to the Meuse, with the main effort on the two flanks.

The Last Phase

Under the direction of Marshal Foch a series of advances on all fronts was undertaken in August. Following a period of inactivity, which had lasted since the capture of Monastir in 1916, the Allied forces in the Balkans - strengthened by the accession of Greece, 2 July, 1917 - started a drive against the Bulgarians 14 September, 1918. After two weeks of fighting, the Bulgarians asked for an armistice which was arranged 29 September.

In late September, the Allies launched a massive offensive against the Hindenburg Line, attacking simultaneously along more than half of the Western Front. Late in September, the Anglo-Belgian forces began to advance in Flanders, driving a wedge between Ostend, an important submarine base, and Lille, one of the anchors of the Hindenburg Line. About the same time, the Franco-American forces struck heavy blows on both sides of the Argonne forest, northwest of Verdun.

On the 26th, American and French forces struck in the Meuse-Argonne region in the north-east. The next day, the British First and Third armies pushed toward the city of Cambrai, capturing 10,000 prisoners and 200 field guns. In Flanders, the British Second Army and the Belgian Army punched through German defences near Ypres on 28 September, advancing up to 9 km in 24 hours – more ground than was taken in three months of fighting at Passchendaele in 1917. Back on the Somme, the British Fourth Army attacked the central sector of the Hindenburg Line on 29 September, crossing the St Quentin Canal and penetrating German support lines.

Then, in October, the British began a magnificent and effective smash along the front from Cambrai to St. Quentin. North, south, and center one telling stroke alternated with another in swift succession, city after city and village after village yielded before the determined advance of the Allies.

The Collapse of the Central Powers

Germany was the last of the Central Powers to yield, and although her power of resistance was limited, the surrender of her allies hastened her inevitable downfall. Stunned by the scale and ferocity of the Allied offensive, the German high command implored the Kaiser to seek an immediate armistice to allow their troops to withdraw to Germany and regroup. On 4 October, the German government asked the Americans to broker a ceasefire.

Turkey, the next to yield, finally withdrew from the fighting 21 October. Meantime, Italy, who had effectively halted her pursuers on the Piave in June, was preparing for a supreme counter-offensive. With the aid of one French and two British divisions they launched their attack, 24 October, the anniversary of the Caporetto disaster. The result was most spectacular; for in three days they took over 400,000 prisoners as well as 7000 guns, and drove their old enemy in headlong flight across the Austrian border, whereupon the Austro-Hungarian Empire sought terms, and an armistice was granted 4 November.

On (5 November the Germans had begun a general retreat along the whole line from the Scheldt to the Aisne. On 7 November, the Americans, who shortly after the middle of October had by terrific fighting forced their way through the Argonne wood, pressed up to Sedan, the scene of the French humiliation in 1870. On 9 November, the abdication of the Kaiser was announced, and, on the following day, he and the Crown Prince fled to Holland. Two days later, 11 November, hostilities ceased on the western front with an armistice signed at Rethondes near Compiegne.

The Causes of Germany's Downfall

The causes of Germany's final collapse, which was only precipitated by the successive defections of her Allies, were various. For one thing, owing largely to the rigor of the blockade, Germany was reaching the verge of exhaustion as regards raw material and suffering from an increasingly serious food shortage; moreover, she had used most of her best shock troops and the greater portion of her reserves. The tide was turned by the magnificent counter-offensive of the French in July, and the last decisive effort on the western front was the smashing of the Hindenburg Line. Toward this the French, the Belgians and the Americans all contributed, though the supreme achievements in this last great work were the two great offensives of August and October, in which the British played the leading part. While the unity of command and the military genius of Marshal Foch were indispensable for the final victory, very great credit is due to Marshal Haig and Generals Plumer, Home, Byng and Rawlinson for the splendid war machine which they had finally completed. First France and then the British had to bear the brunt of the burden. At the most critical stage the Americans began to arrive, and the splendid account which they gave of themselves against seasoned veterans at Chateau-Thierry, at St. Mihiel and in the Argonne, together with the prospect they could offer of endless reserves, made the offensive possible which finally turned the scale. The legend of Prussian invincibility had been shattered and Prussian militarism ceased to menace the world.