Yet Germany nearly captured Paris in 1914, crushed Serbia and Romania, bled the French Army until it mutinied, drove Russia out of the war, and then came oh-so-close to victory on the Western Front in 1918. It will be an immense struggle that will begin at one point, continue at another, and take a long time.”. The British reinforced their positions near the coast while the French strengthened their positions to the south of th… 26th Army 1.5. There was inf… Until the armistice was signed in a French railway carriage on November 11, 1918, Germany’s enemies didn’t. The German forces reached within ninety kilometers of Paris, yet again without any sizeable strategic damage to the Allied Forces. 4th Guards Army 1.2. Although the Germans had gained over 1,000 square miles of Allied-held territory in a few days, the casualties suffered by the Germans is recorded as 31,000 killed, 20,000 missing and 190,000 wounded. Ludendorff called off the offensive after only 4 days. 3 million shells were fired, with 50% of them being gas shells. The French government made plans to evacuate. The German Spring Offensive or 'Kaiserschlacht' (Kaiser's Battle) of 1918 saw mobile warfare return to the Western Front after years of stalemate. The Germans 2000 tons of mustard gas against the British. © HistoryOnTheNet 2000-2019. The Kaiser declared “the battle [is] won, the British are defeated.” In some places, the Germans advanced up to 35 miles. 6th Guards Tank Army 1.3. As the Germans advanced, they looted the former Allied positions, taking a great deal of food and alcohol. They had to repair the heavily damaged French trenches. On the one hand, the Russian Revolution had ended fighting on the Eastern Front. The attack was planned and commanded by Lieutenant General John Monash, commander of the Australian Corps and Australian Imperial Force. But their advance stalled. Scott Michael Rank, Ph.D., is the editor of History on the Net and host of the History Unplugged podcast. Further south, Hugh Gough and the 5th army defended St. Quentin. Operation Michael was a major German military offensive during the First World War that began the Spring Offensive on 21 March 1918. German supply column moving up near Étricourt-Manancourt, 24 March. They found nearly empty trenches and overran them. But they were not successful everywhere. The Allies had no idea where the attack would occur. There was information that America was making large scale preparations to join the Allied Forces against the Central Alliance. The series of German offensives in 1918 failed to defeat the Allied armies in the West, despite their initial successes. Elements of the German Army Group E (Heeresgruppe E) The Soviet forces: 1. The Germans were pushed back about 4 miles and lost many prisoners. Gilbert: “The Battle of La Lys was a turning point not only in German military fortunes, but in German battlefield morale. This sector of the Western Front was defended by the British Army. It was launched from the Hindenburg Line, in the vicinity of Saint-Quentin, France. They established a bridgehead temporarily, but the Americans drove them back. German Sixth Army("Armeegruppe Balck") 1.4. The British 1st army on the left (north) defended Arras, Julian Byng and the 3rd Army were just south of them. Keegan: “…the BEF had suffered its first true defeat since trench warfare had begun three and a half years earlier.” (400). Objective was to cross the Lys River (in Flanders), overrun the southern Ypres salient, and drive to the coast between Calais and Dunkirk. In February, Ludendorff said “We must not believe that this offensive will be like those in Galicia or Italy. On May 18 and 19, German and British bombers conducted bombing raids, including on London and Cologne. But the breakthrough was mainly on the German left. On May 27th, 1918, a new operation was launched in the Chemin des Dames sector as a diversion for the French army so that Germany could conduct another operation in the Flanders sector with ease. By 11 AM, they had crossed the Aisne. At 0700 on March 21, 44 German storm troop divisions went over the top and sprinted toward the British lines. Elements of the Soviet 3rd Ukrainian Front 1.1. The initial German attack on April 9 opened a 4 mile gap in the British line. Its goal was to break through the Allied (Entente) lines and advance in a north-westerly direction to seize the Channel Ports, which supplied the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and to drive the BEF into the sea. Within the first 16 days, Operation Michael helped the Germans capture 3100 square kilometers of area and around a hundred thousand prisoners. The Spring Offensive is known as the deepest advances by the Germans as an offensive and by the allies as a counter attack of World War I. The stormtrooper tactic was to attack and disrupt enemy headquarters, artilleryunits and supply depots in th… At the end of 1917 the German high command found itself in a particularly favourable situation. The USA had been an enemy since April and was training a huge army across the Atlantic. 361 German fighters attacked 261 British. It also allowed Germany to shift around fifty divisions from the Eastern Front to increase its strength at the Western Front. This operation resulted in no gains for the Germans. By the end of the first day, the Germans had made significant advances. German troops, led by elite Stormtroopers, advanced behind a creeping barrage. On May 27, the Germans launched an artillery barrage (using pre-calibrated cannons). Another German attack on the 29th failed. In the spring of 1918, Luderndorff ordered a massive German attack on the Western Front. It is also easy to assume that German defeat was inevitable at the hands of an Allied coalition richer in manpower, weapons and money. The Axis forces: 1. The Germans had 90 divisions (3 million men), with more on the way. Meanwhile, the Americans fought the Germans in the Battle of Belleau Wood from June 1-26. It was the Allied attack by Fifth United States Army and British 8th Army into the Lombardy Plain. On July 15, the Germans went over the top east of Rheims. They were opposed by the German 17th Army under Otto von Below, the 2nd Army under Georg van der Marwitz, and the 18th Army under Oscar von Hutier. By 1110, the British line had collapsed. The German army had concentrated many of its best troops into stormtrooper units, trained to infiltrate and bypass enemy front line units, leaving these strong points to be "mopped-up" by follow-up troops. Plus the Germans now had a salient with a 60 mile perimeter. (Battle of Soissons). Kaiserschlacht - German Spring Offensive 1918 I THE GREAT WAR Week 191 - YouTube. It was in this context that Ludendorff began to prepare a massive and, what he hoped would be, decisive attack to be launched the following spring before the American Army fulfilled it… The Allies’ counter-attack forced the Germans to retreat from all the area captured during the Spring Offensive and lead to severe damage to the Hindenburg Line. The Germans’ objective was to drive the British from the Somme and the Germans from the Aisne, threatening Paris. British forces also made advances. Although the offensive saw the Germans made the largest territorial advances since 1914, on both sides of the conflict, they could not force a decisive defeat on the Anglo-French forces. Lack of cavalry and armored cars and tanks slowed the Germans down. Watch later. The Germans made quick advances at first but failed to achieve their goal due to bad strategical orders of General Ludendorff. But they lost 160,000 casualties, took no strategic locations, and had to build new defensive lines. Having used up its reserves from the Eastern Front, Germany could no longer replace such huge numbers of troops. Although Germany's casualties are greater than other nations, all of them has a big amount including Non-European nations. On January 7, Ludendorff wrote to Hindenburg “The proposed new offensive should…lead to the decisive success for which we hope…we shall (then) be in a position to lay down such conditions for peace with the Western Powers as are required by the security of our frontiers, our economic interests, and our international position after the war.” (Keegan). Having been mostly on the defensive in 1917, the German high command decided to try one more attack in the spring of 1918. He received the Croix de Guerre (the first American to do so). Unlike World War 2, in which the Allies believed that victory was inevitable as early as 1943, this was not the case with the Great War. Many thought that Germany was capable of winning World War One until the very end. They inflicted 160,000 British and 70,000 French casualties. The Allied Forces faced an estimated 900,000 casualties, while the German army suffered around 700,000 casualties. Thousands of German soldiers were able to join their colleagues on the Western Front increasing their numbers from 150 divisions to 192. On the 25th, the Germans broke through between the French and British lines. It is for this reason that General Erich Ludendorff was planning for a fresh offensive against the British and French Forces since October 1917 at the Western Front. Forty-eight divisions could be transferred to the Western Front, increasing German strength to … Elements of the German Army Group South (Heeresgruppe Süd) 1.1. By 9 AM advance troops had reached the Aisne and had captured 650 big guns. The peace treaty with Russia provided him a great opportunity to execute his plan for a decisive victory over the Allied Forces. The Allies, to promote unity of command, put Ferdinand Foch in overall command of Allied forces. 5,000 Italians. On June 3rd, the Germans crossed the Marne, using giant ladders wide enough for two men to cross side-by-side. On June 9, the French launched an artillery barrage, but the German counter-barrage was even more effective. World War 1: A Comprehensive Overview of the Great War, World War One – Assassination of Franz Ferdinand, California – Do not sell my personal information. The longer the Germans waited to attack, the more troops the Americans could raise and equip with their vast resources. U. S. Marines played a key role in this battle, which was an Allied victory. Copy link. Even though the attack was a success, it was not what Ludendorff had planned. 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