Map showing the German Advance and the British Retreat between March 21st. and March 28th 1918
The German effort was becoming spent, though by broadening out the salient the enemy continued to press back the French as well as the British. The French Third Army, sent to the assistance of the British Fifth Army, played a lion's part in preventing him from extending his gains too dangerously in the south. On the 28th he concentrated his main energy against the stubborn British Third Army, which, conforming to the retreating line of the Fifth Army on its right, had fallen back to new battle positions, but in good order. Fresh shock-divisions were brought up to break this northern pivot of the British defence, and, after the usual full-dress bombardment, were launched as before in continual waves of assault. This time, however, there was no fog to handicap the British gunners, who were given the opportunity of a lifetime when they opened fire from hidden positions on serried ranks of German infantrymen, marching shoulder to shoulder at point-blank range. Six times the advance was renewed, and as many times mowed down, and when a final attempt was made, after a second bombardment in the afternoon, it met with similar failure. The Germans had shot their bolt. Their appalling losses on the 28th told on all their subsequent efforts in this first and greatest of Ludendorff's offensives in 1918.
It was on the 28th that General Gough relinquished the command of the British Fifth Army, General Rawlinson (Fourth Army) succeeding to the task of extricating its shattered divisions. Two days earlier the long-needed decision had been made by which the command of the Allied armies passed into the hands of General Foch as Generalissimo, who thenceforward, until the end of the war, held supreme control. Though several anxious days were to pass before the Allies could breathe freely again in the Amiens area, the position hourly improved as reinforcements, French and British, arrived on the scene. Counter-attacks recovered some of the ground on 30th March, and when the Germans resumed their advance towards Amiens on a more limited scale on 4th and 5th April, their losses were out of all proportion to their gains.
Second Phase of Ludendorff's Offensive
It is probable that the operations of 4th and 5th April were designed chiefly to pin the British armies to the southern area, while Ludendorff, finding his road barred to Amiens, prepared to strike a fresh blow in the north in a decisive bid for the Channel ports. Though well aware of a possible thrust in this direction, Sir Douglas Haig had been compelled to draw heavily on his Flanders front for reinforcements during the exhausting battle for Amiens, in which as many as 46 out of his total 58 divisions had been engaged. By the end of the first week in April the bulk of the British troops holding the Flanders line had passed through the furnace of the southern battlefield and were sadly in need of rest and reinforcement. Had the ground been in its usual condition of slush and mire at this season of the year they could have been relied upon to hold up any advance, but a dry spring had prepared the path for a German advance, and as soon as this was seen to be imminent it was reluctantly decided voluntarily to evacuate the Passchendaele salient, won at such frightful cost in the closing months of the previous year. Steps were also taken to relieve the Portuguese troops[2]who, though not seriously engaged, had been too long in the trenches south of the salient. Before either of these plans could mature the Germans upset both by launching their great attack at 4 a.m. on 9th April.
As in the opening move against the Fifth Army on 21st March, the assault—launched by the army of General von Quast in the direction of Festubert-Armentières against the northern portion of the front held by the British First Army (General Horne)—was favoured by an impenetrable early-morning fog. Through it came five columns of troops like the prongs of a fork, with an army corps as the central point to thrust into the weak spot where the Portuguese were sandwiched in between the British 40th and 55th Divisions. Bursting through the Portuguese sector, the attack spread swiftly to north and south—especially to the north, where the 40th Division, feeling the thrust which pierced the Portuguese line, was forced back on its right flank to the line of the Lys, 3½ miles in its rear. The rest of the 40th, with reinforcements from the 34th Division,formed a new line between Fort Rompre and Bois Grenier, covering Erquinghem and Armentières from the south, and held it the rest of the day. Had the southern pivot also given way when the Portuguese sector was broken the consequences would have been fatal to any hope of checking the German onrush. But the 55th Division never budged after its left flank, borne back by the first assault, succeeded in forming a defensive flank between Festubert and Le Touret, and the importance of its stout defence through the battle, as Sir Douglas Haig bore witness in his dispatches, could not be overestimated. This line was strengthened later in the day by the 21st Division, which, together with the 50th Division—both just relieved from the Somme fighting—had been hurried up as soon as the attack developed.
Next day the battle spread to the north, blazing up along the right of the British Second Army (General Plumer), the army of General Sixt von Armin attacking in another early-morning mist between Armentières and Hollebeke. The two German armies now acted in concert, and together pushed their advantage until the Lys was crossed in the south and the Messines Ridge carried in the north, with Laventie, Ploegsteert, and a dozen other historic landmarks in between. Outflanked on both sides, Armentières had perforce to be evacuated. Messines was recaptured by the South Africans, but had to be abandoned when the enemy's advance in the south pushed almost as far as Neuve Eglise. On the 11th, when the enemy continued to extend his gains with seemingly endless reinforcements, and had crossed the Lawe, a tributary of the Lys, Sir Douglas Haig issued his famous Order of the Day to his troops, which, while it reflected the gravity of the situation, inspired them to fight it out:
"Every position must be held to the last man.... With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end. The safety of our homes and the freedom of mankind depend alike upon the conduct of each one of us at this critical moment."
"Every position must be held to the last man.... With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end. The safety of our homes and the freedom of mankind depend alike upon the conduct of each one of us at this critical moment."
The appeal, with its promise also of speedy reinforcements from the French army—"moving rapidly and in great force to our support"—heartened the battle-worn divisions when they sorely needed its encouragement. The pressure was still too great to prevent the Germans from taking Neuve Eglise on the 14th—after a struggle lasting two and a half days, from house to house—or Merris a day earlier, which brought them within 4 miles of Hazebrouck, where the 1st Australian Division, just detrained, kept them at bay; or Bailleul on the 15th. At midnight on the 15th the British line fell back to the defences between Meteren and Dranoutre, a move involving the simultaneous withdrawal from the Passchendaele Ridge.
These were the darkest hours of the last great battle for Ypres. There were already signs that the German advance, having again failed to break a way through by sheer weight and numbers, was slowing down, and the promised French reinforcements were close at hand. These took over the sector from Meteren to Wytschaete, where, on the 25th, before they had consolidated their positions, they were made to bear the brunt of a fresh German blow, delivered with 9 fresh divisions, from Bailleul to the Ypres-Comines Canal. The French fought desperately to save Kemmel Hill, commanding Ypres some six miles away; but in five hours the Germans had captured both the village and the crest of the hill. With the Ypres salient now dominated both from Kemmel and Messines it became necessary still further to shorten the line round Ypres. This was accordingly redrawn on the night of 26th-27th April through Pilkem, Wieltje, Zillebeke Lake, and Voormezeele.
One more effort was made by the Germans to push right through before the end of the month—on the 29th, when, in a fresh attack in force on the Franco-British front, they succeeded in reaching as far as Locre, behind Kemmel. But the French, who were in no mood to repeat their experience at Kemmel, flung the enemy back with sanguinary losses. The heaviest casualties of the Germans that day, however, were against the British 21st, 49th, and 25th Divisions, whose artillery—like the gunners of the Third Army on 28th March—had the range of them as they advanced in mass formation, and blew them to pieces. Only one of the waves of German infantry succeeded in reaching the British positions, where bomb and bayonet completed its destruction. This marked the last serious attempt on Germany's part to seize the Channel ports.
Though Ludendorff had failed to reach his objectives either on the Amiens or Flanders front he still had a sufficient superiority of force to retain the initiative. With every incentive to compel a decision before the new American army, which was now arriving at the rate of something like 150,000 a month, could enter the field in full strength, Ludendorff had either to throw up the sponge or strike again at the earliest moment in one final effort to beat the Allies to their knees. Meantime the obvious policy on the Franco-British part was to maintain an active defence until their own and American reinforcements made a counter-offensive possible. In the minor operations which marked this period of waiting, the Australians added Villers-Bretonneux to their battle honours. Villers-Bretonneux, which lies on the edge of the ridge facing Amiens—only 8 miles away—had been rushed and captured by the Germansin a surprise attack in thick fog on 23rd April. Before daybreak the next morning the Australians had surrounded the German garrison, and the end of a fierce house-to-house conflict left the place in British hands again, together with nearly 1000 prisoners.
Germany's Last Bid for the Channel PortsGermany's Last Bid for the Channel Ports: approximate positions of the Allies' line before and after Ludendorff's offensive in April, 1918
Third Phase of Ludendorff's Offensive
Though every day added to the danger of delay, it was not until the end of May that the German army, its plans disorganized by its unexpectedly heavy commitments in the Amiens and Flanders battles, was launched on the third and final phase of Ludendorff's great offensive with a sudden attack on the Aisne front in the direction of Paris. It was along this front that the 9th British Corps (General Sir A. Hamilton-Gordon), consisting of the 8th, 21st, 25th, and 50th Divisions, and subsequently reinforced by the 19th Division, had been sent to the French armies under General Pétain for much-needed rest after sharing to the full the honours and sacrifices of the earlier battles. By their side were crack French divisions which had also earned the rest which it was felt they could count upon along the main stretch of the Chemin-des-Dames. holding as it did some of the strongest natural defences along the whole battle front. The French had taken months in the previous year, and spent countless lives, to recapture these positions.
The very unlikelihood of choosing such a formidable sector decided Ludendorff to select it for his dramatic attack on 27th May, moving up his specially trained divisions of shock troops at the last moment—with all possible secrecy, accompanied by other surprises in the vast number of guns and aeroplanes brought into action, as well as the largest fleet of German tanks which the enemy had ever employed. Only on the very eve of the new advance did the French learn of the impending blow—too late to avert disaster. Outnumbered by 6 to 1 the Allies, British and French alike, were borne back by the onrush of picked troops as soon as the preliminary bombardment ceased. Helped as usual by a thick early-morning mist the armies of von Böhn, von Hutier, and von Below—all nominally under the German Crown Prince—had carried the whole of the Chemin-des-Dames ridge by nightfall, and were fighting on the Aisne. Within two days they were not only across the Aisne on an 18-mile front, but had swept on to the Vesle, and were even across that river west of Fismes—a depth of 12 miles from their starting-point.
Reserving his stoutest resistance for the flanks, Foch strove hard to save Soissons, but it fell again into the enemy's hands on the 29th, by which date Rheims, on the Allies' right, was also pressed so hard that its outlying positions were carried on the 30th, and only the devoted bravery of Berthelot's Fifth Army—with Gouraud guarding the Champagne front on its right—saved the battered city. The British and French divisions which had meantime been driven back from the Chemin-des-Dames to the Aisne, and from the Aisne to the Vesle—the Allies often fighting side by side in hopeless rear-guard actions against immensely superior numbers—were now holding a line between the Vesle and the Ardre while the Germans continued to plunge deeper and deeper into the big salient which they had formed towards the Marne. The shattered divisions of the British 9th Corps now formed part of Berthelot's Fifth French Army guarding Rheims, and subsequently played a large part in repelling the enemy's attack on the north-east side of that city. In the words of General Berthelot himself: "They have enabled us to establish a barrier against which the hostile waves have beaten themselves in vain. This none of the French who witnessed it will ever forget."
By 31st May the German advance in the centre had spread as far as the Marne at Château-Thierry, extending thence along a 10-mile front to Dormans. It was at Château-Thierry on this day that the Americans began to play their part in the battle, linking up with a French colonial division on the south bank of the river and preventing the enemy from crossing. New French units were also coming into line, blocking the Germans' path south of Soissons on the road to Villers-Cotterets, as well as at Château-Thierry. Foiled in both these directions, Ludendorff turned to the Ailette front in order to get more elbow-room, and flattened out the French front between Soissons and Noyon. Again unable to make much further headway against the fierce French counter-attacks, he carried the battle still farther to his right, attacking between Noyon and Montdidier on 9th June in the hope of linking up the new Marne salient with the one already formed at Amiens, and so advancing on one immense front. The new 'drive' was again entrusted to von Hutier, whose 25 divisions, employing the same shock tactics as before, swept forward at first to a depth of some 5 miles in the centre; but, held on the wings, were fiercely counter-attacked on the 11th on their exposed right flank and robbed of most of their gains.
On the following day the German War Minister declared that "Foch's so-called Army of Reserve exists no more"; the truth being that Foch, with time and an ever-flowing stream of reinforcements on his side, was gradually becoming master of the situation, and could afford to wait untilLudendorff gave him the opportunity he wanted. Ludendorff, on the other hand, with the pick of his troops 'pocketed' in the great Marne salient, was forced to make another forward move or withdraw them. He made one more attempt on Rheims, three divisions being ordered on 18th June to take it at all costs; but the whole attack was an expensive failure. For the rest of the month, when the weather broke, and during the first half of July, Ludendorff left most of the fighting to the Allies while he prepared for one last herculean effort to burst through their line. On 28th June Foch felt his way towards his counter-stroke by a preliminary advance between Villers-Cotterets and the Aisne, when he won back over a mile of useful territory and took over 1000 prisoners. On 4th July further minor victories were recorded along both the French and British fronts, the British success being at Hamel, where American units celebrated Independence Day by helping the Australians to recover that fiercely-contested stronghold, with 1500 prisoners.
The First and Last Advances on ParisThe First and Last Advances on Paris: map showing approximately (by the shaded area) the limit of the German gains in the final phase of Ludendorff's offensive in 1918, and (by the dotted line) the limit reached in the 1914 advance
On 15th July Ludendorff launched his final effort on a 50-mile front on each side of Rheims. This time the Allies were warned of its direction in time. On the left, where immediate success was vital to the whole plan, the attack was flung into disorder at the very beginning by a deluge of shells from Gouraud's guns before even the German bombardment started; and when, this over, the attacking divisions of von Einem and von Mudra advanced, they found that Gouraud's army, save for volunteer garrisons in concrete forts, had returned undamaged to its main battle positions, to reach which they had to face a concentrated fire that tore their ranks to pieces. Some 50,000 German troops were admitted to have fallen that day before Gouraud's army. With the failure of the advance in Champagne the German attack on the right, where Italian as well as British and American troops were now fighting side by side with the French, was unavailing, though the line south-west of Rheims was pressed back some 3 or 4 miles, and eight divisions under von Böhn succeeded by 17th July in crossing the Marne at a number of points between Fossoy and Dormans.
Foch's Counter-stroke
They were only allowed to remain south of the Marne long enough for Foch to convert these river crossings into a death-trap. For Foch had now decided that the moment had come when the Germans, exhausted by their advance, were least in a condition to resist a counter-stroke aimed at their flank. The flank which Foch selected for attack was that on the western side of the salient created, from its most northerly point on the Aisne near Soissons, to its southern extremity, Château-Thierry on the Marne, where the symptoms of the exhaustion of theGerman momentum had been furnished by the ability of American and other contingents to resist further advance. In the earlier half of July a ceaseless stream of men and guns had flowed up from the French side to take cover in the forest of Villers-Cotterets on their flank, in preparation for the blow to come; and by 18th July two French armies were assembled along the 27-mile flank, that of General Mangin aligned between the Aisne and the Ourcq, which bisected the salient, and that of General Degoutte from the Ourcq to the Marne. Mangin's army contained some of the finest French shock divisions as well as two famous British ones, the 34th and the 15th, and a number of keen American troops. Degoutte's army had the more awkward task, judged by the country over which it had to travel, but Foch's plan here, as elsewhere, was to put his best fighting material where it would pierce farthest, and hold the enemy elsewhere. By the same token the army of General Berthelot, with two other supporting British divisions, was entrusted with the task on the other side of the salient, from Rheims to Épernay, not of thrusting at the Germans but of holding them hard.
Mangin's army was ordered to strike with all its force. It was equipped with new and speedier 'whippet' tanks, and its immediate onset was masked by the accident of a July thunderstorm on the eve of the fighting. On the morning of 18th July it went forward with nothing but a barrage, but with the effect of a thunderbolt, and its average advance on that day was 5 miles, with Fontenoy and the plateau of Pernay on the Aisne firmly secured. Degoutte's army went forward for 2 miles over difficult country. A blow of immense significance had been struck along the whole length of the salient's vulnerable side. Next day Mangin's movement continued; he tightened his hold on the Aisne and swung his right wing farther along the Ourcq so as to bring the whole line of the one good north-and-south road in the salient under the fire of his guns, and thus to hamper the German movements terribly. That alone would have forced the enemy to begin a retreat from the Marne, while it might yet be possible. Meanwhile Degoutte was advancing also, and was forcing the Germans away from the neighbourhood of Château-Thierry. The German commander, von Böhn, was not slow to recognize the implications of the situation into which Foch had forced him, and gave orders to recross the Marne. He was in time, but his retreating troops were roughly handled at the crossings, and despite all his attempts to hold up the attack on his western flank by counter-attack, the pressure of Mangin and Degoutte, added to that of de Mitry's army, which was now following him back over the Marne, became every hour more dangerous. By 20th July not only was the Marne itself in process of being abandoned by von Böhn but Château-Thierry had fallen. Degoutte's army was 3 miles north of it. De Mitry's divisions had secured ample crossings for future movement and Berthelot's mixed forces of French, British, and Italians had begun a disconcerting attack on the eastern side of the salient. In three days the Germans lost 20,000 prisoners, and, what was more significant, 450 guns. The firstriposteof the French Generalissimo had been delivered. It was to be followed in unending succession by others.
The German Commander-in-Chief had to gain time. It was no easy thing to withdraw his 600,000 men crowded between the Aisne and the Marne, but he was obliged to support them lest the salient should collapse too suddenly. He aimed a counter-stroke at Gouraud's army east of Rheims, but the blow spent itself in the air, and Foch replied by setting in motion the army of General Debeney, where it stood opposite to that of General von Hutier, between Montdidier and Noyon. But he had not yet gathered the full fruits of the strength of his positional assault between the Aisne and the Marne, and did not in the least allow pressure here to relax. Mangin seized Oulchy-le-Château on the Ourcq (25th July); and on 26th July Gouraud, on the other side of Rheims, recovered the ground he had ceded under the German pressure. By Sunday (28th July) the Allied attack in the Aisne-Marne salient had swept convergingly on to the line of the Ourcq, and with that achievement the most important episode in the opening of Foch's campaign was consummated. Soissons fell to Mangin on 1st and 2nd Aug., a signal that the work was done, and Foch was now free to prosecute his larger plan of delivering successive blows at points where they would disperse and use up the German reinforcements most effectively.
The Allies' Victorious Offensive, 1918
The Freeing of AmiensThe Freeing of Amiens: Map illustrating the recapture of the city's outer defence line on the opening day of the Battle of Amiens, 8th Aug., 1918.
Marshal Foch, after consultation with the British Commander-in-Chief, had desired the commanders of all armies, British and French, to prepare plans of action and to be ready to put them into operation at short notice. He now more particularly addressed inquiry to Sir Douglas Haig as to his willingness to undertake a continuous offensive towards the German centre. Sir Douglas Haig assented to Marshal Foch's representations as to the superior advantages to be gained from an attack there, and, while continuing a show of preparation in the Ypres area, where Ludendorff, on an estimate of the psychology of the British commander, would expectthe counter-attack to come, and was already taking steps to reduce its effectiveness by masked withdrawals, transferred forces steadily to Rawlinson's Fourth Army on the Somme. This army, and the First French Army under Debeney on the right, both directed by Haig, were set in motion on 8th Aug. on a 16-mile front from Morlancourt to Moreuil. The thrust was successful beyond expectation. The British Fourth Army, on the right wing, went through the German divisions of von Marwitz (Second Army) like paper, regaining the old outer-line defences of Amiens; and Debeney's men crushing the resistance of von Hutier's Eighteenth German Army, and reaching Fresnoy and Plessier, where they linked up with General Humbert's Third French Army on the road to Roye. The captures of the day amounted to 17,000 prisoners and 500 guns, an unmistakeable symptom that the German power of resistance was shaking.
On 9th Aug. Rawlinson pushed on still farther; on 10th Aug. General Humbert prolonged Debeney's still attacking line and took Montdidier, and a number of villages. These three armies continued to eat into the enemy's positions and to pin a number of German divisions down till 20th Aug., while Mangin's army at Soissons moveden échelonto take up contact with Humbert's right. Meanwhile Ludendorff, fully aware now that the initiative had passed out of his hands, and that the best course that lay open before him was a 'strategic retirement', began to effect one stage of it in the Ypres and Lys district under the direction of General Sixt von Armin, whose withdrawal was followed vigilantly by the British forces; and another stage in the German salient on the Ancre, where General von Below's Seventeenth Army was stationed. Von Below withdrew on the Bapaume line from Serre, Beaumont-Hamel, and Bucquoy to the shelter of the sector of the Hindenburg line behind it (13th, 14th, and 15th Aug.).
But whereas in 1917 Ludendorff had disconcerted both British and French Commanders-in-Chief by a sudden withdrawal on the Bapaume-Péronne line of the Somme, he was not now allowed to withdraw without injury. Haig's battle of Bapaume (21st Aug. and following days) was designed in two stages, the first of which brought up Byng's Third Army to a position in which it was aligned with Rawlinson's Fourth Army, and the second of which saw the Third and Fourth Army attack von Below in combination. The combined pressure of these two armies was continuously successful, though the Germans fell back stubbornly in many places. By 30th Aug. Bapaume was once again in British hands, and the line of attack was threatening the strongholds of the Hindenburg line, while its extension ran through Heudecourt and Fremiecourt to Cléry. Péronne fell to the Australian Corps by a most gallant feat of arms on 1st Sept. A more strategically significant victory was gained on the same day when the capture of Bullecourt, followed by that of Riencourt and Cagnicourt, opened up the first crevice in the ramifications of the Hindenburg defences known as the Drocourt-Quéant switch line. The battle of Bapaume drove thirty-five German divisions from the old Somme battlefield, and captured 34,000 men and 27 guns.
The crevice in the Drocourt-Quéant defences was still further widened on 1st Sept., when six British divisions of Horne's First Army, including two Canadian, attacked behind tanks a 5-mile front occupied by eleven German divisions and captured Dury Ridge and Quéant, together with 16,000 men and 200 guns. So far, therefore, from Ludendorff's strategic retreat being conducted 'according to plan', it cost the Germans, between 21st Aug. and 9th Sept., some 53,000 men and 470 guns; the French had been able to occupy Ham and Chauny, while the British were going forward; and General Sixt von Armin was forced cautiously to retire from the Ypres salient.
During these operations by the British armies Foch had never relaxed pressure with the three armies of Debeney, Humbert, and Mangin, while still threatening an advance beyond the Vesle in the deflating Aisne salient, west of Rheims, and preparing new blows elsewhere. At the beginning of September the position of the French armies of the centre, won by continuous fighting, was as follows: Debeney had crossed the Somme, taken Ham, and was threatening St. Quentin; Humbert was close to Tergnier and was pointing towards La Fère: Mangin was back in Coucy-le-Château and held the railway thence to Soissons; Degoutte was spreading from Soissons along the Aisne. These threats left General Ludendorff no choice but to shorten his line where he could do so with least risk. He decided on the Vesle front, where General de Mitry, with French and Americans, had been engaging his Seventh and Ninth Armies, and began to retire thence on 4th and 5th Sept. on a 19-mile front. The Americans occupied the Aisne thereupon from Condé to Viel-Arcy, and on 7th Sept. General Mangin crowned his long campaign at the Chemin-des-Dames by taking the ruined Fort de Condé. A week later Allemant and Laffaux Mill fell, and once again the French troops came in sight of Laon. Humbert and Debeney, both pushing forward, embarrassed Ludendorff in his intention of moving divisions to meet a new British movement known thereafter as the battle of Epéhy.
This battle was the preliminary movement in that great attack on the Hindenburg line which,more than any other single action, was the decisive 'blow at the heart' of the German defensive plan. The British advance, viewed as one movement, was made towards Cambrai, which was the northern bastion of the German defensive lines, as La Fère and Laon were the twin southern pillars. On 2nd Sept. the Third Army began a local attack on a 5-mile front which captured Havrincourt and Trescault, while on the extreme right of the Fourth Army the 9th Army Corps and the Australian Corps began a movement which by 17th Sept. placed them in Maissemy, where the Fifth Army in March had been pierced. These preliminary positions having been secured, the Third and Fourth Armies set in motion their important combined attack (18th Sept.) on a 17-mile front from Gouzeaucourt, through Havrincourt to Holnon Wood, where Debeney's First Army lent assistance. The hardest fighting was at Epéhy, which gives its name to the battle, on the left centre, but by nightfall the German defences had been pierced on a 3-mile front, 12,000 prisoners had been taken, and the British forces brought within striking distance of the main Hindenburg lines.
During the weeks in September while the plans for the battle of Epéhy were ripening, Foch had struck hard at another point in the German line, which had appeared invulnerable while the Germans were strong, but was now a menace to Ludendorff's own plans for retirement because it absorbed divisions which he badly needed elsewhere, namely the long-standing salient of St. Mihiel. It was held by seven German and two Austro-Hungarian divisions in September, and Ludendorff had been withdrawing its heavy artillery; but before his plans for withdrawal could be consummated, Foch sent in General Pershing with his young American divisions, aided by two French divisions, at the salient's apex. The Americans attacked on the two faces of the salient, west and south, the strongest thrust being made by two corps of seven divisions apiece on the southern face. The attack began on 12th Sept., and in thirty hours the salient had disappeared; while in spite of the haste with which the Germans had left it—the firmest resistance was offered by the two Austro-Hungarian divisions on the western face—10,000 prisoners and 450 guns were left behind. This victory, as symptomatic as others of German disorder, freed the Verdun-Commercy railway, and completed the attenuation of Ludendorff's reserves. The 207 German divisions which Ludendorff had commanded at the period of the greatest German strength had fallen to 185, and only 21 reserve divisions remained.
The second stage of Foch's plan now had been reached. The German armies had again been brought back to the line which they had chosen in 1914, after their first rush had recoiled. It was less threatening by the loss of the St. Mihiel salient, but it had been enormously strengthened by four years of engineering. North of the defence line was the railway which, running through Brussels, Mons, Maubeuge, Mézières, Sedan, and Metz, was the chief artery of German communications, and Foch's plan was to cut this artery on either side of the great curve which the German line made when, after coming north to south from the coast, it turned west to east at La Fère. The right half of the thrust was to be made by Gouraud's army at Rheims and the Americans on the Argonne, where they were being steadily accumulated. The more deadly attack was to be made by the First, Third, and Fourth British, and the First French Armies, which should break through Cambrai and St. Quentin towards Maubeuge.
Complementary operations were designed for the armies of Humbert and Mangin at the nose of the curve, and it was expected that, under this comprehensive pressure, Ludendorff would be compelled to withdraw divisions from the coastal sector, where an attack by the British Second Army (Plumer) and the Belgian Army might then be successful against a weakened front. A portion of Degoutte's army was sent northward in readiness for such a blow, and to the Fifth British Army (now commanded by Birdwood) was assigned a task at Lille and Lens similar to that of Humbert and Mangin at St. Gobain.
There was a pause of nearly a week, in which the Germans awaited, and the Allies prepared the new move; and then, on 27th Sept., Haig's armies struck what Foch declared to be the blow from which there was no recovery. The battle of Epéhy had given the requisite positions for the attack on that section of the Hindenburg defences which the Germans named the Siegfried line. The plan was to send forward the First (Horne) and Third (Byng) British Armies to clear the way on a line from Sauchy-Lestrée to Gouzeaucourt, seizing the crossings of the Canal du Nord, and so preparing the way for an attack by the Fourth Army. The dangerous movement was accomplished (27th Sept.): the crossings seized, the canal held, and Cambrai threatened. On 29th Sept. the Fourth Army took up the combat, and in a tremendous action along a front of 20 miles, supported by attacks from the other British armies and the First French Army, got across the vital defences of the St. Quentin Canal in the Siegfried zone. The next day the fighting spread furiously along the front of all four armies: the breach was widened; a portion of the Scheldt Canal taken; and by 3rd Oct. the Fourth Army had pierced the Siegfried line vitally. By 9th Oct. the German defenceswere no longer defences, and in this decisive encounter they had lost 36,000 prisoners and 380 guns.
The Liberation of the Belgian CoastThe Liberation of the Belgian Coast, 1918: map showing approximately the Allies' line on 28th Sept.—represented by the solid line—and on 25th Oct.—represented by the broken line
Elsewhere victories had been won which appear minor only by comparison. American divisions had been transferred to the left bank of the Meuse at Verdun, and, supported by French divisions, had carried Montfaucon and Varennes (10,000 prisoners); on the other side of the Argonne Gouraud was advancing, and by 1st Oct. was 9 miles from his starting-point below Moronvilliers, and had accumulated 13,000 prisoners and 300 guns.
Map of the Allied line on 8th Aug., 1918, and on Armistice Day, 11th Nov., 1918Map showing approximately the Allied line on 8th Aug., 1918, and on Armistice Day, 11th Nov., 1918
The results of these attacks were at once apparent, as Foch had predicted, in the north. His plan of an attack by Plumer's Second British Army, and by the Belgian Army stiffened by French divisions, was as successful as he had hoped. Under the weight of the Franco-Belgian-British attack on 28th Sept. the thinly held German front melted away. By nightfall the British held all the ridge between Wytschaete and the canal north of Hollebeke; the Belgians were in Houthulst Forest. By the end of September the blood-drenched ridge of Passchendaele, and all its tragic surroundings, had passed into the Allies' hands, and the German grip on the coast had been finally unloosed. This marked the beginning of the end. Since Foch attacked between the Aisne and the Marne on 15th July the Allies had taken a quarter of a million prisoners, 3669 guns, and 23,000 machine-guns. The rest of the campaign must either be a disaster of the first magnitude to the Germans, or, at best, a painful and ineffective retreat to the line of the Meuse.
What remained of the campaign was the work of clearing up; but this was not an easy task,because, though Ludendorff was aware that victory remained permanently with the Allies, he assured the German Government that delaying actions could be fought till the following spring. Against such an undesirable protraction of the war, Foch was preparing a final stroke in the neighbourhood of Metz with the aid of a Second American Army, which was being organized by General Pershing, who had relinquished the command of the First American Army to General Leggett. But the progress of the First American Army in the Argonne, where the fighting was conducted under circumstances of great difficulty, and where the transport was admittedly defective, was slow; and, lacking the place and the resources for another outflanking blow against the retreating Germans, the Allied armies could do no more than press their retreat.
In that retreat position after position was forced from their hands. Cambrai fell on 9th Oct.; on 15th Oct. von Einem's army was far from the coast; on 17th Oct. Ostend had fallen; Horne's First Army had taken Douai, and Birdwood's Second Army had liberated Lille. King Albert re-entered Bruges on 25th Oct. Farther south the British Third and Fourth Armies were close to Le Cateau on 17th Oct.; and Mangin and the French had re-entered Laon—so long the German Great Head-quarters—on 13th Oct. The story of the rest of the campaign, though it involved much severe fighting in breaking the resistance of German rear-guards, is the record of the steady drive of all the British, French, and Belgian Armies which had produced the German collapse, while the right wing of Foch's greater pincers, comprising the only great new reinforcements he could bring to bear, namely, Gouraud with the Americans on the extreme right, worked its way up for a last decisive blow.
It was a slow operation; but by 4th Nov. Gouraud and Leggett had joined hands north of the Bourgogne Forest; and by 6th Nov. Gouraud entered Rethel and an American division reached Sedan. Thus, though behind schedule time, Foch's right wing approached its decisive position in the first week in November; and in the second week the left wing (British) had occupied Maubeuge. What would have been the consequence had Foch advanced his right wing farther and with effect is a matter for the military expert. That Ludendorff was in no doubt of its disastrous results to the German armies is shown by his request for an Armistice on 9th Nov.
The Balkans, 1918
Bulgaria, thoroughly war-weary, and dissatisfied with Germany's refusal to give her the whole of the Dobrudja when terms were made with Roumania, had surrendered to the Allies on 30th Sept. The last Balkan campaign had been swift and decisive. No major operations had taken place during the earlier months of 1918, but on 15th Sept. General Franchet d'Esperey, who had succeeded General Sarrail in supreme command of the Allied forces, launched an offensive which rapidly transformed the whole military situation. French and Serbian troops, on the left or Monastir front, with the eager Serbians as the spear-head of the attack, penetrated the Bulgarian positions with an impetuosity which in two days carried them 12 miles behind the enemy's lines on a 22-mile front, and drove a wedge between the First and Second Bulgarian Armies. Meanwhile the British and Greek divisions were engaged in a far more difficult task on the Doiran front, where they suffered heavy losses in storming impregnable positions between the Dopropolje Ridge and Vetrenik, but succeeded in preventing the Bulgarians opposing them from sending reinforcements to their hard-pressed troops along the Monastir front. This 'wing of sacrifice' pinned the Second Bulgarian Army to the Doiran front until it was too late to join its retreating First Army. Realizing the plight in which it stood, it hurriedly evacuated its positions on the night of 21st Sept. and fled in confusion towards Sofia. The pursuit of the Bulgarians was now taken up by all the Allied armies from Doiran to Monastir, the vengeful Serbians in particular harrying the retreating Second Army with a remorseless energy which drove it head-long through Northern Serbia in increasing disaster towards Belgrade, while the British and Greek forces under General Milne entered Bulgaria hard on the heels of the demoralized First Army. By 26th Sept. the Bulgarian politicians realized that the whole position was hopeless, and sent aparlementaireunder a white flag to the Allied head-quarters. Four days later they signed an armistice at Salonika, handing over complete control of the Bulgarian railways and communications, demobilizing the Bulgarian armies, and surrendering their arms and ammunition. On 4th Oct. King Ferdinand abdicated, and his eldest son reigned in his stead as King Boris III.
Italian Campaign, 1918
In less than a month—on 3rd Nov. to be exact—Austria-Hungary, after experiences in the field similar to those which had fallen to Bulgaria's lot, surrendered to the Italians. This turn of the tide in the Italian campaign in 1918, which amply atoned for the disaster of Caporetto in the preceding year, and crowned Italian arms with triumph, followed a final attempt of theAustro-Hungarian army, now under the direction of General von Arz, to crush the Italian front in conjunction with Ludendorff's great offensive in the West. General von Arz's main attack was delivered on 15th June on a 46-mile front along the Piave, and extended across the mountain positions between the Piave and the Brenta. The two British divisions west of Asiago played a great part in hurling the enemy back in this sector, the French divisions similarly distinguishing themselves on their right. Elsewhere some progress was made at certain points, and the Piave was crossed in two places; but by the third day it was already obvious that the attack had failed. Then the weather broke; rainstorms swept down the hills and turned the Piave, which had been low when the enemy crossed, into full flood, sweeping away a number of his bridges. Hurried efforts were made to get the marooned troops back, and though General Diaz was unable to bring up enough divisions in time to complete their discomfiture, they lost heavily enough in the retreat, their casualties before the battle died down on the other side the river amounting to some 200,000. Biding his time for his own great counter-offensive until Foch could be assured about the situation in the West, where Italian troops distinguished themselves in the operations round Rheims, General Diaz gradually pushed the Austrians back, until by 7th July he had cleared the whole Piave delta. It was not until 24th Oct. that his final blow was delivered. Its success was immediate and overwhelming. Launched on the night of 23rd-24th Oct., the main attack consisted of an advance across the Piave with the Tenth Italian Army—placed under the command of Lord Cavan—now including three British divisions, together with the Eighth and Twelfth Italian Armies. Cavan's force formed the spear-head of the thrust, and ensured the success of the battle by seizing the Island of Grave di Papadopoli in the Piave mid-stream, held by the enemy as an advance post. This was captured in a daring surprise attack by night, without any artillery preparation, and paved the way for the passage of the troops across the swollen river. At the same time the Fourth Italian Army, with a French division, advanced across the old battle-ground of Asiago and Monte Grappa, where, however, the Austrians counter-attacked, holding up the advance until the whole front collapsed with the triumphant progress of the main attack across the Piave. By 27th Oct. the breach had widened until it spread across the entire front of the three Italian armies, which thereupon swept the plains and mountain heights until all the enemy's positions between the Brenta and the Piave had been regained. The Austrian retreat became a rout. By the end of the month the Italians claimed 50,000 prisoners, had cut the railway between the plains and the mountains at Conegliano, and occupied Feltre. With Germany in similar plight; Turkey and Bulgaria already finished; and her own internal affairs rapidly going from bad to worse, Austria appealed to General Diaz for an armistice. When the end came on 3rd Nov. with the signing of the agreement which involved the demobilization of the Austrian army; the surrender of the Austrian fleet; the occupation by the Allies of the Trentino, the Istrian peninsula, and a portion of the Dalmatian coast and islands, the Italians had just captured both Trent and Trieste, a landing-force having arrived at Trieste for the occupation that very day. The wholesale nature of the Austro-Hungarian surrenders during the closing phase of this decisive campaign may be gauged from the fact that by 3rd Nov. they had amounted to no fewer than 300,000 prisoners and 5000 guns.
Germany accepts Defeat
The complete collapse of the Great War, and with it all the Pan-Germanic dreams of world-power, came with dramatic swiftness. Ludendorff resigned, and though the Kaiser had entreated Hindenburg to make one last stand on the line of the Meuse, his appeal had been in vain. Hindenburg knew the hopelessness of the position, not only of the German army but also of the German home front. Ominous disturbances were breaking out in all parts of the Fatherland, including a mutiny at Kiel. Turkey (30th Oct.) as well as Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary had surrendered, and Germany was in no position to face the Allies alone. The Armistice terms, with all their crushing humiliations, had perforce to be accepted, and were signed on 11th Nov. They included, besides evacuation of territory, the surrender of the bulk of the German navy, 5000 additional guns, 30,000 machine-guns, 3000 trench-mortars, and 2000 aeroplanes. A zone of territory on the Rhine was to be occupied by the Allies, and the Treaties of Brest-Litovsk (signed by the Bolshevik Government with the Central Powers on 3rd March, 1918, in defiance of Russia's solemn engagement not to make separate peace with them) and Bucharest (forced on Roumania in March, 1917, at the close of von Mackensen's drive) were declared null and void.
Unable to face his subjects, William II abdicated on 9th, slipped across the frontier into Holland on 10th Nov., and on the 28th of that month signed the formal document of his abdication, the Crown Prince, who also sought refuge in Holland, following suit three dayslater. With the Kaiser fell all the rulers of the German states. On 10th Nov. the Imperial Chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, resigned in favour of Herr Friedrich Ebert, ex-shoemaker, who became 'First Imperial President of the German Republic', with a Government formed from both wings of the Socialist party.
Last year of Naval War
The war had been won at sea as well as on land, though the British navy had far fewer opportunities than the army of getting to grips with the enemy. The hazards of naval warfare never ceased by day or night; and by the end of the war the range of the submarine had extended from the eastern end of the Mediterranean to the American coast. All the reckless efforts of the Germans to win the war by these means failed. With the adoption of new methods to cope with the danger—including the employment of 'Q' boats, or mystery ships—and the invaluable help of the American reinforcements, the monthly shipping losses in the closing year of the war grew progressively less, falling, indeed, from the total of 1,494,473 tons in the September quarter of 1917, to 915,513 tons in the corresponding quarter of 1918. Meantime the new tonnage under construction to make good these losses was as rapidly increasing. The U-boat war, in short, had failed; and the Germans knew it had failed.
The outstanding operation at sea in the closing year of the war was the raid on Zeebrugge and Ostend on St. George's Day under Vice-Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, the object being to block the outlet of the German submarines and destroyers from their depot at Bruges. Since all the neighbouring coast was strongly fortified, the attack was fraught with the gravest danger, and had to take the Germans as far as possible by surprise. The chief ship of the expeditionary force was the old cruiserVindictive(Captain Carpenter), which, with the ferry-boatsIris IIandDaffodil, were told off to act as shield to the three blocking-ships intended for Zeebrugge—Thetis,Intrepid, andIphigenia. Two old submarines were also taken, charged with explosives, and ordered to ram themselves below the viaduct connecting Zeebrugge Harbour with the Mole, and then blow themselves up. One of them carried out her orders to the letter; the other's rope parted while she was being towed into position, and she was too late to help. The simultaneous attempt to land, shortly after midnight, followed a bombardment from a squadron of monitors, and was supported by a flotilla of destroyers and a fleet of motor-boats. TheVindictiveran alongside the Mole within five minutes of being discovered by the German garrison, and was kept in position by theDaffodilandIriswhile landing-parties jumped ashore to do what damage they could and the blocking-ships were being rammed at the entrance. This successfully accomplished—both theIntrepidandIphigeniabeing blown up in the fairway—the batteredVindictive, taking her landing-parties aboard, backed out and returned with her supports to Dover. The first attack on Ostend, which took place the same day, was a comparative failure owing to the undetected removal of a buoy, the two blocking-ships sent for the purpose being sunk outside the harbour. Three weeks later the commander of theBrilliant(Commander Godsal), who was in charge of that operation, tried again, this time successfully—the oldVindictive, patched up as a blocking-ship, being sunk 200 yards up the channel of Ostend—but Commander Godsal was killed by a shell just after completing his task.
The German navy made one more appearance on the high seas—when, under the terms of the Armistice, 6 battle-cruisers, 10 battleships, 8 light cruisers, 50 destroyers, and all her submarines were surrendered, the bulk of them to the Grand Fleet at Rosyth under Sir David Beatty on 21st Nov. On the following day the captive ships were sent to Scapa Flow, where, exactly seven months later, their German crews, while the British battle-fleet was absent on gunnery practice, scuttled practically every vessel. A week later—on 28th June, 1919—Germany signed the Peace Treaty at Versailles, involving unconditional acceptance of all the Allies' terms.
Turkey and the War
In Aug., 1914, the German war-shipsGoebenandBreslauescaped the British squadron stationed to intercept them near Messina, the escape arising partly through delay in correcting orders, and partly through the fact that the German commander had no scruple about violating neutrality in the course he sailed through the Straits of Messina. The ships reached the Dardanelles on 11th Aug., and were sold to Turkey. This was a symptom of Turkish relations with Germany rather than a determining cause of Turkey's entrance into the war as an ally of the Central Powers; but many efforts were made to change Turkey's attitude before the British, Russian, and French Ambassadors left Constantinople (1st and 2nd Nov.) and Great Britain declared war on her (5th Nov.). The first act of war undertaken by Turkey was the dispatch to the Caucasus front of three army corps, with a plan of campaign designed by General Liman von Sanders, and commanded by Enver Pasha. They were decisively beaten by the Russian forces at Sarikamish in December. Had the Russians possessed abundance oftransport, or had the roads been less difficult, this victory might have been pressed. But Russia wanted all her resources elsewhere, and it was not till 1916, two years later, that she made any serious attempt to carry the war into Turkish territory. Then, under the direction of the Grand Duke Nicholas, and General Yudenitch, who was some years later to come into prominence as the leader of an unsuccessful attempt to reach Petrograd and overthrow the Bolsheviks (1920), a Russian expedition drove back the Turkish forces on Erzerum and captured it (16th Feb., 1915). On 16th April, after another pause to gather transport, the Russians found their way to Trebizond on the Black Sea, and during the next few months spread over the Asiatic Peninsula to Bitlis, Musk, Van, Mosul, Erzingan, and Diarbekr, fighting generally with local success, but with no concerted plan of campaign. The effort expired in the autumn, and was not revived.
Gallipoli Campaign
Before, however, the Russians undertook their own expedition, they were urgent in pressing on France and Great Britain the desirability of opening up the Dardanelles so as to bring the Allies into touch with each other through the Black Sea ports. In response to this invitation, the naval possibilities of which were insufficiently considered by the advisers of the British Admiralty, and the prospects of which had been roundly condemned by all who had previously considered the problem, Admiral Carden began a bombardment of the Dardanelles forts with old battleships, British and French, on 19th Feb., 1915. The bombardment was renewed on 25th Feb. and 6th March. Admiral Carden resigned on 16th March owing to ill-health, and was succeeded by Admiral de Robeck, who favoured the idea of breaking into the Sea of Marmora by rushing the straits. Four big ships, one theQueen Elizabeth, engaged the guardian forts, Chanak and Kalid Bahr, at long range (18th March); other ships closed in, and a French squadron penetrated as far as Kephez Point. But the hidden batteries, the mines, and various other devices frustrated the attempt, which was a practical failure by the afternoon. Two good ships,IrresistibleandInflexible, were put out of action, and two others,BouvetandOcean, sunk. After this Admiral de Robeck accepted the professional view that a fleet operation should be combined with one on land. Lord Kitchener, who had been as little disposed towards the Dardanelles adventure as Lord Fisher, reluctantly consented, and General Sir Ian Hamilton was appointed to command the British expedition, while General d'Amade was in charge of the less numerous French Colonial Corps.
Sir Ian Hamilton's force eventually comprised the 29th Division, the Australian and New Zealand (Anzac) Corps, the East Lancashire Territorial Division, and part of the Royal Naval Division. There was an unfortunate delay in getting the expedition off from its Egyptian base, and the Turks had ample time to prepare for its landing (25th April), which they did not believe to be a possible feat. The landing was effected, nevertheless, with incomparable gallantry, at five beaches on the nose of the Gallipoli Peninsula, and at Gaba Tepe (by the Anzac Corps) farther north. Some 8000 men were got ashore in twelve hours, and an advance was made on the following day (26th April). On 28th April the French Corps, which had made a feint attack on the other side of the Narrows, was brought across to assist in a general advance on the dominating height of Achi Baba. The resulting engagement, the battle of Krithia, revealed the fact that the Turkish field fortifications, the Turkish artillery, and the Turkish numbers had all been too well organized under von Sanders to admit of being rushed. Evidence accumulated that Achi Baba, which was the key to the Dardanelles forts, could only be taken at ruinous cost by a frontal attack, though an attack in force on 6th May went nearer to success than any other, and appeared to fail only through a culminating misfortune of misdirected artillery. Fighting continued in May and June, both here and at Gaba Tepe, where General Birdwood commanded the Anzac Corps. Engagements in which local advances were made took place on 29th May (Anzac Corps), 4th and 21st June (French Corps), 28th June (29th Division), and though the climate and the insufficient protection inflicted appalling losses on the hard-tried British and French troops, it was on the Gallipoli Peninsula that the flower of the Turkish army also was lost. Of the naval forces theQueen Elizabethwas summarily ordered home just before a new Turco-German submarine campaign set in; three more old battleships were torpedoed; but the English submarines retaliated by torpedoing a Turkish battleship, gunboats, and transports in the Straits.
General Gouraud relieved General d'Amade in the middle of May, but was badly wounded by a shell (30th June), and returned to France. General Sir Ian Hamilton, who had unceasingly asked for more guns and more men, received some part of the aid he asked in order to put a new plan into operation. The plan was to land a force at Sari Bair, on the neck of the Peninsula, where it could co-operate with the Anzac Corps in forcing a way to the commanding heights there, and ultimately might take the Turks in the flank. One force was to land at Anzac Cove; two other of the three new divisions sent out toSir Ian Hamilton were to be landed 4 miles north, at Suvla Bay. The forces at Anzac were landed on 4th-6th Aug., bringing up the numbers of Sir W. Birdwood's command to 36,000. Sir F. Stopford was in command of the force to land at Suvla Bay (6th and 7th Aug.), with Generals Hammersley and Mahon as divisional generals.