The Great War - WW1
Ludendorff's Last Throw of the Dice
Towards the end of March 1918 the Germans launched what they hoped would be a knockout blow in the West. As Ludendorff put it 'The situation in Russia and Italy makes it possible to deliver a blow on the Western Front in the New Year. Our general situation requires that we should strike at the earliest possible moment before the Americans can throw strong forces in'.
The German high command hoped to drive a wedge between the French and the British, were the French were concentrating on the defence of Paris, and the British casting anxious eyes over their shoulders to their communications with the Channel ports. The attack, spearheaded by storm troops using Hutier tactics, began in thick fog on the 21st of March. The British commander, Haig, had correctly anticipated the offensive but had deployed most of his reserves in the north, risking the security of the thinly spread British Fifth Army - against which the main German blow was aimed on the Somme - in order to insure against a less probable risk to the Channel ports.
Paris came under fire from long-range guns on the 23rd of March. On the 2nd of April, Haig had to submit to the appointment of the French Marshal Foch as the Allied Supreme Commander. A week later, with the first German thrust running out of steam and ammunition, Ludendorff launched a second blow against the British in Flanders. On the 12th of April Haig issued his famous 'backs to the wall' order, forbidding withdrawal!.
Ludendorff's second blow nearly broke the British, who were initially denied help by Foch. But by the end of April the Germans had been halted at a cost to the British Army of nearly 240'000 casualties in 40 days of fighting, with the Germans loosing close to 348'000 men!.
Now running out of cards, Ludendorff mounted an offensive against the French Sixth Army in Champagne. It began on the 27th of May when 17 divisions stormed the Chemin des Dames ridge in the Aisne sector. This was to be a diversion before the final 'blow' fell on the British. The Germans broke through and by the 3rd of June were once again on the Marne, only 56 miles from Paris.
Here the Americans made an intervention, General Pershing rushed the US third and forth divisions into action on the Marne, while 50 miles to the northwest at Cantigny, the US first division was thrown into the US Army's first offensive action of the war. For three days the Americans thwarted the German advance at Chateau-Thierry and then counter-attacked along with the French in mid-June after the Germans had been fought to a halt.
Ludendorff then delivered a double blow east and west of Rheims, supported by a great weight of artillery. In the eastern sector the French had made a tactical withdrawal and the Germans found themselves punching thin air. To the west the Germans crossed the Marne on a three-mile front but exhaustion, and plans for a crushing French counterblow, were about to wrestle the initiative away from the German high command.