THE WESTERN FRONT      

OPERATION FRIEDENSTURM (SECOND BATTLE OF THE MARNE):  15th JULY

THE HUNDRED DAYS OFFENSIVE:   8th AUGUST – 11th NOVEMBER

    As we have seen, under Ludendorff’s Offensive, conducted from the 21st March to the 12th June, four separate attacks were launched in a desperate attempt to bring the war to an end before the arrival of sufficient American forces turned the war in favour of the Allies. The aim had been to push back the British armies, cutting them off from their Channel ports, and to defeat the French by taking Paris or overwhelming their forces. With the assistance of improved tactics, the Germans made impressive advances on all fronts (see map right), but the attacks were launched independently of each other, and this meant that no extra support was readily available. And so swift was the German advance, that the frontline troops quickly ran out of food and vital military supplies, making them a target for Allied forces. It was an impressive gain of territory, but casualties were heavy, and eventually both the French and British proved sufficiently strong to bring a halt to the advance. However, there was to be one more attempt to seize victory from the jaws of defeat. On the 15th July the Germans launched their Operation Friedensturm, or the Second Battle of the Marne (see map above). It was the fifth and final attack of Ludendorff’s Offensive, begun in March, and, as it so happened, proved to be the last German offensive of the war.

OPERATION FRIEDENSTURM: 15th – 17th JULY

     Operation Friedensturm was a second attempt by Ludendorff to draw British troops southwards, so that he could successfully launch his attack upon Belgium, his “Operation Hagen”. A force of 40 divisions was employed to mount a two-pronged attack on the strongly fortified city of Reims, 17 divisions approaching from the west, and 23 divisions from the East, (see map below).

Acknowledgements

Hindenburg Offensive (map): thesun.uk Friedensturm (map): ww1live.wordpress.com Battle of The Marne: amazon.co.uk by the war artist Scribner Hitler: en.wikipedia.org 100 Days (map): tringlocalhistory.org.uk Battle Map: thetimes.co.uk 100 Days (map): historica.fandom.com Blitz: amazon.com Fitch: twitter.com Armistice: pocketmags.com

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     The plan was for both prongs to meet up south of Reims, thereby surrounding the city, avoiding the enemy’s strongest defences, and giving access to the Marne. A promising plan, but In the east, the offensive did not get off to a good start. The French gleaned from air reconnaissance and prisoners the exact location of the Germans defences, and were able to shell their assault trenches before the battle began. When they eventually attacked, the French used their artillery – well hidden and mainly out of range of German guns – to devastating effect on the advancing German infantry. They were stopped in their tracks, and the following day were forced to dig in.

    On the western arm of the attack, however, there was a measure of success. The River Marne was reached after crossing the Aisne, and after a three-hour bombardment of the south bank, the Germans managed to cross the river by rafts, boats, and hastily built pontoon bridges – despite intense bombing by the French air force. By nightfall a sizeable bridgehead had been established, four miles deep and nine miles wide. This was good news for the German High Command, but it was not to continue. Oncexagain, the spectacular extent of the German advance gravely stretched resources, leading to a serious need for food, petrol and ammunition. As a result, the attack faltered, and Foch, taking full advantage of the situation, launched a powerful counter-attack, made up of 24 French divisions, plus two from both the British and Americans. With the support of close on 500 tanks, the Battle of Soissons was won, and the next day (20th July), the Germans, exhausted and depressed, were pushed back across the Marne and forced to give up the village of Château-Thierry. By the 6th August Allied forces had retaken almost all of the land occupied by the German advance. But Operation Friedensturm came at a cost. Allied casualties were put at French 95,000; British 13,000; and the United States 12,000. The German army, in what turned out to be its last attempt to win the war, was put at 168,000.

     All five operations of the Ludendorff Offensive had failed and, with it, any hopes of a German victory. There was no strategic breakthrough at any point. Furthermore, the heavy casualties suffered (put at around 500,000), and the lack of overall success – especially after such a promising start – badly affected German morale. The will to fight was being seriously eroded, particularly given the knowledge that one million American troops had already arrived in France, and that number was increasing by 250,000 a month. And this was at a time when Germany virtually stood alone. Its allies, the Austro-Hungarians and the Ottoman Empire, were both on the verge of defeat. There was to be no possibility of further support from either of those quarters.

    Incidentally, itxwas during Operation Friedensturm that Adolf Hitler, the future leader of Nazi Germany, acting as a dispatch runner, was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class, for bravery in action. This was a rare decoration to be awarded to a lance-corporal. Hitler fought throughout the war, and, among others, took part in the First Battle of Ypres, the Battle of the Somme, and Passchendaele. ……

     …… The American poet Alfred Joyce Kilmer, famous for his poem Trees, (“Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree”), was killed during the Aisne-Marne Offensive, aged 31.

    Fullyxaware of the dire straits that the Germans were in, and of the decided advantage the Allies had in manpower and equipment, three weeks later, on the 8th August, Foch (now Allied Commander), launched a massive operation – the Hundred Days Offensive. It was hoped that it would be a decisive turning point in the fighting on the Western Front, and so it proved to be. In less than fifteen weeks – after four years of costly, static warfare – the Allies had virtually pushed the Germans out of France.

THE HUNDRED DAYS OFFENSIVE: 8th AUGUST – 11th NOVEMBER

     This offensive, sometimes known as the Grand Offensive, was a series of concentric attacks planned across the entire Western Front from Ypres to Saint-Mihiel. Its very width ensured that the Germans had to spread their limited manpower and resources across all sectors and, as a consequence, were reluctant, if not unable, to send reinforcements to hard pressed regions. This said, the main target area was the Hindenburg Line, that stretch of powerful fortifications from Arras to Rheims. A break through at this point would make possible an advance into Belgium and northern France. And this, as we shall see, was exactly what the Allies achieved by the first week of October, bringing the war nearer to a close. (The major encounters during these hundred days are given below. Locations in green indicate that they appear on the larger map below.)

8th August In the opening battle of the offensive, ten Allied divisions, employing 500 tanks, break through the German line east of Amiens and advance twelve miles. The Germans, heavily outnumbered, are forced to rush in reserves. Ludendorf describes the 8th August as a “Black Day” for the German Army. Meanwhile on the southern flank, the French win the Battle of Montdidier.

21st August The British occupy Albert and the French win the Second Battle of Noyon and capture the Aisne Heights. The Germans are pushed back 34 miles! Then Allies win the Second Battle of Bapaume.

26th August The British First Army takes on the Germans at the Second Battle of Arras, a conflict which includes the Battles of Scarpe and the Drocourt-Queant Line. Five days later, the Australians cross the River Somme and defeat the Germans at the Battle of Mont Saint Quentin.

10th September The French approach the Hindenburg Line near St.Quentin during the Battle of Savy-Dallon, and also near Laon during the Battle of Vauxaillon. A week later, the British approach the Hindenburg Line along the St. Quentin Canal during the Battle of Épehy.

12th September On the Hindenburg Line, the remaining salients west and east of the line are crushed at Havrincourt and St Mihiel, and by the Battle of the Canal du Nord fifteen days later.

16th September The Americans, in their first U.S. led offensive, complete their attack on the Saint-Mihiel Salient, begun four days earlier.

26th September The first attack on the Hindenburg Line is launched by French forces and the AEF (the American Expeditionary Force) in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, an attack that included the battles of Somme-Py, Saint Thierry, Montfaucon and Chesne. Two days later, a Belgian, British and French force attack near Ypres in Flanders (the Fifth Battle of Ypres) but, because of the difficult terrain and supply problems it fails to break through the line.

29th September A two pronged attack is made on the line, with the British, Australians and Americans attacking at the Battle of St Quentin Canal, and a French force outside of St.Quentin. By the 5th October the entire depth of the line has been pierced along a 19 mile front!

8th October The First and Third British Armies again break through the Hindenburg Line at the Second Battle of Cambrai. The town is captured, and the Germans are forced to accept that the war was virtually at an end.

October For the remainder of the month and into the first days of November the Germans retreat, giving up the large areas of French territory they had seized in the summer of 1914. En route they mount rearguard actions, but are forced to abandon large amounts of heavy equipment and supplies.

    The Hundred Days Offensive – taking full advantage as it did of the poor state of the German army, and the marked superiority enjoyed by the Allies in the number of their troops and the quality of their equipment – had eventually brought about a victory which, for so long, had been in the balance. But the success of this offensive could not be simply put down to a matter of numbers. In the tactics it employed (based on what was termed “combined arms”) it showed the promise – albeit faint at this time – of a return to a measure of mobility. The use of stormtroopers; the improvement in the accuracy of artillery; and the ever increasing number of tanks and aircraft employed, was changing the face of warfare. We are told that 300 tanks, specially adapted to span wide trenches, played a major part in breaking through the “impregnable” Hindenburg Line, and in the Meuse Argonne Offensive, more than 500 aircraft were employed in a coordinated air-ground attack. At this stage, tanks still remained unreliable at times, and aircraft, though fulfilling a much wider role, were a long way from their true potential; but both were destined to be major components of Blitzkrieg, just twenty years hence.

     Incidentally, 19yrxold 2nd Lieutenant Alex Fitch, a former pupil of Harrow School, was killed on the 18th September 1918 during the Hundred Days Offensive. His parents were determined that their only son would be remembered, and since 1926 his portrait has hung in Harrow’s Alex Fitch Room. Save for the blackout during the Second World War, the light above his portrait has been kept on, day and night.

    As we shall see, the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, which, as noted above, was an all-American affair, began on the 26th September and proved to be the last offensive on the Western Front. By the time it ended on the morning of the 11th November, the German Army was a spent force and the war was over. As we shall see, during that final battle, faced with the prospect of a humiliating military defeat on the Western Front, Generals Ludendorff and Hindenburg had advised the Kaiser to seek an end to the war. The German army was suffering irreversible losses in men and equipment; the front-line troops were totally exhausted; and there was a widespread decline in discipline. Given, in addition, that there was deep unrest on the home front, due in the main to the continuing lack of food, the Kaiser reluctantly agreed. On the 4th October – with the hope of receiving far more lenient terms – a newly formed German government contacted President Wilson via the Swiss, requesting an Armistice based on his Fourteen Points. It was a shrewd move but, as we shall see, it didn’t work.

HDO