The Germans’ last hope of victory: a million-man offensive in the West
In his memoirs, General Erich Ludendorff, the man who by early 1918 was effectively running the German war effort and wielding increasing power over German politics and industry, wrote that at this point ‘the condition of our allies and of our Army all called for an offensive that would bring about an early decision. This was only possible on the Western Front.’
The Royal Navy’s blockade was beginning to cripple German civilian morale, as well as constricting supplies for the front. One deserter, Heinrich Fleischer, volunteered to work for the British Secret Service Bureau after going on leave to Berlin and finding his family ‘white and emaciated, with nothing to eat but turnips and watery potatoes’.
If Ludendorff could not force a decision on the Western Front by the end of the year, a million and more newly arrived Americans would be poised to decide matters in 1919.
With the signing of the peace treaty with the Bolshevik government at Brest-Litovsk on 3 March, Ludendorff could now turn his back on the Russian front and transfer the remaining troops to France. ‘I set aside all idea of attacking in Macedonia or Italy. All that mattered was to get together enough troops for an attack in the west,’ he wrote. When he told the Kaiser that he planned to assemble 900,000 men for what would be called Die Kaiserschlacht – the Kaiser’s battle – the reply was: ‘Add another hundred thousand and make it a million.’
By withdrawing troops from the Macedonian front, and other measures, he was just able to do so. In January there had been 169 German divisions in the west against 192 allied ones. By March 1918 there were 191 (although the Americans were beginning to field more divisions too). Not only would Die Kaiserschlacht be, in Ludendorff’s words, ‘one of the most difficult operations in history’, it would be the largest. He had also told the Kaiser that ‘the state of training of the Army for attack enabled us to contemplate doing so about the middle of March’.
The training was as significant as the numbers. During the winter, the army had been forming units of elite Sturmtruppen, ‘storm[ing] troops’, to spearhead the offensive. ‘The whole line of thought of the Army had to be diverted from trench warfare back to the offensive,’ wrote Ludendorff, for they had stood on the defensive on the Western Front since mid-1916, when the attempt to break the French at Verdun had begun to falter. ‘It was necessary to emphasize the principle that men must do the work not with their bodies alone but with their weapons. The fighting line must be kept thin, but must be constantly fed from behind.’
The light machine gun was to be the principal weapon in this new doctrine of the offensive, together with the flame-thrower and the rifle. The Sturm teams would be made up of men under thirty-five, including picked riflemen, who were withdrawn from routine duties and given better rations. Their task was not to overpower but to infiltrate, bypassing strongpoints to penetrate deep into the enemy’s defences, leaving pockets of resistance to the second wave of more legionary infantry. They would prove formidably effective, but might have been even more so had they had the support of tanks. The one consolation to the allies was that the Germans had simply not thought these worthwhile enough to put into serious production, even after the experience of Cambrai, and fielded only a few dozen ‘A7s’ (named after the war ministry department responsible, the Allgemeines Kriegsdepartement, Abteilung 7), together with the same number of captured British Mark IVs. ‘They were merely an offensive weapon, and our attacks succeeded without them,’ reckoned Ludendorff.
Sturm tactics without sound operational strategy could not be enough, however. In December, Ludendorff’s strategic adviser, Lieutenant-Colonel Georg von Wetzell, head of the operations section of the Oberste Heeresleitung (supreme army command), had written an appreciation of the situation on the Western Front. He was not greatly impressed with the expertise of the British army (including its imperial troops): the artillery, he said, ‘like the British tactics as a whole, is rigid and stiff’. He thought the French much nimbler, ‘just as skilful in the tactical use of their artillery as of their infantry’, and their ‘use of ground in the attack … just as good as in the defence’. Their losses at Verdun in 1916 and the setbacks of the Nivelle offensive in 1917 had clearly taken their toll, though, and Wetzell thought the French ‘not such good stayers as the British’. With the British, he concluded, ‘we have a strategically [at GHQ level] clumsy, tactically rigid, but tough enemy in front of us’. The Third Battle of Ypres – Passchendaele – despite (perhaps even because of) all its terrible slaughter, showed that although French strength was on the wane, with growing British material strength and resolve, the Germans would now face an even harder fight.
Wetzell also pointed to the problem of maintaining the momentum in an advance through what he called the ‘shot-to-pieces battle area’ that had been left by the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line a year earlier, and the subsequent fighting. Moving forward the artillery would be especially slow. The logistical problems, already grave, would increase as the advancing troops got further from the railheads and depots, exacerbated by the shortage of both draught horses and mechanical transport (the Germans had 23,000 motor lorries, most with iron-rimmed wheels, compared with the allies’ 100,000 with rubber tyres). Wetzell accordingly concluded that there would have to be ‘operational pauses’ in the offensive so that the supporting arms and services could catch up with the leading troops. These, however, would give the enemy time to reorganize their defences, aided by ‘the excellent railway communications behind the front’. He warned, therefore, against hoping for a rapid breakthrough, urging instead a series of coordinated simultaneous attacks, in the hope that somehow the allied line could be prised apart.
For once, however, the allies would not be taken by strategic surprise. Any appreciation of the Germans’ military situation could not fail to conclude that they now saw the war as a race with the American Expeditionary Force, whose drafts were arriving in the many thousands each month. Nor could aerial reconnaissance fail to pick up the signs of the German buildup, any more than the signals intercept service could miss the increased radio and telegraph traffic. Besides, by this stage in the war the allies had extensive human intelligence sources in Belgium and the occupied areas of France. The Secret Service Bureau operated a number of collection systems, one of the most successful of which was La Dame Blanche (named after the spectral harbinger of downfall in European myth), a network of train-watchers able to supply information on the movement of individual divisions, from which the bureau, together with the War Office’s military intelligence directorate and the intelligence branch in GHQ, was able to put together a detailed German order of battle in north-west France and Flanders. The French had similar arrangements, including agents whom they inserted by air behind enemy lines.
On 19 February, The Times published a despatch from Harry Perry Robinson, its new war correspondent (its previous correspondent, the celebrated Colonel Charles à Court Repington, having resigned in a dispute with the proprietor, Lord Northcliffe, who wanted to distance the paper from Haig after the setback at Cambrai). Robinson explained:
The German offensive is now undoubtedly very near. Evidence accumulates daily, especially convincing being the statements of prisoners taken recently …
An immense amount of training for the attack has been going on. Of that we have been assured by our airmen. To escape observation, much of the training is being done in remoter areas …
The training is largely in the nature of open fighting, for the Germans seem to count on breaking our lines and getting the warfare into the open country behind, in which they are going to be aided by the use of gas, tanks and trench mortars. There will probably be no obliterating bombardment such as has preceded most of our great attacks, but in the days before the assault counter-battery shooting, both with gas and high-explosive shells, and long spells of destructive fire on trenches, communications, billets, and so forth. Immediately before the attack there will be only a short burst of fire, behind which men are to come over in one grand rush, while immense numbers of mobile guns and trench mortars will push up behind the supporting troops.
R. C. Sherriff, who served as a captain in the East Surreys, put the words of many a front-line soldier into the mouth of Lieutenant Osborne in his 1928 drama Journey’s End, set in the run-up to Die Kaiserschlacht: ‘We are, generally, just waiting for something.’
But GHQ did not know where, exactly, the Germans would attack. Ludendorff considered three options: in Flanders, to capture the remaining Channel ports; in the east, abreast Verdun, where the weakened French might this time be overwhelmed; or at the junction of the allied line between Arras and St-Quentin. The advantage of striking at the junction was that the enemy might retreat in diverging directions – the French to cover Paris, and the British along their lines of communication to the Channel ports, giving the latter very little manoeuvre room.
Forecasting the enemy’s moves – as opposed to identifying his options and the relative merits of each – is more an art than a science, and therefore subject to the full range of human frailties. The forecast made by the ‘E’ (Enemy) Group of the British military staff at the allied supreme war council at Versailles would prove to be reasonably accurate, but was largely dismissed by GHQ as a result of the friction between the two headquarters.
To meet the expected attack, Haig, in order to cover the Channel ports, concentrated his strength in the north, while the French, to cover Paris, strengthened their positions to the south of the British. Three British armies – from right to left, 3rd (Byng), 1st (Horne) and 2nd (Plumer) – covered the two-thirds of Haig’s front from Cambrai to the sea, some forty-six divisions in all. General Sir Hubert Gough’s 5th Army, with just fourteen divisions, held the remaining third, from Cambrai to the Oise (4th Army, having had so many divisions withdrawn in late 1917, existed on paper only). Haig had thereby insured against the worst case, and had also strengthened Arras, a natural bastion and key communications centre, but in doing so he had left the junction with the French relatively weak. To compensate for this, GHQ sought to deceive the Germans with contrary intelligence, not least through the press. The Times article of 19 February accordingly also stated: ‘So far as our front is concerned, especial attention is being given to sectors between Arras and St Quentin.’
Gough was not the subtlest of generals, and after Passchendaele morale in 5th Army was not the highest. In consequence, and also because 5th Army was relatively weak in numbers, Gough did not arrange his defences in the sort of depth that the Germans had at Third Ypres, and which Haig himself had stipulated. Gough appears to have believed rather more in the inherent superiority of a strongly held front line, and also that his infantry lacked the capacity for counter-moves under fire if held back in depth. Besides, GHQ’s intelligence assessment was that the Germans had stood on the defensive for so long, and taken such a beating at Passchendaele, that they had lost the edge in offensive spirit. Consequently, nine out of ten of Gough’s battalions were disposed within 3,000 yards of the front line – well within range of field artillery, and liable to be over-run or bypassed before they could adjust.
It was at this point of junction between 5th Army and the French that Ludendorff chose to strike – with the army group of the Crown Prince. As late as 16 March, however, GHQ was sure that ‘no significant attack is expected south of the Bapaume–Cambrai road’. A week’s shelling across the whole allied front had given nothing away, and nor would its sequel in the five days following.
Then, at 4.40 a.m. on 21 March, a massive bombardment – the new German technique of the Feuerwaltz (fire-waltz), a mixed bombardment of high explosives, smoke, tear gas and poison gas – was opened on the foremost trenches and artillery positions along 40 miles and more of 3rd and 5th Armies’ front. Operation Michael (after the archangel depicted in Christian iconography in armour with fiery sword in hand, trampling a dragon), the first phase of die Kaiserschlacht had begun. At nine o’clock, Hartwig Pohlmann, an officer in the 36th (Prussian) Division, left his dug-out after what he described as ‘a little breakfast’ ready for the advance, but could see nothing. ‘It was thick fog. I thought, how can we attack in this?’
At 9.35, the creeping barrage began and Pohlmann told his soldiers
to hang on with one hand to the belt of the man in front, but they couldn’t do that for long because the ground was very rough and we had to creep through barbed wire. So soon there was a pell-mell, but everyone knew that they had to go straight on … As we advanced through the fog we suddenly heard guns firing behind us. We realised we had come out behind a British battery … One of my men laid a hand on the shoulder of the British officers and said, ‘Cease fire.’ They were stunned.
If Pohlmann’s recollections were coloured by the years, they certainly illustrate the confusion into which 5th Army was thrown that morning. In just five hours, the Germans had fired a million shells at 5th Army’s sector – over 3,000 a minute. The British line began to collapse, though there were many stubborn – heroic – pockets of resistance. Near St-Quentin, the 16th Manchesters, a ‘New Army’ battalion, were holding the line at what became known as Manchester Hill. Their commanding officer was Lieutenant-Colonel Wilfrith Elstob, who was not yet thirty. A parson’s son from Sussex, Elstob had been commissioned in the first wave of volunteers in 1914 and promoted successively within the same battalion. He had told his men: ‘Here we fight, and here we die.’ The citation for his posthumous VC, won that day, ran:
For most conspicuous bravery, devotion to duty and self-sacrifice … During the preliminary bombardment he encouraged his men in the posts in the Redoubt by frequent visits, and when repeated attacks developed controlled the defence at the points threatened, giving personal support with revolver, rifle and bombs. Single-handed he repulsed one bombing assault driving back the enemy and inflicting severe casualties. Later, when ammunition was required, he made several journeys under severe fire in order to replenish the supply. Throughout the day Lieutenant-Colonel Elstob, although twice wounded, showed the most fearless disregard of his own safety, and by his encouragement and noble example inspired his command to the fullest degree. The Manchester Redoubt was surrounded in the first wave of the enemy attack, but by means of the buried cable Lieutenant-Colonel Elstob was able to assure his Brigade Commander that ‘The Manchester Regiment will defend Manchester Hill to the last.’ Sometime after this post was overcome by vastly superior forces, and this very gallant officer was killed in the final assault, having maintained to the end the duty which he had impressed on his men … He set throughout the highest example of valour, determination, endurance and fine soldierly bearing.
At two o’clock Gough gave the order to ‘give ground’ – to begin fighting a delaying action while the heavier guns were pulled back to escape capture. Soon, however, under the continued pressure of the Sturm troops and the sheer weight of artillery fire, 5th Army was in full retreat. By nightfall, after the Germans had fired some 3.2 million artillery and mortar rounds – at that time the greatest bombardment in history – the rearmost lines had been breached in several places, and the defenders south of St-Quentin driven right out. Within twenty-four hours the Germans would take nearly 150 square miles of the Western Front in some of the most spectacular advances of the war. It was not without cost, however: they had suffered some 40,000 casualties. British casualties were roughly the same, including 21,000 taken prisoner.
A young officer in the 2nd Yorkshire Regiment (Green Howards), Herbert Read – later Sir Herbert Read, the art critic and writer, and one of the thirteen war poets commemorated by name in Westminster Abbey – described in a letter to his future wife the frantic days that followed:
We were rushed up to the line in the early hours of the morning, and from then and for six days and nights we were fighting as I never dreamt I would fight – without sleep – often without food and all the time besieged by hordes of the Boche. The Colonel was wounded during the second day and I had to take command of the battalion. We were surrounded in our original position and had to fight our way through. We took up position after position, always to be surrounded. On the whole the men were splendid and there were many fine cases of heroism. But our casualties were very heavy and we who have come through may thank our lucky stars eternally.
One of the thirteen poets who did not come through was Private Isaac Rosenberg. In 1915 he had enlisted in a ‘Bantam battalion’ consisting of men under the minimum (in 1914) height of 5 feet 3 inches. The Bantams were originally intended not for combat but for labour and support duties. Such had been the losses the previous year, however, that in March 1918 Rosenberg found himself with the 1st King’s Own, a pre-war regular battalion, and on 1 April this diminutive Jewish infantryman from the East End was killed during night fighting near Arras. The American literary critic and Second World War infantry officer Paul Fussell would call Rosenberg’s ‘Break of Day in the Trenches’ the greatest poem of the war.
Although there would be recriminations, 5th Army put up as much of a fight as could reasonably be expected in the circumstances. A German report stated: ‘The [British] 7th Corps covered the retreat of the main body even to the extent of being destroyed itself.’ Gough, however, would pay the price, not least because in part the circumstances were of his making. He was relieved of command on 28 March and replaced by Henry Rawlinson, brought back from Versailles.
At the end of December, Haig had told General Pershing that the crisis of the war would come in April. At the end of March, the crisis looked as if it were already come.