HISTORICAL NOTE

There was no 20th Royal Scots and no Lieutenant Douglas Ramsay. However the German advance of March 1918 occurred and pushed the British Army back as far as forty miles. This was a major success in the First World War where advances were frequently measured in hundreds of yards rather than miles. The March Offensive, Operation Michael was also the beginning of the end of the trench warfare that had typified the war in France and Flanders since the autumn of 1914.

The Germans commenced their attack with a targeted five hour bombardment that was one of the heaviest of the war. General Erich Ludendorff had 72 divisions against the 26 British infantry and three British cavalry, although the French supplied a further 23 divisions in the latter stages of the battle. The Germans used infiltration tactics with storm troopers and flame throwers, aided by a thick fog and a lack of British manpower. They penetrated the British forward positions and pushed them back miles in some of the fastest advances of the entire war.

The British retreat was over the old battle ground of the Somme, a place of terrible memories. The battle, or rather series of battles, lasted well into April, when the heat went out of the German attack. The Germans did capture the town of Albert, and their advance was delayed by indiscriminate looting and British machine gun ambushes. The final stage of this phase of the German attack on the British 5th Army was an attack on Amiens, which the British and Australians repulsed. The Germans then turned their attention to the Third Army to the north.

These German attacks were their last of the war. Once the allies had held the line, they consolidated and went on the offensive. The British victory of Amiens in August was called the Black Day of the German Army and after that the Allies were on the offensive until the Armistice of 11 November 1918.

Malcolm Archibald

Pluscarden

January 2014.