A hundred years ago, on November 11, 1918, an armistice was signed in the Compiegne forest, according to which Germany actually admitted defeat in the First World War. This event was the result of a series of operations undertaken by the Entente forces, known as the Hundred Day Offensive. It all started with a strike near Amiens.
In the fall of 1914, when German troops were unable to quickly defeat France, the war on the Western Front took on a dismal positional character. The term "dull" in this case does not mean "calm", since the opponents constantly exchanged blows, formed in a series of bloody meat grinders. A 1-2 kilometer advance was paid for with thousands of corpses. Artillery plowed the ground, tested all kinds of technical innovations, including aviation, tanks and poisonous gases. However, the changes in the general configuration of the front were negligible.
Here comes "Mikael" …
There was no way out of the positional impasse until the United States entered the war on the side of the Entente. However, the American commander in Europe John Pershing was going to strike at the enemy only when the number of his contingent reached "at least 2.5 million … Otherwise, it is not worth starting." Meanwhile, by July 1918, there were about a million American troops in Europe, and a total of 1.3 million took part in the hostilities. In general, the British and French of Pershing would listen - they would have fought until 1920. If, of course, the Germans allowed them.
The Germans, of course, were not going to wait until all the Americans arrived in France. Their plans boiled down to making the most of Russia's withdrawal from the war, deploying an additional 44 divisions from east to west for a decisive strike.
Quartermaster General of the German Armed Forces Erich Ludendorff developed the so-called "Spring Offensive" (codenamed "Mikael"), planning to inflict several diversionary strikes and one main one - in order to encircle and defeat the British contingent. If successful, the defense of the Entente would have collapsed in the section from the English Channel to the Somme and the German troops would have rushed victoriously towards Paris.
The "Spring Offensive" began on March 21, 1918, reduced to traditional meat grinders. True, some semblance of light at the end of the tunnel for the Germans nevertheless dawned, when, having won victories at Fox and Aisin, they were able to approach Paris by 56 kilometers.
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Second as first
As in early September 1914, the German troops went to the river they remember. The second battle on the Marne broke out, ending the same way as the first.
Everything went awry after the artillery preparation carried out on the morning of July 15. The entire line of defense along which the German guns were fired turned out to be fake. Going into the attack, the German infantry buried themselves in real positions, which were unrealistic to take without artillery preparation. And the cannons ran out of shells. Slow gnawing at the defense began again, which looked hopeless given the Germans' shortage of human reserves.
The Entente manpower reserves were also running out, but at least they had hope in the United States. Despite the opposition of Pershing, who wanted to wait until all 2.5 million (or better 4 million) were gathered, several American divisions were pushed to the front line. One of them in the morning of July 15 came under fire from gas shells. About a thousand people were poisoned, although only six died.
On the same day, the son of former US President Quentin Roosevelt, who served in aviation, died. They said that, suffering from myopia, he mistakenly joined not his own, but the enemy's squadron. The next day, Hermann Goering won his 22nd aerial victory, receiving a ten-day vacation. His victim was one of the planes that bombed the bridge, which the German infantry tried to build across the Marne. In this sector, the 3rd American Division held fast. Even an Italian division arrived to reinforce the allies from the Apennines, successfully defending the city of Nanteuil-Pursi.
Finally, the German advance on the Marne stalled after Foch launched a large-scale counteroffensive on a front of 400 kilometers on 18 July. In one day, the Allies advanced seven kilometers, and German Chancellor Georg von Gertling wrote in his diary: “On the 18th, even the most optimistic of us knew that everything was lost. The whole world history was replayed in three days."
On the last day of the operation, 23 July, the British took 2,000 prisoners on the Somme. The poorly sleeping Kaiser complained that in his sleep numerous relatives from different royal houses of Europe appeared to him in turn and expressed their contempt. Only the Norwegian Queen Maud for some reason was supportive of him.
Preparing for a counterstrike
Foch, meanwhile, was preparing to launch a strategic offensive. The idea was to strike at a bulge in the
Amiens area that was cutting into the Allied line of defense, and then attack in other sectors and gradually push the enemy, preventing him from gaining a foothold on the new line of defense.
In the British sector of the front, it was supposed to involve five Australian, four Canadian, three British and one American divisions. The French entered into battle 12 divisions.
Ludendorff felt an imminent threat, but said: "The situation demands that we, on the one hand, go over to the defensive, and on the other, as soon as the opportunity presents itself, we would again take the offensive." As a result, the Germans did not really succeed in either defense or offensive.
This duality was alien to the Allies. They were preparing precisely for a breakthrough of the enemy's defense, making full use of all available technical resources - artillery, tanks, aircraft. In terms of artillery, the opposing German units were three times inferior, in aircraft - 19.
It was assumed that on the first day, the British 4th Army, supported by the left-flank 31st corps of the French 1st Army, would attack a 25-kilometer section of the front, after which the 3rd and the main forces of the 1st French armies would go into battle.
For greater surprise, it was decided to abandon artillery preparation in principle, hoping to compensate for such self-limitation with the maximum number of tanks. The time gap between the start of the British and French attacks was limited to 45 minutes.
In the British sector, Australian units have constantly started small skirmishes since the end of April and have advanced several tens of meters. It looked like it was not serious, but by the day of the offensive, the main line of the German defense actually did not have a pre-field and the distance that the attacker had to cover turned out to be minimal. The aircraft not only fought in the air, but also made aerial photography, so that the enemy defensive zone was scanned almost to the centimeter.
To combat German aerial reconnaissance, the airspace was constantly patrolled by aviation. Of course, the German agents in the rear were not idle either, and half-empty echelons were widely used for their disinformation, simulating the delivery of reserves to other sectors of the front (in the Ypres region). It was more difficult to carry out such manipulations with artillery, so the guns were delivered to their original positions 2-3 days before the offensive.
Thundering fire, sparkling with the brilliance of steel …
The allied command took into account the successful experience of the Brusilov breakthrough. About a third of the guns provided a barrage of fire directly on the line of enemy defense, and the rest fired at enemy command posts, firing points, as well as communications intended for the approach of reserves. Three minutes after the start of the attack, when the attackers had to approach the enemy trenches, the barrage was moved a hundred meters ahead. The next transfers were carried out at intervals of two, three, and four minutes, assuming that the enemy would bring reserves to the threatened areas.
According to the schedule, it was planned to break through the first line of defense at 6:20 - two hours after the start of the offensive. Further, the allies were to gain a foothold on the occupied lines, bring up artillery and tanks, and at 8:20 am resume the assault to break through the second and third lines of defense. With the arrival of the infantry on the line 9-12 kilometers from the starting position, a cavalry corps was introduced to expand the breakthrough.
The German command, in essence, overlooked the concentration of the allied strike grouping, probably because it was too busy thinking - to continue the offensive or to sit down in defense? But on the other side of the front, even at the grassroots level, they understood that a decisive battle was coming.
On the evening of August 7, Canadian Lieutenant Headley Goodyear wrote to his mother: “Tomorrow there will be a blow that should mark the beginning of a decisive turn of events. I will fight for freedom together with thousands of others who do not think about personal safety when freedom is at stake."
The elder brother of the author of the letter died in 1916 on the Somme, another brother, Stanley, in 1917 at Ypres. The next day, Headley was the only remaining officer in the battalion, but his division was able to advance 10 kilometers in two days, capturing 12 villages and five thousand prisoners.
We've reached our limit
At 4:20 a.m. on 8 August, volleys of guns heralded the start of the war's most successful Allied offensive on the Western Front.
To help the attackers there was a fog that limited visibility to 10-15 meters: it is quite enough for the Canadians and Australians who jumped out of it to jerk the distance to the German trenches.
Lieutenant Goodyear recalled: “I had eight machine guns and over a hundred of the world's finest soldiers. I decided that the moment had come for an attack, gave orders, and the guys rushed forward with bayonets at the ready … I did not spare anyone. It was only when they stopped resisting that I didn’t have the heart to continue killing them.”
Tanks followed the advancing infantry, watering the Germans with machine guns and ironing the trenches.
After 45 minutes, the French took over. In general, the whole operation developed clearly about the schedule. Two hours later - the first line, a two-hour pull-up of artillery and reserves, then a new dash. The offensive came to a standstill only after reaching the third line of defense by 13:30. But all the same, the general situation for the Germans looked completely dull. The Allies lost less than nine thousand people, the Germans (the defending side) - three times more.
For the first time in the entire war, the Germans began to surrender en masse. Coordination between divisions was disrupted. Summing up, Ludendorff concluded: "August 8, 1918 represents the darkest day of the German army in the history of World War II."
But even the next day brought little comfort to the Germans. True, by regrouping the artillery, they were able to inflict heavy losses on the tanks. By the end of the offensive, out of 420 vehicles, only 38 remained in operation. However, the offensive, albeit at a slower pace, continued. The Australians occupied seven villages, taking about eight thousand prisoners. There was more crap than real action from the only American division. The crossing along the tied trunks of trees across a river 1.5 meters deep was presented as a great success.
In the evening, the Kaiser said to Ludendorff: “We have reached the limit of our capabilities. The war must be ended. " Ludendorff did not argue, but was determined to fight, which he said, not to the Kaiser, but to one of his colleagues: "We are no longer able to win this war, but we must not lose it."
On August 10, 24 thousand German servicemen surrendered. When new units approached the front line, instead of greetings, the veterans shouted: "What do you want, continuers of the war?"
By the end of August 12, the Germans had been driven to the Albert, Brae, Sean line, west of Roy, and the next morning the offensive ceased. It's time to take stock.
On average, the Allies advanced 11 kilometers. The Canadians achieved the greatest successes (13 kilometers), but they also suffered the greatest losses - 9,100 people, compared with seven thousand for the British and Americans and six thousand for the Australians. The French lost 24 thousand.
For the Germans, the situation looked depressing, especially since out of 82 thousand people, almost half were prisoners. In strategic terms, the Amiens ledge was cut off, and the threat to the Amiens-Paris railway was eliminated.
Local battles continued on the flanks of the territory recaptured from the Germans, and in parallel preparations for new operations to the north and south of the Somme were carried out. The order to the German troops read: "Not an inch of land should be left without a fierce struggle." There was no more talk of an offensive.
At the meeting held on August 13 in Spa, all those present agreed with this - both Ludendorff, and Gertling, and the head of the German Foreign Ministry Hinze, and the emperor of the allied Austria-Hungary, Charles I. However, everything was crossed out by the chief of the German General Staff Paul von Hindenburg, who insisted that without an impressive " otvetki "the allies will not be able to achieve an honorable peace. The already lost war continued for another three months.
Dmitry MITYURIN