World War I (1914-1918)
Operation Michael
Operation Michael was a major German military offensive during the First World War that began the Spring Offensive on 21 March 1918. It was launched from the Hindenburg Line, in the vicinity of Saint-Quentin, France. Its goal was to break through the Allied (Entente) lines and advance in a north-westerly direction to seize the Channel ports, which supplied the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and to drive the BEF into the sea. Two days later General Ludendorff, the chief of the German General Staff, changed his plan and pushed for an offensive due west, along the whole of the British front north of the River Somme. This was designed to separate the French and British Armies and crush the British
The British Empire, was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. At its height it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. By the start of the 20th century, Germany and the United States had begun to challenge Britain's economic lead. forces by pushing them into the sea. The offensive ended at Villers-Bretonneux, to the east of the Allied communications centre at Amiens, where the Allies managed to halt the German advance; the German Armies had suffered many casualties and were unable to maintain supplies to the advancing troops.
Much of the ground fought over was the wilderness left by the Battle of the Somme in 1916. The action was therefore officially named by the British Battles Nomenclature Committee as The First Battles of the Somme, 1918, whilst the French call it the Second Battle of Picardy (2ème Bataille de Picardie). The failure of the offensive marked the beginning of the end of the First World War
World War I, also known as the First World War, or the Great War, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilized in one of the largest wars in history. The war drew in all the world's economic great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. View World War I » for Germany
The German Empire, also referred to as Imperial Germany, the Second Reich, as well as simply Germany, was the period of the German Reich from the unification of Germany in 1871 until the November Revolution in 1918, when the German Reich changed its form of government from a monarchy to a republic. During its 47 years of existence, the German Empire became the industrial, technological, and scientific giant of Europe. . The arrival in France
French Third Republic was the system of government adopted in France from 4 September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War, until 10 July 1940, after the Fall of France during World War II led to the formation of the Vichy government. During the 19th and 20th centuries, the French colonial empire was the second largest colonial empire in the world only behind the British Empire. of large reinforcements from the United States replaced Entente casualties but the German Army was unable to recover from its losses before these reinforcements took the field. Operation Michael failed to achieve its objectives and the German advance was reversed during the Second Battle of the Somme, 1918 (21 August – 3 September) in the Allied Hundred Days Offensive.
Strategic Developments
On 11 November 1917, the German High Command (Oberste Heeresleitung, OHL) discussed what they hoped would be a decisive offensive on the Western Front the following spring. Their target was the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), commanded by Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, which they believed had been exhausted by the battles in 1917 at Arras, Messines, Passchendaele and Cambrai. A decision to attack was taken by General Erich Ludendorff on 21 January 1918. At the start of 1918, the German people were close to starvation and growing tired of the war. By mid-February 1918, while Germany was negotiating the Russian
Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. The rise of the Russian Empire coincided with the decline of neighbouring rival powers: the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Qajar Iran, the Ottoman Empire, and Qing China. Russia remains the third-largest empire in history, surpassed only by the British Empire and the Mongol Empire. surrender and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Ludendorff had moved nearly 50 divisions from the east, so that on the Western Front, Germany's troops outnumbered those of the Allied armies. Germany had 192 divisions and three brigades on the Western Front by 21 March, out of 241 in the German Army. Of these divisions, 110 were in the front line, 50 of which faced the shorter British front. Another 67 divisions were in reserve, with 31 facing the BEF. By May 1918, 318,000 American soldiers were due in France, with another million planned to arrive before August. The Germans knew that the only chance of victory was to defeat the Allies before the build-up of the American
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country in North America. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. The United States shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south. The national capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city and financial center is New York City. Expeditionary Force (AEF) was complete.
The German strategy for the 1918 Spring Offensive or Kaiserschlacht (Kaiser's Battle), involved four offensives, Michael, Georgette, Gneisenau and Blücher–Yorck. Michael took place on the Somme and then Georgette was conducted on the Lys and at Ypres, which was planned to confuse the enemy. Blücher took place against the French in the Champagne region. Although British intelligence knew that a German offensive was being prepared, this far-reaching plan was much more ambitious than Allied commanders expected. Ludendorff aimed to advance across the Somme, then wheel north-west, to cut the British lines of communication behind the Artois front, trapping the BEF in Flanders. Allied forces would be drawn away from the Channel ports, which were essential for British supply; the Germans could then attack these ports and other lines of communication. The British would be surrounded and surrender.
The British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, had agreed that the BEF would take over more of the front line, at the Boulogne Conference, against military advice, after which the British line was extended. The "line", taken over from the French, barely existed, needing much work to make it easily defensible to the positions further north, which slowed progress in the area of the Fifth Army (General Hubert Gough). During the winter of 1917–1918, the new British line was established in an arc around St. Quentin, by many small unit actions among the ruined villages in the area. There were many isolated outposts, gaps in the line and large areas of disputed territory and waste land. These positions were slowly improved by building the new three-zone system of defence in depth but much of the work was performed by infantry working-parties. Most of the redoubts in the battle zone were complete by March 1918 but the rear zone was still under construction.
The BEF had been reorganised due to a lack of infantry replacements; divisions were reduced from twelve to nine battalions, on the model established by the German and French armies earlier in the war. It was laid down that the senior regular and first-line territorial battalions were to be retained, in preference to the higher-numbered second-line territorial and New Army battalions. Second-line territorial and New Army divisions were badly disrupted, having in some cases to disband half of their battalions, to make way for units transferred from regular or first-line territorial divisions. Battalions had an establishment of 1,000 men but some had fewer than 500 men, due to casualties and sickness during the winter.
Tactical Developments
The German army trained using open-warfare tactics which had proved effective on the Eastern Front, particularly at the Battle of Riga in 1917. The Germans had developed Stormtroop (Stoßtruppen) units, elite infantry which used infiltration tactics, operating in small groups that advanced quickly by exploiting gaps and weak defences. Stoßtruppen by-passed heavily defended areas, which follow-up infantry units could deal with once they were isolated, and occupied territory rapidly to disrupt communication by attacking enemy headquarters, artillery units and supply depots in the rear. Each division transferred its best and fittest soldiers into storm units, from which several new divisions were formed. This process gave the German army an initial advantage in the attack but meant that the best troops would suffer disproportionate casualties, while the quality of the men in reserve declined.
Developments in artillery tactics were also influential. Ludendorff was able to dispense with slow destructive and wire-cutting bombardments by using the large number of artillery pieces and mortars to fire "hurricane" bombardments concentrated on artillery and machine-gun positions, headquarters, telephone exchanges, railways and communication centres. There were three phases to the bombardment: a brief fire on command and communications, then a destructive counter-battery bombardment and then bombardment of front-line positions. The deep bombardment aimed to knock out the opponent's ability to respond; it lasted only a few hours to retain surprise, before the infantry attacked behind a creeping barrage. Such artillery tactics had been made possible by the vast numbers of accurate heavy guns and large stocks of ammunition that Germany had deployed on the Western Front by 1918.
An officer of the 51st (Highland) Division wrote,
"The year 1917 ... closed in an atmosphere of depression. Most divisions on the Western front had been engaged continuously in offensive operations ... all were exhausted ... and weakened." The last German offensive on the Western Front, before the Cambrai Gegenschlag (counter-stroke) of December 1917, had been against the French at Verdun, giving the British commanders little experience in defence. The development of a deep defence system of zones and trench lines by the Germans during 1917, had led the British to adopt a similar system of defence in depth. This reduced the proportion of troops in the front line, which was lightly held by snipers, patrols and machine-gun posts and concentrated reserves and supply dumps to the rear, away from German artillery. British divisions arranged their nine infantry battalions in the forward and battle zones according to local conditions and the views of commanders; about 1⁄3 of the infantry battalions of the Fifth Army and a similar number in the Third Army held the forward zone.
The Forward Zone was organised in three lines to a depth depending on the local terrain. The first two lines were not held continuously, particularly in the Fifth Army area, where they were in isolated outpost groups in front of an irregular line of supporting posts. The third line was a series of small redoubts for two or four platoons. Posts and redoubts were sited so that intervening ground could be swept by machine-gun and rifle-fire or from machine-guns adjacent to the redoubts. Defence of the Forward Zone depended on fire-power rather than large numbers of troops but in the Fifth Army area a lack of troops meant that the zone was too weak to be able to repulse a large attack. The Battle Zone was also usually organised in three defensive systems, front, intermediate and rear, connected by communication trenches and switch lines, with the defenders concentrated in centres of resistance rather than in continuous lines. About 36 of the 110 infantry and pioneer battalions of the Fifth Army held the Forward Zone. Artillery, trench mortars and machine-guns were also arranged in depth, in positions chosen to allow counter-battery fire, harassing fire on transport routes, fire on assembly trenches and to be able to fire barrages along the front of the British positions at the first sign of attack. Artillery positions were also chosen to offer cover and concealment, with alternative positions on the flanks and to the rear. About 2⁄3 of the artillery was in the Battle Zone, with a few guns further forward and some batteries were concealed and forbidden to fire before the German offensive began.
German Offensive Preparations
The Germans chose to attack the sector around St. Quentin taken over by the British from February–April 1917, following the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line. Germany had begun construction of the Siegfried Stellung (Hindenburg Line) in September 1916, during the battle of the Somme. It stretched over 500 km (300 mi) from the Channel to the Moselle River and was built by Belgian and Russian prisoners of war. The strongest section was the salient at St. Quentin between Arras and Soissons. The line was 1.5 km (1 mi) deep with barbed wire in zig-zag lines of 15 m (50 ft), protecting three lines of trenches, interconnecting tunnels and strong points. In the rear were deep underground bunkers known as stollen (galleries) and artillery was hidden on reverse slopes. The Germans withdrew to this line in an operation codenamed Alberich over five weeks, during which time German High Command ordered a scorched earth policy. The ground abandoned in the retreat was laid waste, wells were poisoned, booby-traps laid and most towns and villages were destroyed.
German Plan of Attack
The attacking armies were spread along a 69-kilometre (43 mi) front between Arras, St. Quentin and La Fère. Ludendorff had assembled a force of 74 divisions, 6,600 guns, 3,500 mortars and 326 fighter aircraft, divided between the 17th Army (Otto von Below), 2nd Army (Georg von der Marwitz) of Heeresgruppe Kronprinz Rupprecht (Army Group Rupprecht of Bavaria) and the 18th Army (General Oskar von Hutier), part of Heeresgruppe Deutscher Kronprinz (Army Group German Crown Prince) and the 7th Army. The main weight of attack was between Arras and a few kilometres south of St. Quentin, where the 18th Army had 27 divisions. Forty-four divisions were allocated to Operation Michael and called mobile divisions, which were brought up to full strength in manpower and equipment. Men over 35 years old were transferred, a machine-gun unit, air support and a communications unit were added to each division and the supply and medical branches were re-equipped but a chronic shortage of horses and fodder could not be remedied. Around the new year the mobile divisions were withdrawn for training according to Der Angriff im Stellungskriege und einige Verfügungen, die in den Erfahrungen über den Angriff ihren Niederschlag finden (The Offensive in Trench Warfare and Some Regulations that reflect Lessons Learned about the Offensive).
Training emphasised rapid advance, the silencing of machine-guns and maintaining communication with the artillery, to ensure that infantry and the creeping barrage moved together. Infantry were issued with light machine-guns, mortars and rifle grenades and intensively trained. Thirty divisions were trained in the new tactics but had a lower scale of equipment than the elite divisions and the remainder were stripped of material to supply them, giving up most of their remaining draught animals. In the north, two German armies would attack either side of the Flesquières salient, created during the Battle of Cambrai. The 18th Army, transferred from the Eastern Front, planned its attack either side of St. Quentin, to divide the British and French armies. The two northern armies would then attack the British position around Arras, before advancing north-west to cut off the BEF in Flanders. In the south, it was intended to reach the Somme and then hold the line of the river against any French counter-attacks; the southern advance was extended to include an advance across the Somme.
British Defensive Preparations
In the north, the Third Army (General Julian Byng), defended the area from Arras south to the Flesquières Salient. To the south, the Fifth Army held the line down to the junction with the French at Barisis. Byng had commanded the Canadian
Canada is a country in North America. Because Britain still maintained control of Canada's foreign affairs under the British North America Act, 1867, its declaration of war in 1914 automatically brought Canada into World War I. Volunteers sent to the Western Front later became part of the Canadian Corps, which played a substantial role in the Battle of Vimy Ridge and other major engagements of the war. Corps who took Vimy Ridge at the Battle of Arras (1917) and the Battle of Cambrai (1917) and Gough had commanded the Reserve Army (renamed the Fifth Army in October 1916), which had taken over part of the Somme battlefront in July 1916. The Fifth Army held the longest front of the BEF, with twelve divisions and three cavalry divisions, 1,650 guns, 119 tanks and 357 aircraft. An average British division in 1918 consisted of 11,800 men, 3,670 horses and mules, 48 artillery pieces, 36 mortars, 64 Vickers heavy machine guns, 144 Lewis light machine-guns, 770 carts and wagons, 360 motorcycles and bicycles, 14 trucks, cars and 21 motorised ambulances.
In the Weekly Intelligence Summary of 10 March 1918, British intelligence predicted a German offensive in the Arras–St. Quentin area based on air reconnaissance photographs and the testimony of deserters; the prediction was reiterated in the next summary on 17 March. Allied aircraft had photographed German preparations, new supply roads had been constructed and shell craters had been turned into concealed trench mortar batteries. Heavily laden motorised and horse-drawn transports had been seen heading into St. Quentin from the east, and in the distance German officers were observed studying British lines. The British replied with nightly bombardments of the German front line, rear areas and possible assembly areas. A few days before the attack, two German deserters slipped through No Man's Land and surrendered to the 107th Brigade. They spoke of troops, batteries of artillery and trench mortars massing on the German front. They reported massed trench mortars directly in front of 36th Division lines for wire cutting and an artillery bombardment, lasting several hours, as a preliminary to an infantry assault.
The war diary of the 9th (Service) Battalion, Royal Irish Fusiliers describes their activities from 18–20 March as being intensive training during the day, with specialist training in the evening. During the night of 20 March, troops of the 61st (2nd South Midland) Division conducted a raid on German positions and took more prisoners, who told them that the offensive would be launched the following morning. The Fifth Army defences which were still incomplete, the Rear Zone existed as outline markings only and the Battle Zone consisted of battalion "redoubts" that were not mutually supporting and vulnerable to German troops infiltrating between them. The British ordered an intermittent bombardment of German lines and likely assembly areas at 03:30 and a gas discharge on the 61st Division front. At 04:40 a huge German barrage began along all the Fifth Army front and most of the front of the Third Army.
Battles
1918 March
- Battle of St. Quentin 21–23 March: Trench mortars, mustard gas, chlorine gas, tear gas and smoke canisters were concentrated on the forward trenches, while heavy artillery bombarded rear areas to destroy Allied artillery and supply lines.
- Actions at the Somme Crossings 24–25 March: By now, the front line was badly fragmented and highly fluid, as the remnants of the divisions of the Fifth Army were fighting and moving in small bodies, often composed of men of different units.
- First Battle of Bapaume 24–25 March: After three days the infantry was exhausted and the advance bogged down, as it became increasingly difficult to move artillery and supplies over the Somme battlefield of 1916 and the wasteland of the 1917 German retreat to the Hindenburg Line.
- Battle of Rosières 26–27 March: French forces on the extreme right (south) of the line under the command of General Fayolle were defeated and fell back in the face of protracted fighting; serious gaps appeared between the retreating groups.
- First Battle of Arras 28 March: The focus of the German attack changed again on 28 March. The Third Army, around Arras, that would be the target of Operation Mars. Twenty-nine divisions attacked the Third Army and were repulsed.
1918 April
- Battle of the Avre 4 April 1918: The final German attack was launched towards Amiens. It came on 4 April, when fifteen divisions attacked seven Allied divisions on a line east of Amiens and north of Albert (towards the Avre River).
- Battle of the Ancre 5 April: An attempt by the Germans to renew the offensive on 5 April failed and by early morning, the British had forced the enemy out of all but the south-eastern corner of the town. German progress towards Amiens had reached its furthest westward point and Ludendorff terminated the offensive.
Aftermath
Analysis
The Germans had captured 3,100 km2 (1,200 sq mi) of France and advanced up to 65 km (40 mi) but they had not achieved any of their strategic objectives. Over 75,000 British soldiers had been taken prisoner and 1,300 artillery pieces and 200 tanks were lost. It was of little military value with the casualties suffered by the German elite troops and the failure to capture Amiens and Arras. The captured ground was hard to move over and difficult to defend, as much of it was of the shell-torn wilderness left by the 1916 Battle of the Somme. Elsewhere the transport infrastructure had been demolished and wells poisoned during the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line in March 1917. The initial German jubilation at the successful opening of the offensive soon turned to disappointment as it became clear that the attack had not been decisive. Marix Evans wrote in 2002, that the magnitude of the Allied defeat was not decisive, because reinforcements were arriving in large numbers, that by 6 April the BEF would have received 1,915 new guns, British machine-gun production was 10,000 per month and tank output 100 per month. The appointment of Foch as Generalissimo at the Doullens Conference had created formal unity of command in the Allied forces.
Casualties
In the British Official History (1935) Davies, Edmonds and Maxwell-Hyslop wrote that the Allies lost c. 255,000 men of which the British suffered 177,739 killed, wounded and missing, 90,882 of them in the Fifth Army and 78,860 in the Third Army, of whom c. 15,000 died, many with no known grave. The greatest losses were to 36th (Ulster) Division, with 7,310 casualties, the 16th (Irish) Division, with 7,149 casualties and 66th (2nd East Lancashire) Division, 7,023 casualties. All three formations were destroyed and had to be taken out of the order of battle to be rebuilt. Six divisions lost more than 5,000 men. German losses were 250,000 men, many of them irreplaceable élite troops. German casualties, from 21 March – 30 April, which includes the Battle of the Lys, are given as 348,300. A comparable Allied figure over this longer period, is French: 92,004 and British: 236,300, a total of c. 328,000. In 1978 Middlebrook wrote that casualties in the 31 German divisions engaged on 21 March were c. 39,929 men and that British casualties were c. 38,512. Middlebrook also recorded c. 160,000 British casualties up to 5 April, 22,000 killed, 75,000 prisoners and 65,000 wounded; French casualties were c. 80,000 and German casualties were c. 250,000 men. In 2002, Marix Evans recorded 239,000 men, many of whom were irreplaceable Stoßtruppen; 177,739 British casualties of whom 77,000 had been taken prisoner, 77 American casualties and 77,000 French losses, 17,000 of whom were captured. The Allies also lost 1,300 guns, 2,000 machine-guns and 200 tanks. In 2004, Zabecki gave 239,800 German, 177,739 British and 77,000 French casualties.
HISTORY
RESOURCES
This article uses material from the Wikipedia articles "World War", "World War I", and "Operation Michael", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.
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