However, Ludendorff’s plans failed. As in 1914, German supply columns could not keep pace with the speed of the advancing troops. Without adequate supplies the German armies were unable to fight effectively, in contrast to the Blitzkrieg of 1940 when motorised supply transport was able to keep up with rapidly advancing troops and ensure their effectiveness.
Another significant factor was the entry of the powerful American armies into the fight. Their contribution to the final phase of the war was far greater than anything the Russians might have contributed if they had still been fighting with the Allies. Soon, the shift in the balance of power began to have effect. The German front line soldiers began to tire, and the Allies, now reinforced with American troops, finally halted the German offensives. By mid-June, the Germans had been stopped only 37 miles from Paris.
There were two other flaws in Operation Michael that contributed to its failure. First, Ludendorff did not concentrate his troops in a drive towards Amiens. Ludendorff pursued one general movement, although he allowed his three armies to advance separately which resulted in their becoming increasingly weakened as they moved forward. Secondly, the German advance effectively led them into a bulge with strong Allied forces attacking from the outside. Ludendorff’s excitement over his apparent success led him into the error of continuing the attack even when threatened by heavy opposition.
In the end this plan in fact horribly backfired and caused the allies to unite under a new Supreme Allied Commander named General Foch. It also meant that the arriving American forces hurried their reinforcement of the Allied lines. Although Foch was never able to exercise complete control over the army commanders he did control the reserves and was able to use them in the most effective way strategically even where that did not suit the short term needs of his subordinate commanders. More specifically he allowed the Germans to advance without expending his reserves, meaning that when the German advance halted there were fresh reserves, who would be more effective in battle. This also meant that the Germans, having advanced further would be weary through prolonged combat.
The Spring Offensives were costly to both the Germans and the Allies. Germany also had to endure the crippling naval blockade by the Royal Navy on Germany’s home ports that decreased food supplies and civilian morale. Unlike the newly reinforced Allies, Germany could not replace its casualties, which gave an obvious advantage on the front lines.
On the 8th of August the Allied counter-offensive began, under the new leadership of Foch, in the Second battle of the Somme. The first British attack was headed by over 400 tanks including new, quicker ‘Whippet’ light tanks and air support. The attack was a complete success, with some German units reporting almost complete ‘annihilation’ of the German defending divisions. General Ludendorff later described 8th August as ‘a black day of the German Army in the history of this war’. It was during these offensives that Allied commanders learnt the tactic of attacking the weak points in the line, whereas they had been attacking the strong points, inflicting high casualties on their own men for very little gain.
There was then a succession of short and sharp attacks from the Allied Troops that successfully pushed the Germans back. On the 21st August the British Third Army attacked between Arras and Albert, though success was limited at first due to the caution exercised by the Third Army. Soon, however, the attack was joined by the British Fourth Army; the Somme battlefield was taken within the matter of a weekend. Five days later it was the British First Army that attacked German positions on the River Scarpe. Soon New Zealanders and Australians brought rapid successes to this impressive tally.
It was this rapid succession of blows that began to wear down the German army both physically and emotionally. It was now clear that the allied strategy was to launch limited and separate attacks all along the front, rather than the German approach of using a single movement for all of its forces, as in Operation Michael. In early September the first all American attack was launched at St Mihiel under General Pershing. By late September some allied forces had begun to penetrate the Hindenburg line. Soon the armies under Haig’s control had broken up the Hindenburg line.
The German High command was now panicking, due to the success of the Allied counter-attacks and news of the surrender of Germany’s allies Bulgaria and Turkey. Indeed, Germany had been let down by its allies during the First world War. They were constantly having to lend support to their allies to prevent defeat, but now had no allies left. The Austro-Hungarians were beaten at Vittorio Veneto by the Italians. The Bulgarians were beaten in Greece by a French force under Franchet d’Esperey, signing an armistice on 29th September. Finally, the Turks were beaten by a British force under a General Allenby in Palestine.
Meanwhile there was unrest in Germany itself. By early 1918, support for the Kaiser was deteriorating. The conditions that the German people were suffering were terrible. Food shortages meant that many people were starving to death, both at home and at the front. The food shortages had been a problem since 1915, and by 1918 people were living on a food called ‘potato-flocken’, a mixture of dried potato parings that had to be soaked overnight before consumption. A terrible wave of Spanish Influenza had hit Germany and was killing thousands due to the already awful living conditions. ‘One of the most terrible of our many sufferings was having to sit in the dark. It became dark at four…. It was not light until eight ‘o’ clock. Even the children could not sleep all that time. And when they had gone to bed we were left shivering from the chill which comes from semi-starvation and which no extra clothing seems to relieve.’ The people of Germany wanted an end to the war as soon as possible, whatever the outcome.
A defeat by the British navy at Jutland meant that the German ships were stuck in port for most of the war, and problems began to arise with the sailors. Their officers treated them like animals and Bolshevik ideals were spreading rapidly and taking over any patriotic ideology. On 28th October 1918, the sailors in the port of Kiel were told they would sail off to fight the British navy in a last-gasp attempt for victory. The sailors could see that there was no real objective in this exercise, and therefore they did not follow the orders, but instead they mutinied. The sailors started fires in the boiler rooms aboard two of the ships in the port of Kiel. Six-hundred were arrested but their fellow sailors protested and the mutiny spread. They overthrew their officers and took command of the port, and it is here that we can trace the origins of the revolution in Germany. The mutiny spread to other nearby ports as hundreds of sailors and workers joined the protest. The mutiny moved inland and areas of Saxony and Bavaria became Independent Socialist Republics. These situations brought more worry to German command and forced them closer to surrender.
Ludendorff had long realised the dire situation that Germany was in and had called for an immediate armistice. Soon, the situation grew worse, and so Hindenburg and Ludendorff sent a document to the Reichstag telling them that:
‘…each new day that passes brings the enemy nearer to his goal, and makes him less ready to conclude a reasonable peace with us. We must accordingly lose no time. Every 24 hours that pass may make our position worse…’
The lies that had been told by the High command of German success very suddenly became apparent. Soon Prince Max, the new German Chancellor, sent a document to President Woodrow Wilson asking for an armistice based on his ‘Fourteen Points’. The German request for the armistice caught many in the Allied chain of command by surprise, for example Winston Churchill and Sir Henry Wilson were hastily drawing up plans for the offensives of 1919. Soon the Kaiser had abdicated and fled to Holland. On the 11th November an armistice was signed and on this note the bloody and horrific Great War was ended.
We can see here that there were many factors that contributed to the German defeat in 1918. The failure of Operation Michael was an important point in the weakening of German forces and aided the ensuing Allied counter-attack, which was in fact successful. These factors along with the internal disruptions in Germany led to a breakdown in the German command. This I think is the key issue in the German defeat and indeed for many years German historians claimed that the army had been ‘stabbed in the back’ by its commanders. The Allied offensive had finished far from Germany and so it would seem that the German fighting spirit was lost; causing the panic in the German command. The other factors that I have mentioned in the essay mainly contributed to the afore mentioned points, for example the entry of the USA aided the stand against Operation Michael and aided the counter-offensive that followed. The failure of Germany’s allies precipitated the collapse of German High Command.
