Following the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks pursued peace negotiations with the Germans which led to the signing of the Treaty of Brest Litovsk on March 2nd 1918.
In anticipation of the peace accord, the Germans had, over the winter of 1917/18, transferred more than 500,000 men from the Eastern Front to the Western Front in France and Flanders. For the first time since 1914, the Germans now had superior numbers of troops at the front and outnumbered their British and French opponents.
With an ever increasing number of American soldiers arriving in France, Hindenburg and Ludendorff, decided on one last roll of the dice. An offensive of such magnitude that it would drive a wedge between the French and British armies and bring the Allies to the negotiating table whilst the Germans still had negotiating chips on the table.
The ‘Kaiser’s Offensive’, as it was known, was unleashed in the early hours of 21st March 1918 with a huge and terrifying bombardment of high explosive and gas that rained down primarily on the British 5th Army front in and around St. Quentin, but also took in the southern most units of the British 3rd Army.
This was followed, in a dense fog, that hampered the defender’s visibility, by a massive infantry attack led by specialist ‘storm troopers’. So successful was this attack, that Gough’s 5th Army, which was overstretched and undermanned following the fighting in 1917, was soon in full retreat.
By early April, the British army had fallen back more than 50 miles to the outskirts of Amiens, but the line had not broken, reserves had been rushed to the front and the situation was stabilised. The Germans had recaptured many square miles of French territory, but it was all shattered and desolate ground from the Allied gains made in 1916 and early 1917 and of no strategic value.
The Germans attempted further attacks in Belgium in April and against the French in June and July but all of these attacks were halted. The German losses of their remaining best men were huge, with over a million casualties, and these men were not replaceable. The German ‘last roll of the dice’ had failed to break the Allies and from August 1918 until the Armistice on November 11th, the German army would be in full retreat on all fronts.
German mobile Storm Troopers.
