Germany’s Spring Offensive of 1918

Combined with Russia’s collapsing war effort caused by the Bolshevik Revolution and the United State’s impending entry into World War One, German Army commander General Erich Ludendorff made one last push for victory against French and British troops along the Western Front, transferring 48 divisions from the Eastern Front to amass a numerical advantage against Allied troops.

Intended to Force Britain’s Capitulation

Intending to punch through the boundary between the British and French armies, with the goal of ending Great Britain’s participation in the war, during the early morning hours of March 21st, 1918, the first German offensive, codenamed Michael, began with a withering five-hour artillery assault, before specially-trained German units overran Allied positions, capturing 1,926 square miles of land while taking 90,000 prisoners by April 5th, at the same time, failing to push the British from the field.

Second Offensive Begins

A second offensive, codenamed Georgette, was launched on April 9th against British lines at Flanders, and while the Germans advanced rapidly into enemy territory, they failed to capture the Brit’s choke point rail hub at Hazebrouck, primarily due to Ludendorff’s failure to concentrate his attacks on weakened points in the Allies’ front line. The Germans then launched Operation Blücher on May 27th, intended to divert French troops to Chemin des Dames for a planned second offensive at Flanders.

Two More Offensives Unleashed

Advancing to within 56 miles of Paris, Operation Blücher created a vulnerable salient or bulge in the German front line that nearly ended in failure. Two more offensives would round out Germany’s Kaiserschlacht Spring Offensives, as they were known—June 9th’s Operation Gneisenau along the Matz River and July 15’s final offensive in Champagne, leading to a French-led counteroffensive on July 18th that left surviving German troops exhausted and wholly demoralized.

Serious Command Errors

Plagued by command errors that failed to capitalize on British logistical vulnerabilities, the German’s tactical successes proved insufficient against a far more resilient enemy than Ludendorff had foreseen, further hastening the Reich’s eventual defeat following the Allies’ Hundred Days Offensive, which brought to a close one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history. By the end of the offensives, casualties on both sides proved egregious—688,341 for the Germans and 863,374 for the Allies—the arrival of one million U.S. troops into France by July of 1918 filled in for Allied losses, while the Germans, by contrast, lacked any reserves to replace its fittest and best-trained soldiers who had perished during the battles, making Germany’s Spring Offensives, some of the heaviest losses during World War One.