The failure of the Kaiser Offensive to break through the allied lines in the Spring of 1918 and the consequent diminution of manpower and resources set the stage for the last major allied offensive of the war that began in August, 1918 in Picardy. The 100 Day Offensive would result in retaking Belgium towns overrun by the Germans in 1914, reaching the border of Holland, and the American army engaging in its first independent action in the St. Mihiel salient near Verdun before hostilities ceased on 11 November 1918. Against a weakened German army, the offensive succeeded in turning a war of attrition once again into a war of movement.
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| French Renault tanks en route to Montdiddier |
The Third Battle of Picardy launched on 8 August in a fog on a fourteen mile front involved British and French forces that were supported by 435 tanks in advance of the infantry. The attacks caught the Germans off-guard; they were pushed back about ten miles in the swift advance. 30,000 Germans were taken prisoner, and 300 artillery pieces were captured. The strategic Paris-Amiens railway line was again in allied control. Montdiddier was recaptured by the French 3rd Army on 10 August. By 12 August the first phase of the offensive concluded. When the Germans lost the town of Amiens, Chief of Staff Ludendorff informed German emperor William II of the disaster. William replied, “We have reached the limits of our capacity. The war must be terminated.”
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| ruins of St. Quentin cathedral, 1918 |
The second phase known as the Second Battles of the Somme launched on August 21st by the French army supported by Canadian and ANZAC (Australian-New Zealand Army Corps) troops. By 4 September the Germans had retreated to the Hindenberg Line, a fortified defensive position established in the winter of 1916-17 near Soissons. The Germans were running out of supplies, men and morale; war production plans had failed to meet projected levels. Civilian morale was very low after the so-called Turnip Winter of 1917-18 when a potato crop failure forced Germans to eat turnips. There was widespread hunger, and labor unrest. Eventually allied superiority in material together with increasingly effective combined arms allowed them to break through the Line by the beginning of October, 1918.
On 29 September the British Fourth Army, including the US II Corps,
attacked the Hindenburg Line from Holnon north to Vendhuille while the
French First Army attacked the area from St Quentin to the south. The
British Third Army attacked further north and crossed the Canal du Nord
at Masnières. In nine days British, French and US forces crossed the
Canal du Nord, took
36,000 prisoners and
380 guns. German troops were short of food, had worn out clothes and boots, and
the retreat back to the Hindenburg Line had terminally undermined their
morale. By October the German government was suing for peace. Armistice was declared 11 November 1918. The war to end war that killed 18 million people was finally at an end.
