Soldiers from The Duke of Cambridge's Own (Middlesex Regiment) at a street barricade, Spring 1918. NAM 1992-08-130-5
Germany's last gamble
The withdrawal of Russia from the war in 1917 released substantial numbers of German troops for use elsewhere. Aware that submarine warfare had failed to defeat Britain and that large numbers of American troops would soon be committed to the war, the Germans prepared for their final offensive. Field Marshal Haig’s British divisions were all under-strength in infantry. The government was unwilling to send more troops to the Western Front so Haig was forced to reduce the number of infantry battalions in his divisions.
A weakened line
A Lewis Machine Gun team in action during the German Spring Offensive, 1918. NAM 1992-08-130-7
In mid-February 1918, 81 German divisions faced Haig’s 59, and for the first time in three years the British had to prepare to face a major attack. Haig could not afford to give ground near to the Channel coast so the northern sector of his front was most heavily defended while further south his forces were more thinly spread. Whereas General Plumer’s Second Army around Ypres had to hold 37 kilometres (23 miles) of line with 14 divisions, south of Cambrai General Gough’s Fifth Army only had 14 divisions with which to hold 67 kilometres (42 miles) of line.
Spring Offensive
On 21 March 1918 the Germans launched Operation MICHAEL. Around 10,000 guns fired over a million shells in five hours against Lieutenant General Byng’s Third and General Gough’s Fifth Armies before 47 German divisions attacked. Using infiltration tactics the German storm troopers by-passed pockets of resistance and broke through the British trench system, leaving the following waves of troops to ‘mop up’ any resistance. Lacking reserves, Gough’s line soon gave way and by the evening of 23 March the Germans had advanced 19 kilometres (12 miles).
4th Battalion, The Worcestershire Regiment, holding the ‘La Creche’ position on the Lys during a German attack, April 1918. NAM 1997-12-75-99
‘At 10am the barrage appeared to lift and the sentry shouted down the dugout that the enemy were in on our flanks and behind us. I ran up the dugout steps and already found the trench full of Germans. They were behind us and coming across our flanks… with the signallers and servants, Sergeant Major and the wounded we surrendered. The Bosche were not at all rough and took us over without any roughness.’
Diary entry for the night of 20-21 March 1918 by Captain Ernest Ambler, 1st Battalion, The Prince of Wales’s Own (West Yorkshire Regiment). NAM 2003-01-169-19
