Lessons From Germany's 'Spring Offensive' 100 Years Later

Townhall.com ^ | March 15, 2018 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Kaslin]

One hundred years ago this month, all hell broke loose in France. On March 21, 1918, the German army on the Western Front unleashed a series of massive attacks on the exhausted British and French armies.

German General Erich Ludendorff thought he could win World War I with one final blow. He planned to punch holes between the French and British armies. Then he would drive through their trenches to the English Channel, isolating and destroying the British army.

The Germans thought they had no choice but to gamble.

The British naval blockade of Germany after three years had reduced Germany to near famine. More than 200,000 American reinforcement troops were arriving each month in France. (Nearly 2 million would land altogether.) American farms and factories were sending over huge shipments of food and munitions to the Allies.

Yet for a brief moment, the war had suddenly swung in Germany's favor by March 1918. The German army had just knocked Russia and its new Bolshevik government out of the war. The victory on the Eastern Front freed up nearly 1 million German and Austrian soldiers, who were transferred west.

Germany had refined new rolling artillery barrages. Its dreaded "Stormtroopers" had mastered dispersed advances. The result was a brief window of advantage before the American juggernaut changed the war's arithmetic.

The Spring Offensive almost worked. Within days, the British army had suffered some 50,000 casualties. Altogether, about a half-million French, British and American troops were killed or wounded during the entire offensive.

[Kaslin]

Victor Davis Hanson Column

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[kearnyirish2]

While the Germans could move troops west from Russia, when the war ended there were still more than a million troops there - and the government was afraid to bring them back because they were becoming radicalized.

I don’t believe Germany thought they could win in 1918 (they had no means to break the blockade, or attack the US in any meaningful way); it is more likely they just wanted to improve their position to provoke cease-fire talks.

[rdl6989]

I get bad request when I click the link.

[goldstategop]

The Germans were not ready for blitzkrieg warfare.

In 1940, they followed the plans of 1918 and broke through the French defenses and raced for the coast.

Whereas the First World War ended in a bloody stalemate, World War II led to a decisive German victory.

The Western Front in 1918 taught the Germans many things they put to good use later.

[Enchante]

Bad link

[eddie willers]

Whereas the First World War ended in a bloody stalemate, World War II led to a decisive German victory.

In "The Man In The High Castle" world?

[17th Miss Regt]

I think goldenstategop is referring to the decisive German victory over France in 1940, not the ultimate outcome of the longer war.

[Enchante]

Only a reference to Germany’s victory in May/June 1940.

[eddie willers]

Before they bombed Pearl Harbor.


:-)

[Billthedrill]

There were a couple of lessons that weren't learned that were equally applicable. First, don't risk a war with a nation that has the greatest industrial production in the world without the means of attacking that production. By the end of 1941 they'd do it again with the top three nations in the world. And second, don't ally with any country that constitutes a limitation and a drag on your own strategic plans. That nation was Austria in WWI, it was Italy in WWII. Thirdly, neglect logistics at the peril of disaster - in WWI they failed, as Moltke the Elder implored, to "make the right wing strong", and the initial offensive fell short of Paris. In WWII, they invaded the vastness of Russia and the Russian winter with horses, no coats for the men, and no means of passing sufficient supplies to anyone at all involved in the now-distant offensive. Tactically the German army was brilliant, logistically they weren't much better than the Italians and for exactly the same reason: it had no prestige in their military schools.

The biggest lesson that was learned by the Germans was soon forgotten: when your war production can no longer support your troops in the field, sue for peace. The biggest lesson that was learned by the Allies was not to let them.

[dirtboy]

The old maxim holds. Amateurs discuss tactics. Professionals discuss logistics. It was Dodge Trucks, sent to the Soviets by the thousands, that drove the Soviet advance against the horse-supplied Nazi army.

[PLMerite]

"...referring to the decisive German victory over France in 1940, not the ultimate outcome of the longer war."

No matter what else happens, they'll always have Paris.

[Billthedrill]

Oops - it wasn't Moltke the Elder I was quoting, it was Schlieffen himself. As for the trucks, yeah, between the Brits and the U.S. the Soviets got 375,000 of them. They liked the Studebakers. (I'm citing VDH's The Second World Wars there). By war's end the Sovs had more motorized troops than everyone else combined.

Hanson makes a very simple point about logistics: the U.S. was and still is notorious for armies with long tails and small spear-points because absolutely everything we sent to the battles, east and west, had to travel a couple of thousand miles first. It was a perspective nobody else in the war had.

[dfwgator]

In retrospect, it may have been a blessing in disguise that France fell so quickly.

A long war of attrition in the West, would have made the entire continent easy pickings for the Red Army.

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[dirtboy]

Gawd, we, in our day of instant communications, cannot begin to imagine how this country back in WWII managed the logistics of a global war that in this day and age would probably have our leaders sucking their thumbs.

[vooch]

The Prussians did negotiate a cease fire and the English etc did agree tina ceasefire.

but immediately after signing the ceasefire, the English etc violated the terms.

[Enchante]

correct link:

https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2018/03/15/lessons-from-germanys-spring-offensive-100-years-later-n2460893

[zeestephen]

The posted link does not work.

Try this instead...

https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2018/03/15/lessons-from-germanys-spring-offensive-100-years-later-n2460893