The Kaiser’s Battle: The March Offensive 1918
James Durney
On 21 March 1918 the German Army began an offensive designed to end the war on the Western Front before sufficient American troops arrived to tip the balance of power in the Allies favour. The first day of the offensive was the worst day of the war for soldiers from Co. Kildare – twenty-four were killed in action on that day alone.
General Erich von Ludendorf began his offensive, code-named Operation Michael, with the greatest artillery bombardment to date, a five-hour artillery barrage from nearly 6,500 medium and heavy guns along the seventy-mile front of the British Third and Fifth Armies between the Somme river and Cambrai. This bombardment, of high-explosive, phosgene gas and lachrymatory-gas shells, fell not only on the Forward Zone but also on positions and road junctions well behind the Battle Zone, and lasted until five minutes before Zero. There was then a final bombardment on the front-line positions from more than 3,500 mortars, after which the German infantry advanced led by stormtroop detachments armed with grenades and flamethrowers.
Sixty-six German divisions advanced on the Third and Fifth Armies – nineteen went in against six divisions of the Third Army, and forty-three fell on the fourteen infantry and three cavalry divisions of the Fifth Army (the remaining German divisions were not used in the first assault). General Hubert Gough’s Fifth Army occupied a front of forty-two miles. A large part of this long sector had recently been taken over from the French. The British found that the trenches were inadequate, non-existent or in the rear areas actually in the process of being dismantled by the local people, who wanted to return the land to cultivation. They had to construct new defences but only the Forward Zone had been completed and the Battle Zone nearly finished when the Germans attacked. The British divisions were also in dire need of reinforcements.
The Germans had no such problem. Tens of thousands of fresh, trained German soldiers had arrived from the Eastern Front after the defeat and exit of Russia from the war. They were also employing new ‘stormtroop’ tactics: the infantry lightly equipped with grenades and flamethrowers were urged to keep close to their barrage, but above all to push on. The initial impact was such that in certain sectors the entire force in the British Forward and Battle zones was eliminated. Some battalions were virtually annihilated. The war diary of the 12th Royal Irish Rifles stated: ‘The battalion itself was gone, killed, wounded and prisoner.’ For the Germans the sensation of success was instant and overwhelming.
Ludendorf’s objective was to drive a wedge between the British and French armies and press on towards Amiens. Fifth Army had given a lot of ground, but Third Army had held the German advance. The British casualty figure for 21 March was 38,500 (around 7,000 dead and 21,000 prisoners), while the German figure was nearer 40,000 (13,000 dead and 27,000 wounded). The offensive was big news in the local press. The nationalist reported: ‘News of the terrible battle raging on the Western front is being followed with keen anxiety in South Kildare, especially in Athy, practically every family having relatives in the army.’
Lance-Corporal Michael J. Deegan, 1st Royal Dublin Fusiliers, was one of the two-dozen Kildare men killed in action, on the first day of the offensive. Age twenty, he was born in 1898, the son of Thomas Deegan and Annie Isabel Somerville, Dowdenstown, Ballymore-Eustace. His brother, Rifleman Thomas Deegan, 1st Royal Irish Rifles, had been killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, on 1 July 1916. He was also twenty.
The advance went rapidly ahead and after three days the German armies occupied a front astride the Somme from Bapaume through Comples to Péronne and Nesle. They continued to grind forward, especially in the south, and by the time the tide was stemmed on 5 April they had made an advance on a line between St. Quentin and Villers-Bertonneux of some forty miles. But then the offensive began to lose momentum – casualties were mounting, fatigue was setting in and another bizarre factor did not help. German troops accustomed to meagre rations at the front and conditioned by stories of severe shortages back home found themselves unable to resist the temptation of food stores, cigarettes and alcohol. This put a further brake on the offensive drive.
It became increasingly difficult to move artillery and supplies forward to support the advancing Germans. Fresh British and Australian units were moved to the vital rail centre of Amiens and the defence began to stiffen. After fruitless attempts to capture Amiens, Ludendorff took one of the harshest decisions of his career and called off Operation Michael on 5 April. By the standards of the time, there had been a substantial advance. It was, however, of little value as the vital positions of Amiens and Arras remained in Allied hands. The newly-won territory was difficult to traverse, as much of it consisted of the shell-torn wilderness left by the 1916 Battle of the Somme, and would later be difficult to defend against Allied counter-attacks.
The Allies lost nearly 255,000 men (British, British Empire and French) but they could be replaced, either from French and British factories or from the mass of American soldiery arriving daily. German troop losses were 239,000, many of them specialist stormtroops who were irreplaceable. In terms of morale, the initial German jubilation at the successful opening of the offensive soon turned to disappointment, as it became clear that the attack had not achieved decisive results. They would have to try again.
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