It Was Like the End of the World The Great War

Winter. The fourth winter in the trenches.

The battles of yet another year had passed -

Arras, the Nivelle Offensive, Messines, Malmaison,

Passchendaele, Cambrai -

hopes of 1917 that had fallen and withered with the autumn leaves.

The Western Front remained. But now it was becoming only a facade.

Three and a half years of battle had crumbled away the living walls

that had once lined the front from Switzerland to the sea.

The French army could only replace a third of its monthly losses.

Its divisions were skeletons of only 6,000 men.

The British Army in France in January 1918 was 80,000 men below its strength.

In every country, the generals pleaded with the politicians for men, more men and ever more men.

Haig confided to his diary -

"We have plainly told the Cabinet in writing

"that they may lose the war if the armies are not brought up to and kept at strength."

In the place of the armies vanished into gun smoke, there now stood

thinned ranks of shaken survivors and recruits raw from the depots.

Such was the Western Front of January 1918.

EXPLOSIONS

In the east, there was no longer a front at all.

In September 1917, the final defeats of the Russian army.

In October, revolution and a Communist government.

In December, an armistice and peace talks.

-Hindenburg wrote -

-"Under our last blows,

"the colossus not only trembled but split asunder and fell."

After four titanic campaigns, the Eastern Front was silent.

The peasant millions of the Russian army would march no longer as allies of the French and British.

From now on, there was only one major front -

the west.

Russia's fall had transformed the war.

Germany's problem of manpower was solved, for the time being.

Now the Allies,

not Germany, were struggling against odds.

Hindenburg rejoiced.

"For the first time in the whole war, the Germans would have the advantage of numbers on one of their fronts.

"We were now in a position to concentrate an immense force

"to overwhelm the enemy's lines at some point of the Western Front."

Every German instinct was in favour of attack.

-Ludendorff wrote -

-"The army came victoriously through 1917.

"But it was clear that to hold the Western Front purely by defensive action could no longer be counted on.

"The troops no longer showed their old stubbornness. They thought with horror of fresh defensive battles

"and longed for a war of movement."

The Germans had fought the Russians at Tannenberg and Gorlice-Tarnow...

..the French on the Marne, in Artois, in Champagne and at Verdun.

They'd fought the British on the Somme and at Ypres.

They'd been skilful in attack and steadfast in defence.

But four years of war had crumbled and shaken the German army.

It was beginning to lose its discipline and self-confidence.

The words "Gott mit uns" - "God with us" -

were inscribed on the buckle of every German soldier's belt.

Did he still believe it? Ludendorff wrote -

"Loss through desertion was uncommonly high.

"The number that got into neutral countries like Holland ran into tens of thousands.

"Even more lived at home, tacitly tolerated by their fellow citizens and unmolested by the authorities."

Only a great victory could halt the slow disintegration.

In Ludendorff's words,

"In the west, the army pined for the offensive."

Week by week, Allied intelligence officers

verified the remorseless increase of German divisions

in France and Belgium, as crowded trains rolled in from the east.

It was estimated that, by spring 1918, the Germans would be stronger

than the French and British by 200,000 men.

These were the statistics of catastrophe.

In December 1917, the French commander in chief, General Petain,

calculated that, in 1918,

the Allies would face 200 German divisions in the west.

"Germany will be able to hold her line with 100 divisions.

"She will have another 100 available for a great spring offensive. We are on a tightrope."

Only the Americans could fill the colossal gap in Allied ranks opened by Russia's collapse.

In December 1917, there was only one US division in the line.

It was hoped there would be 18 in seven months' time.

Could the British and French - tired, thin on the ground - hold off a desperate German onslaught

long enough for the Americans

to tip the balance for ever against Germany?

The Germans too asked this question.

Only time - time that none could measure -

stood between them and the United States Army.

Hindenburg weighed the sombre chances.

"We had a new enemy, economically the most powerful in the world -

"an enemy possessing everything required for hostile operations,

"reviving the hopes of all our foes and saving them from collapse,

"while preparing mighty forces.

"It was the United States of America,

"and her advent was dangerously near.

"Would she appear in time to snatch the victor's laurels from our brows?

"That, and that only, was the decisive question."

Time was Germany's enemy - time was her enemy because of the Americans.

It was her enemy because her allies were on the verge of collapse.

Time was her enemy because hunger, blockade and illness were doing their work behind the German armies.

The pre-war death rate of German children under 15 doubled. German society was beginning to break up.

On 24 January 1918, 250,000 workers came out on strike

in Berlin and other towns.

Time hounded her on to a colossal gamble.

She must have swift victory or she was finished.

She staked every last ounce of her power on a spring offensive in France.

Every last ounce, every last hope. Hindenburg wrote -

"I hoped that, with our first great victories,

"the public would rise above the seeming hopelessness of our struggle

"and impossibility of ending the war except by submission."

Ludendorff flung all his restless energy into planning the "Kaiserschlacht",

the Imperial Battle that would win the war.

The blow would fall on the British, astride the Somme on a 40-mile front.

It would split the British from the French and sweep them into the sea.

December, January, February, March -

every man, every gun, every lorry, every horse that could be spared

flooded into France and Belgium.

From generals to privates,

the army was trained for breakthrough and pursuit.

"The objective of the first day must be at least the enemy's artillery.

"There must be no rigid adherence to plans made beforehand. The fastest, not the slowest, must set the pace."

Behind the front-line divisions,

47 specially equipped attack divisions

and 6,000 guns were stealthily slotted into place.

On 10 March, Hindenburg issued the final order for Operation Michael.

"His Majesty commands the Michael attack will take place on 21 March.

"Break in to the first enemy position at 9.40am."

Haste. Desperation. Supreme effort. The German soldiers

were infused with a sense of destiny.

"The brazen spirit of the attack, the spirit of the Prussian infantry,

"swept through the massed troops."

"One is amazed at the preparations being made, down to the last detail.

"That is, after all, the source of our greatness."

"The men were in good form.

"Hearing them talk of the coming event as the 'Hindenburg Stakes',

"one knew they would fight as they always did - with absolute reliability."

"The great attack will succeed. It MUST succeed.

"It will free Germany from hunger and suffering.

"It will bring us victory. So, over the top and forward!"

"This was the decisive battle - final reckoning - culminating attack.

"The atmosphere was extraordinary, heavy with tension and excitement."

"We are really conscious of the greatness of the hour."

On the other side of no-man's-land, there was also desperate haste.

The British and French trenches had been only jumping-off lines for past offensives.

Now, under threat of the German onslaught, they had to be converted,

within weeks, to defensive systems.

Not enough men to dig trenches,

lay out barbed wire and fill the defences.

Not enough time to rest the survivors of the battles of 1917.

Not enough time to train the scanty reinforcements.

The French and British looked towards Germany

and wondered how long they would be given.

In the trenches at night, when the wind was in the right direction,

we could hear the German transport trains rumbling up their great army from the east

that was going to sweep us into the sea.

We were grim. We were determined.

Behind us lay the old Somme battlefields,

every yard soaked with British blood.

They were determined, but they were tired - deadly tired.

"5 March 1918. The battalion wants a rest. It had been up 42 days

"when, last night, it was relieved and, even now, I doubt whether a rest is in sight,

"since an order has just come in to go up tomorrow for the day and dig.

"I leave you to imagine the state of the men's bodies and clothing

"after so long a time almost without a wash."

The British knew the German plan - a blow against the British Army.

They comforted themselves with the belief -

"If Germany attacks and fails, she will be ruined."

The British 5th Army, holding the longest and weakest sector in Haig's line -

12 infantry divisions to 42 miles - lay in the path of the German mass.

Behind the 5th Army was Amiens, the rail centre that linked the British and the French.

20 March 1918 -

a cold evening, mist forming,

apprehension prickling along the forward defences.

Night fell.

I couldn't sleep.

A quietness I knew so well falls over fronts before an attack.

The quietness was on. I fell into an uneasy sleep.

EXPLOSIONS IN QUICK SUCCESSION

On the stroke of 4.40am, 21 March 1918,

the German guns fired together all along the fronts of the British 5th and 3rd Armies.

4,000 field guns, 2,600 heavy guns,

3,500 trench mortars,

high explosive shell,

shrapnel,

mustard gas, phosgene gas - the bombardment

had been orchestrated into a great symphony of destruction.

It swept away guns, HQs, telephone exchanges, trenches.

The amount of firepower by the enemy was so great

that those who weren't gassed, or suffering the effects of gas,

would be numbed

by the shock of the continual bombardments.

The bombardment was concentrated into only five hours.

The German gunners worked with the speed of frenzy.

"It was like the end of the world. The gunners have their shirt sleeves rolled up. They are bathed in sweat.

"Never have they fired faster."

In the forward area, the British waited for the hurricane to cease -

waited for the German battle groups to loom through the enveloping fog.

"The moment arrived and we rushed out of our trenches. A wild exultation seized us -

"anger, drunkenness and blood lust all rolled into one.

"We crossed the enemy's barbed wire easily and were in his first line.

"The wave of men seemed to dance, a row of ghosts in the white mist."

The British in the forward area were swamped by the German advance.

By the end of the day, the Germans had smashed gaps through the British defence into open country.

British heavy artillery was dragged from static positions in the rear

and hauled away westwards.

The British front trembled,

or crumbled, beneath the weight and force of the German tidal wave.

22 March - disintegration and collapse. The Germans flooded through the British defence system

all along the front of the 5th Army and on part of the front of the neighbouring 3rd Army.

Haig wrote in his diary -

"At 8pm, Gough telephoned.

"Parties of the enemy

are through our reserve line.

"I concurred on his falling back and

"defending the line of the Somme."

The impossible, the incredible had happened.

The Western Front had been broken.

As in 1914, a great army was treading the bitter road of retreat

with an exultant pursuer at its heels.

Haste, confusion,

rumours, orders, counter-orders,

and always the menace of German fire close behind.

One of our staff officers rode up on his horse and said, "Men, I want you to stand firm on this hillside.

"It's a good position. You should be all right." But the men took no notice and began to stampede.

They said, "We've got no chance, sir. The Germans are coming with tanks."

He started to appeal to our regiment and he said to me, at his side,

"Men of the East Lancashire Regiment, you've got a good reputation."

I said, "It's not much good here."

Just at that moment, a German tank came up the hill and started firing.

The staff officer on his horse got off his marks as quick as he could.

23 March - the retreat went on.

Peronne fell.

Behind the slow procession of defeat,

the sound of German guns came ever nearer.

"Along the road, a slow stream of traffic was moving towards Bapaume and beyond,

"first waves of a tide which rolled westwards for days and days.

"Here and there a battery in column of route,

"walking wounded in twos and threes, a lorry or two.

"A staff car carrying, with undignified speed, the dignified sign of corps HQ.

"A column of horse transport.

"I stood watching the unforgettable scene for ten minutes.

"It was too sad for words."

24 March - Bapaume fell. A gap grew between the 3rd and 5th Armies.

The 5th Army was now only a thin screen of stumbling, exhausted troops.

The Allies faced disaster.

That day, Haig met Petain.

"Petain told me that he'd directed General Fayolle, in the event of the German advance being pressed further,

"to fall back south-westwards

"to cover Paris.

"It was clear to me that the effect

"of this order must be to separate

"the British from the French

"and allow the enemy to penetrate between the two armies."

To the Kaiser, this was victory. He awarded Hindenburg

the Iron Cross with golden rays, last given to Blucher after Waterloo.

The German press echoed the Kaiser's pride -

"The great battle in the west is won.

"A large part of the English army is beaten."

But Hindenburg realised the Germans were only halfway to victory.

"Whole sections of the English front had been utterly routed

"and were retiring, apparently out of hand, towards Amiens.

"If the town fell into our hands,

"the strategic and political interests of France and Britain

"might possibly drift apart.

"So, forward against Amiens!"

The Kaiserschlacht - the Imperial Battle - raged on.

The line of gunfire crept ever nearer Amiens. Each side threw every man and gun into the struggle.

The Allied air forces flew to the limits of endurance,

machine-gunning and bombing the advancing Germans.

"Only time to refill tanks and guns and re-bomb when we land from a raid.

"Then all machines off again on the next."

Only the airmen could scan the whole panorama of battle.

"The country presents an extraordinary sight from above -

"columns of dense smoke going up to 8,000ft from every town and cottage.

"Enormous fires from burning stores and dumps.

"Shells bursting every few yards.

"Columns retreating along main roads and stragglers crossing fields."

Still the retreat went on.

"I think we were past hope or despair.

"We regarded all events with an indifference of weariness,

"knowing that dawn would bring another attack."

Once again, civilian refugees left their homes and fled from the enemy.

"On the road, the flood of refugees was tramping along amidst a cloud of powdery dust

"that settled on every one of them.

"The air was filled with the squeaks of carriages, the smack of whips and the jingle of cow bells."

Haig and Petain strove to rebuild their shattered line.

-Hindenburg realised the battle was becoming a race to Amiens.

-"English reserves from the north,

"French troops drawn from the whole of central France, were hastening to Amiens and its neighbourhood."

More reinforcements were on their way from England.

"Under my office window in the City,

"there passed this morning as fine a body of men as one could wish to see.

"They were a draft, marching to the station en route to France.

"The wives and sweethearts of some marched with them.

"One couldn't watch these fellows marching to face the terrors of war without an inexpressible pride."

25 March. To the men on the crowded roads, it seemed the retreat would never end.

In the words of a gunner,

"We were on the move again with real dismay in our hearts."

Officers were ordered to use their revolvers to check panic if need be.

26 March.

Now the armies were fighting in the wasteland of the Somme battlefield of 1916.

On 26 March we dropped into a trench.

It was a trench we knew of old.

We had started to retreat on the 21st of March, 1918.

And here we were, back in the trench we had started the attack from

on November the 13th, 1916.

In the shadow of catastrophe,

the British high command

looked to the Channel ports.

The French looked to Paris.

A gulf was opening

between the Allies.

In Doullens, in the path of the German attack, the Allied leaders gathered

in an atmosphere of crisis.

Haig believed Petain had lost his nerve. Petain believed

the British would be herded into the Channel.

French Prime Minister Clemenceau was appalled at Petain's pessimism.

But General Foch was resolute -

"We must fight in front of Amiens. We must fight where we are now.

"As we have not been able to stop the Germans on the Somme, we must not now retire a single inch."

This was Haig's chance to have the pessimistic Petain overruled.

He took it.

"If General Foch will consent to give me his advice, I will gladly follow it."

The conference broke up. Foch had been made supreme Allied commander in all but name.

But the crisis of the Imperial Battle had already passed.

The tidal wave - the rolling force of 21 March - had spent itself.

Five days of marching and fighting without relief,

short of water, without proper sleep,

with the heaviest air attacks ever yet suffered by fighting troops.

The German soldiers knew the life and death of the Fatherland were in their hands,

but they could do no more.

"The power of attack was exhausted.

"Our spirits sank to zero."

Day by day, the advance went slower, grew narrower.

Hindenburg read the signs of failure.

"With us,

"human nature was urgently voicing its claims.

"We had to take breath. The infantry needed rest

"and the artillery, ammunition.

"We were lucky in being able to use the supplies of the beaten foe.

"Otherwise, we should not have been able to cross the Somme."

British canteens and supply dumps helped hinder the German advance.

The Germans had not seen such riches for years.

"We came across a richly furnished provision and kitting-out depot the British had abandoned.

"We rushed for the provisions.

"There was thick, brown beer that cooled our parched throats.

"We were so desperate for good food that we forgot about the enemy."

Suddenly they realised what paupers the Germans had become,

how little the British had been injured by four years of war.

You know that the German army and the German doctors didn't have any bandages.

What we used was crepe paper to wind round the wounds of the soldiers.

And one can imagine how long that lasted.

They just dissolved as quickly as many of the greatcoats our soldiers had to wear.

The proud German army looted British depots like peasants in a palace.

On 28 March -

"Today the advance of our infantry suddenly stopped near Albert.

"Nobody could understand why. Our airmen

"had reported no enemy between Albert and Amiens.

"I jumped into a car with orders to find out what had caused the halt.

"As soon as I got near Albert,

"I began to see men dressed up in comic disguise, men in top hats,

"men who could hardly walk.

"The advance was held up

"and there was no means of getting it going again for hours."

"That our troops did not achieve all possible success

"was due to a lack of firm control by their officers.

"They had been checked by finding food depots, and valuable time had thus been lost."

The Germans grew weaker.

The Allies grew stronger.

Since 25 March, a French army of seven divisions

had entered the line and another was marching up fast.

"A fleet of trucks was sent to carry off the division. There could be no doubt

"we were about to go to battle.

"Our life was a turmoil for the next two days.

"We were going day and night, halting, then moving on again shortly afterwards."

Haig used the rest of the British front to bar the road to Amiens.

By the end of March, the retreat was over.

We got to Ham, eventually. That was the biggest town outside St Quentin.

When we got into there, nobody knew anybody.

There was no such thing as a battalion. We were a non-descript pile of all sorts of regiments.

Bits and pieces - anybody at all.

Sanitary people, cooks - everybody. They were all in it.

5 April.

Disappointment in German hearts. Weariness in German bodies.

They strove for the last time to break through.

They failed.

The Imperial Battle was over.

Hindenburg and Ludendorff ordered another offensive against the weakened British,

in Flanders, where the British line ran close to the sea and Haig dared not give ground.

9 April 1918.

Three hours of bombardment so terrible that it drove men mad.

Then the attack - only half the number of men of 21 March,

only half the width of front.

CONTINUOUS GUNFIRE

But the German storm groups struck not British defenders

but raw Portuguese. They broke.

Once again, the Allies trod the humiliating road of defeat.

There seemed to be nothing to stop the Germans reaching the sea.

We reached a village called Estaires.

When we reached it it was like the Bank of England on a busy morning,

or Staines Bridge on a Sunday afternoon -

hundreds of vehicles and nothing moving at all.

One of the drivers in one of the wagons behind me was crying.

We expected to be taken prisoner - the Germans were coming on. Their batteries were leapfrogging forward.

Haig had very few reserves. They had been sent to the Amiens front.

Only the British soldiers' fighting spirit could stave off catastrophe.

Censorship reports on soldiers' letters home

reveal the effect of the retreat on the morale of the army.

"No-one believes we're winning. The Germans have gained more in a month than we have in 18."

"There are a good many out here like myself - fed up and don't care a damn which side wins."

"I'm surprised you've joined the Women's Land Army. Do you realise

"you're helping to prolong the war?

"We shall never get it over so long as the women keep relieving men for the army.

"Only when there are no men left will the war finish. That's the way the lads out here look at it."

"The men's nerves are gone and not one has any stomach for this game."

Haig appealed to the doggedness of the British soldier.

"There is no other course open to us but to fight it out.

"Every position must be held to the last man.

"There must be no retirement.

"With our backs to the wall and believing our cause to be just,

"each one of us must fight on to the end."

The British fought it out. By the end of April, the Germans were again brought to a standstill.

The greatest of all attempts since 1914

to win the war by purely military victory had failed.

The very size of the Imperial Battle had doomed it.

It could not be nourished,

despite Ludendorff's mobilisation of every horse and lorry and wagon.

The German failure cost 350,000 out of their last reserves of men.

Men were the fuel of war.

As the manpower of Europe became exhausted,

the war began to burn itself out, like a forest fire starved by its own appetite.

Only America could pour fresh fuel into the diminishing flames.

Since 21 March, nearly 200,000 Americans had landed in France.

Germany's chances of snatching victory dwindled with every tick of the clock.

Ludendorff was forced to stake Germany's waning power

on another gamble.

With desperation in his heart, Ludendorff swung his armies south.