When Must the End Be? The Great War

July 17th, 1918.

The wheel had come full circle.

Once again, as in 1914, all the war,

all its potential, all its hopes and fears and deceitful promises,

were centred on the River Marne.

On the Marne, the war had reached a moment of equipoise.

The last of the great German offensives on the Western Front had been launched three days before.

By July 17th, it had been halted by French, British and American troops combined.

General Ludendorff gave orders for the attack to cease.

"A continuation of the offensive would have cost us too much."

General Foch, commander-in-chief of the Allied armies, asked:

"What had been the results of this Friedensturm which, it had been proclaimed,

"was to bring peace by one victorious rush?

"Nothing but bitterness and deception, forerunners of defeat."

On July 17th, Ludendorff travelled north to the headquarters of Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria

to discuss the final offensive against the British Army,

which had always been his main intention.

For the few hours while the equipoise lasted,

the Germans remained unsuspecting.

Field Marshal von Hindenburg described their awakening:

"Suddenly, a violent hail of shells descended on the back areas.

"The enemy was undoubtedly attacking on the whole front, from the Aisne to the Marne."

350 French tanks rolled into the attack.

American divisions spearheaded the main French onset.

Really, we started out recklessly, like a holiday, it was.

We didn't know, we didn't see any dead people yet.

We started out, followed the barrage,

and the first Germans we saw dead were in the first line.

We leapfrogged that line,

the barrage continued, we followed it,

to the second line of German trenches.

There, a lot of Germans were killed by our barrage,

and there wasn't much opposition the first half-hour or so.

When the Germans recovered, resistance stiffened.

It was never easy to defeat the German army.

On July 29th, Mangin wrote:

"The struggle is very hard. We've had some success,

"but the Boche is holding on to the swing door I am trying to close."

Steadily, reluctantly, fighting stern rearguard actions,

the Germans were forced to withdraw.

Once again, the tide had turned

and the German army was retreating from the River Marne.

Hindenburg wrote:

"It was a grievous decision.

"How the enemy would rejoice if the word Marne were to mean a revolution in a military situation again.

"All France would breathe again.

"What would be the effect of this news on the whole world?

"We realised how many eyes and hearts would follow us with envy, hatred and hope."

The Germans bowed to the inexorable.

On August 2nd, they evacuated Soissons.

By August 5th, the Second Battle of the Marne was over.

The Allies had taken over 29,000 prisoners and nearly 800 guns.

The German high command understood the significance of what had been done. In Ludendorff's words:

"The attempt to make peace by means of German victories

"before the arrival of American reinforcements, had failed.

"The army's impetus had not sufficed to deal the enemy a decisive blow

"before the Americans were on the spot in considerable force.

"It was quite clear to me that our general situation had thus become very serious."

What would be the effect of this news on the world? Asked Hindenburg.

This indeed was a key question.

In France, a surge of relief greeted the retreat of the Germans

and the end of the threat to Paris.

In America, there was pride in the young Army of the Republic.

These July battles were America's first awakening to the harsh truths of the war.

American losses had been heavy, as their high-spirited, inexperienced soldiers stormed into the attack.

General Mangin, who commanded them, said:

"You rushed into the fight as though to a fete.

"American comrades, I am grateful to you for the blood so generously spilled on the soil of my country."

In Britain, the news of victory, after months of anxious waiting,

and awareness of German strength,

was treated with care.

On August 4th, as the battle was ending, Lord Rothermere wrote:

"We are still very far from our goal.

"And we ought soberly to confront the situation as it now exists."

Germany in 1918 had displayed to the world such ruthless force

that men might well doubt the possibility of its waning.

Yet, in Germany, as the Battle of the Marne developed, and the news of it reached the people,

uneasy voices were heard, and would not be stilled.

The Cologne Gazette reported:

"Reviewing events at home in the fourth year of the war,

"the inference is that a true offensive spirit is lacking at home.

"In this connection, there is no more instructive comparison

"than that of our arch enemy - Great Britain."

"For Britain's home front has no loopholes and no weak spots."

The British government might ruefully smile to learn that Britain had "no weak spots".

Munition workers in Coventry and Birmingham went on strike at the climax of the Battle of the Marne.

There was a strike of women operating London buses and trams,

followed by the threat of another by women workers on the Underground.

There was a strike in the Yorkshire coalfields,

coinciding with the disclosure of a serious Allied shortage of coal.

There were searching queries by an ex-minister, Lord Landsdowne,

about the object of the war itself.

There were continuing shipping losses, in excess of new building.

There were food shortages, and a frightening influenza epidemic.

There was ferocious agitation against "enemy aliens" in Britain,

a petition with 1.25 million signatures demanded the internment of every alien forthwith.

The largest mass meeting in Trafalgar Square since the outbreak of war urged the same thing.

This rage displayed the hysterical element in Britain's will to victory.

A letter to the Times said:

"At last, the view of Germany as she really is

"is dawning on the British people.

"They are beginning to think that with a nation so polluted,

"whose ideals are so false, and whose human feeling is so dead,

"no people acknowledging the morals of Christianity,

"or even of civilisation ought, as it values its own soul,

"to have truck, or dealing or even speech."

On August 8th, the London Times reported an article in the Frankfurter Zeitung.

"There is little sense in yielding to illusions about what is before us.

"We shall have to go on fighting during the winter, and doubtless during next summer also.

"The troops which are crossing the ocean from America must feed the war,

"like fresh logs thrown upon a dying fire.

"And this will not make the fighting easy."

On this day, August 8th, fresh logs were, indeed, thrown on the fire.

On July 17th, the eve of Foch's counterstroke on the Marne,

the British commander-in-chief, Sir Douglas Haig,

had suggested to him a joint French-British attack

to relieve the important rail centre of Amiens.

"This proposal," said Foch, "was perfectly in harmony with my way of looking at the matter."

On July 20th, he wrote to Haig:

"Having reached the point we now are, it is indispensable to seize the enemy and attack him,

"wherever we can do so.

"The combined attack should be carried out at once."

Haig had been preparing this stroke for over two months.

He entrusted it to General Rawlinson's Fourth Army.

The British Army was now different from the one which emerged

from the costly defensive battles of March and April.

Haig recognised the transformation.

"Two months of comparative quiet worked a great change in the condition of the British armies.

"The draft sent out from England had been largely absorbed,

"reinforcements from other fronts had arrived,

"and the number of effective infantry divisions had risen from 45 to 52.

"In artillery, we were stronger than we had ever been.

"The British Army was ready to take the offensive."

By 1918, British war production was truly organised on the scale of these tremendous needs.

In March and April, under the German hammer blows,

the British lost over 1,000 guns and vast amounts of war material.

British production was able to replace these losses before the battles were over.

In late April, the King addressed a message to munitions workers.

"The King has learned that almost all the losses and expenditure of munitions during the battle

"have been made good without any undue depletion of normal reserves,

"out of the resources which have been held in readiness,

and the additional effort which has been made.

"There are now more serviceable guns, machine guns and aeroplanes with the British armies in the field

"than on the eve of the German attack."

Thus fortified, Haig completed his preparations to counterattack.

But, as 1916 and 1917 had shown,

something more was needed than

filled ranks and vast stocks of war material -

secrecy. By every trick in the book,

the British 4th Army worked to achieve surprise.

Every soldier had a notice pasted into his pay book. It said:

"Keep your mouth shut.

"The success of any operation we carry out depends on surprise.

"Do not talk. When you know your unit is making preparations for an attack,

"don't talk about them to men in other units, or to strangers.

"And keep your mouth shut especially in public places.

"Do not be inquisitive about what other units are doing.

"If you hear or see anything, keep it to yourself.

"The success of the operations, and the lives of your comrades,

"depend on your silence."

On July 28th, Foch placed the 1st French Army under Haig's command for the forthcoming battle.

This was kept secret. Haig wrote to the French commander:

"..to tell him I would not call at his headquarters until operations had started,

"in order to not excite suspicion."

Behind the Australians was massed another formidable fighting unit -

the Canadian corps, nearly 100,000 strong.

This, too, was kept secret.

Behind them all, to exploit success, the cavalry corps was brought in

with over 15,000 horses to hide on the empty Somme uplands.

Over 2,000 guns were assembled, also in secrecy.

And since this was 1918, and a different style of war,

Rawlinson had under his command, silently gathered, 800 aircraft

and 534 tanks.

Of this, the Germans knew nothing.

On August 4th, Ludendorff composed an order of the day.

"I am under the impression that the possibility of an enemy offensive

"is viewed with some apprehension.

"There is nothing to justify this apprehension,

"provided our troops are vigilant and do their duty."

The battle of Amiens opened at 4.20am on August 8th.

"We are the dead

"Short days ago, we lived

"Felt dawn, saw sunset glow

"Loved and were loved

"And now we lie in Flanders fields.

"Take up our quarrel with the foe.

"To you from failing hands we throw the torch

"be yours to hold it high.

"If ye break faith with us who die

"we shall not sleep.

"O guns, fall silent till the dead men hear

"above their heads the legions pressing on

"O flashing muzzles, pause, and let them see the coming dawn that streaks the sky afar

"Then let your mighty chorus witness be to them, and Caesar, that we still make war.

"Tell them, O guns, that we have heard their call,

"That we have sworn, and will not turn aside,

"That we will onward till we win or fall,

"that we will keep the faith for which they died."

"Hero hour, 8th of August. 400 tanks along the Amiens front.

"Is there a man alive of us who forgets?

"What a day.

"400 tanks in line of battle. Good going, home ground.

"The air grows electric. Two minutes to go.

"Watches tick, hearts beat. One minute to go.

"Then the whole world upheaves.

"No words can describe it.

"Just the whole world heaves, rocks, tumbles, turns upside down, ricochets.

"We can see, hear and feel nothing.

"The driver's on his seat, his hand on the clutch.

"Soon she's humming, sweet and low.

"I depress the pedal and she roars, magnificently,

"like the great man-eater she is.

"She gives a lurch and a roll, the gunners spread their feet for balance, and we're off."

The going was marvellous.

The grass was just like Cumberland turf, springy -

you felt you were in for a joyride.

"The whole plateau seen from the air was dotted with infantry, field artillery and tanks, moving forward.

"Many staff officers were riding horses in battle for the first time.

"No enemy guns appeared to be firing,

"and no co-ordinated defence was apparent."

Only the RAF lacked a sense of overwhelming victory that day.

During the hours between the opening of the battle and the lifting of the morning mist,

the Germans had time to summon air reinforcements.

As the British planes took off to bomb bridges, communications and troop concentrations,

German squadrons assembled against them.

The Richthofen squadron appeared.

Baron von Richthofen, the most famous air ace of the war, was dead now, but his squadron,

led by Captain Hermann Goring, was still a fearsome opponent to meet.

The RAF lost 44 machines in battle, and 52 more were wrecked.

On the ground, the battle flowed towards its unmistakable meaning.

The tanks were going forward, and taking position after position, the infantry following up behind,

and though the Germans had brought their artillery out of their pits,

it was of no avail - the Australians were all around them.

While this took place, the horse artillery galloped into action.

In the meantime, German prisoners were coming up - it was a morning of victory.

You could feel the excitement, because we knew that would be the end of the war.

By 1.30pm, the Australians were on all their objectives.

They'd captured over 7,800 prisoners, and 173 guns.

The Canadians made the deepest advance,

nearly eight miles, and took nearly 5,000 prisoners.

Altogether, the British and French armies captured some 15,000 Germans that day.

Was this the reward at last of patient years of endeavour?

Was this what Vimy might have been, what Messine should have been, what Cambrai could have been?

Field Marshal Haig wrote:

"The situation has developed more favourably for us than I,

"optimist though I am, had dared to hope."

Ludendorff wrote:

"August 8th was the black day of the German army in this war.

"This was the worst experience that I had to go through."

The battle of Amiens was a new beginning,

the glint of a new hope.

The advance slowed, but the feel of a great occasion did not diminish.

German resistance stiffened, and each mile gained

brought the British nearer to the devastated wilderness of the Somme battlefields of 1916.

But Amiens, on August 8th,

struck such a blow at German morale as it had never sustained before.

As the German support divisions moved up, they met men who shouted:

"You want to prolong the war? If the enemy were over the Rhine, the war would be over!

"We thought we'd set the thing going.

"Now you fools are corking up the hole again!"

Ludendorff was appalled at the reports which reached him.

"Everything I had feared had here, in one place, become a reality.

"Our war machine was no longer efficient.

"The 8th August put the decline of our fighting power beyond all doubt.

"The war must be ended."

More slowly now, but steadily, the Allies pressed forward.

On August 11th, the German Supreme Command met. Ludendorff offered his resignation,

but it was not accepted.

The truth could not be disguised.

The Kaiser told his generals:

"I see that we must strike a balance.

"We have nearly reached the limit of our powers of endurance.

"The war must be ended."

"The war must be ended." At last, the realisation came home.

The leaders of the German army, the mightiest instrument of power the world had seen,

knew they could not win.

The London Times wrote:

"The new Franco-British offensive, initiated by Sir Douglas Haig,

"is one of the most gratifying surprises of the war.

"It surprised the British public just as much as the enemy,

"for never has a secret been better-kept."

Daunted by the collapse of so many false hopes in years past,

the British public hesitatingly comprehended what had been achieved.

In Germany, and among her weakened and wearied allies,

realisation came more swiftly.

A Vienna paper wrote:

"The German retreat on the Marne concerns us just as much as if our own troops had been fighting there.

"And the beating hearts with which we followed the battle at Amiens

"are inspired by a comprehension of the extent to which our destiny is interwoven with these events."

Austria needed peace.

Bulgaria needed peace. Turkey needed peace.

Now Germany was learning that she, too, needed peace.

But what sort of peace?

The voice of the Junke insisted:

"I should like to say to our people: do not lose your nerves or become sentimental.

"Show a hard face to your enemies,

"and say plainly to them that you need this, and that.

"and therefore will keep that much of what you have taken from them,

"because YOU are the conquerors."

Germany realised there could be no negotiating of peace, or compromise.

The righteous wrath of the American people, embodied in President Wilson,

the determination of Britain, asserted by Lloyd George, would not contemplate such a thing.

And Clemenceau had spoken for France:

"I, gentlemen, I wage war.

"In domestic policies, I wage war. In foreign policies, I wage war.

"Always, everywhere, I wage war.

"And I shall continue to wage war

"until the last quarter of an hour.

"How long, oh, Lord, how long before the flood of crimson welling carnage shall abate?

"From sodden plains in west and east,

"the blood of kindly men streams up in mists of hate,

"polluting thy clean air.

"And nations great in reputation of the arts that bind the world with hopes of heaven,

"sink to the state of brute barbarians

"whose ferocious mind gloats o'er the bloody havoc of their kind,

"not knowing love, or mercy.

"Lord, how long shall Satan in high places

"lead the blind to battle for the passions of the strong?"

Peace was still a distant vision in August 1918.

In the mood of all the warring nations,

there was still a debt to be paid, in blood and destruction.

The fight went on.

Foch - who became marshal of France on August 6th -

widened the battle front southward,

drawing in new French armies.

Now Haig widened the British front of attack also.

On August 21st, his 3rd army opened the battle of Bapaume.

Bapaume fell to the New Zealanders on August 30th.

In this battle, the British captured 34,000 men and 270 guns.

Before it ended, Haig flung in his 1st Army, attacking still further to the north,

along the River Scarpe.

Their fight produced 16,000 prisoners and 200 guns.

And so into September,

and yet another battle by the 4th and 3rd Armies.

12,000 prisoners and 100 guns.

It was a majestic progress, after long years of waiting and enduring.

But the cost was high for men who had fought so long.

At home, the British people began to have the sense of victory.

One by one, the headlines stilled their doubts.

"August 23rd. New British advance."

"August 24th. British front ablaze."

"August 26th. Pressing the advance."

"August 27th. Battle front spreading."

"August 28th. Allies sweep forward."

"August 30th. The flowing tide."

The Times commented:

"The arrival of our forces at Bapaume set the seal on a wonderful weekend.

"and brought into view possibilities not in sight a week ago.

"The Germans are retreating so fast

"people are beginning to ask whether they'll be able to stand on the Hindenburg line!"

The sense of victory gripped the Allies. Haig told his generals:

"Risks which a month ago would have been criminal to incur

"ought now to be incurred as a duty."

Yet there remained between the Allies and the growing vision of victory a formidable obstacle -

the Hindenburg line.

Here, the Germans, dispirited, tired, weakened in numbers, might be expected to make a stand

and display that courage in adversity,

which had sustained them so often before.

By the end of September, it became clear that only the whole strength of the Allies on the Western Front

could guarantee Germany's overthrow.

Marshal Foch coined a slogan:

"Tout le monde a la bataille" - everyone go to it.

The Americans joined in, fighting as an army in their own right.

Already on September 12th, they'd cleared the St Mihiel salient near the fortress of Verdun,

taking 15,000 prisoners and 450 guns.

It was a fine achievement in their first great offensive,

but now, for the whole alliance,

the direction of the American effort had to be changed.

By a tremendous feat of organisation and administration,

the American army was shifted to the Argonne

to strike northward while the French and British marched east.

And in the north, the Belgian army also would attack

beside the British 2nd Army,

fighting under the orders of King Albert of the Belgians.

By September 26th, all was ready.

The French and Americans struck hard. Then, the haste of the attack told against them.

The Americans suffered heavy casualties,

they could have borne these due to the enthusiasm that impelled them,

but their transport broke down.

Supplies could not be got to the troops in action.

The wounded could not be removed.

The American onslaught slowed, and stopped. It didn't matter.

On September 27th, the British 3rd and 1st Armies struck at the Hindenburg line itself,

and made a breach 12 miles wide and six miles deep.

When we got to the wire, it was terrific.

It was about four foot high, and I would say about 15 yards wide.

But the tanks who'd gone in front of us

had ploughed through it like a ship in the sea

and we had no difficulty in walking in their tracks through the wire.

We also got over the Hindenburg front line.

On the 28th, the 2nd Army and the Belgians took up the tale at Ypres

and crossed the entire battleground of Passchendaele,

where the British had fought for three bloody months in 1917, in one day.

And on that day, too, the 4th Army, with Americans fighting with Australians,

joined in to the south.

In obstinate rearguards and heroic groups,

parts of the German army battled on, by virtue of soldierly instinct and tradition.

But others, chalked on the railway wagons that took them to the front,

slaughter cattle for Wilhelm & Sons.

Hindenburg wrote:

"What terrible demands were made in these few weeks

"on the strength and resolution of the officers and men of all the staffs and formations.

"The only order issued was often: 'Hold out to the last, hold out'.

"What a renunciation after so many glorious victories.

"I was faced with the worst of all questions -

"when must the end be?"

The end of slaughter, the end of lunatic damage, the end of hate.

The end must be now, at once.

But how could it be achieved?

Victors and defeated alike met the problem with bewildered stares.

War is easy to declare,

but peace -

peace in 1918 was an elusive prize.