1918 THE SPRING OFFENSIVE PART II
“LUDENDORFF’S TASK IS MUCH MORE DIFFICULT THAN MINE. HE HAS TO BEAT ME, AND THAT HE CANNOT MANAGE” – Allied General-in-Chief Ferdinand Foch
After ‘Operation Michael’ was halted in front of Amiens in early April 1918, General Erich Ludendorff would continue to rain blows on the Allied lines – four in all between April and mid-July. The first of these, ‘Operation Georgette’, struck against the British Second and First Armies to the south of the Ypres salient on 9 April, pushing back but not breaking the line around that symbolic town. ‘Operation Blücher’, which commenced on 27 May, overwhelmed Allied forces on the Chemin des Dames and saw German troops reaching the River Marne, which they had last crossed in 1914, before they were halted on its banks. ‘Operation Gneisenau’, from 9-15 June, pushed back French forces between Montdidier and Noyon but was soon successfully counterattacked. The final offensive, ‘Marneschutz-Reims’, launched on 15 July and attempted to break out of the Marne salient. The Germans were lured into a carefully set Allied trap. Ludendorff’s blows were powerful but ill-coordinated, like the thrashing convulsions of a dying beast. His adversary, General Ferdinand Foch, understood how to contain them and how to catch his enemy off guard and strike back.
When Foch had been confirmed as Allied General-in-Chief in early April, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George had asked him, “Mon Général, whocombined this with a proper understanding of the dynamics of industrial battle, which ensured he had contained the German threat by summer.
