Operation Michael

Operation Michael was a First World War German military operation that began the Spring Offensive on 21 March 1918. It was launched from the Hindenburg Line, in the vicinity of Saint-Quentin, France. Its goal was to break through the Allied lines and advance in a north-west direction and seize the Channel ports which supplied the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and drive the BEF into the sea. Just two days into the operation, Ludendorff changed his plan, and pushed for an offensive due west along the whole of the British front north of the Somme. This was designed to separate the French and British Armies and crush the British forces by pushing them into the sea. The offensive ended at Villers-Bretonneux, a little to the east of the key Allied communications centre of Amiens, where the Entente managed to halt the German advance. The German advance stalled largely through very heavy casualties, an inability to maintain supplies to the advancing troops and the arrival of Entente reserves. Since much of the territory involved consisted of the shell-torn wilderness left by the 1916 Battle of the Somme it was known to some as the 1918 Battle of the Somme, and to the French as the Second Battle of Picardy (French: 2ème Bataille de Picardie).

The failure of the offensive marked the beginning of the end of the First World War. The arrival in France of large reinforcements from the U.S. replaced material and men lost by the Entente, but the German Army was unable to recover from its losses before these reinforcements deployed. Operation Michael had failed to achieve its objectives, namely in separating the Allied Armies.

All territory gained during this offensive was lost during the British-led Allied counteroffensive, known as the second battle of the Somme, which started on 21 August, during the Allied Hundred Days Offensive.