Operation Michael - Background

Background

On 11 November 1917, the German High Command (Oberste Heeresleitung, or OHL) decided to make what they hoped would be a war-winning attack on the Western Front the following Spring. Their target was the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), which they regarded as exhausted by the battles in 1917 at Arras, Messines, Passchendaele and Cambrai. At the start of 1918, the German people were close to starvation and growing tired of the war. General Erich Ludendorff, in command of the German armies, realized that he had a fleeting chance to win the war. By mid-February 1918 he had moved nearly 50 divisions from the east following the Russian surrender and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk which gave his forces a numerical advantage on the Western Front. Germany now had between 177 and 190 divisions in France and Flanders, out of a total of 241 in the Army. Of these, 110 were in the front line, including 50 which faced the short British front. A further 67 were in reserve, including 31 facing the BEF (British Expeditionary Force). However, American soldiers were on their way to Europe. By May 1918, 318,000 American soldiers would be in France, with another million planned to arrive before August. The German authorities knew their only realistic chance of victory was to defeat the Allies before the human and material resources of the United States could be deployed.

They laid plans for the 1918 Spring Offensive or Kaiserschlacht (Kaiser's Battle), a series of attacks that achieved the deepest advances along the Western Front by either side since 1914. The four German attacks had the code names Michael, Georgette, Gneisenau and Blücher-Yorck. Ludendorff's first and main attack, (Michael), was on the Somme. There were subsequent diversionary attacks against the British (Georgette) at the Lys and at Ypres which were planned to confuse the enemy, and Operation Blücher against the French in the Champagne region. Although British intelligence knew an operation was being prepared, this-far reaching plan was much greater than Allied commanders ever envisaged. Ludendorff aimed to cut through on the Somme, then wheel north-west to cut the British lines of communication behind the Artois fronts, cutting off the BEF in Flanders. This would draw forces away from the Channel ports that were essential for British supply and then the Germans could attack these ports and other lines of communication. The British army would be surrounded with no means of escape, which would lead to surrender. The thrust of this simple strategy was weakened and unbalanced during planning.

Tactically, the German army adopted an approach that had succeeded on the Eastern Front, particularly at the Battle of Riga in 1917. The Germans had developed elite units following Hutier tactics (after General Oskar von Hutier), trained to infiltrate the enemy's front line. These stormtroopers (Stoßtruppen) were to lead the infantry attack, operating in groups that advanced quickly by exploiting gaps and weak defenses. The stormtroopers would by-pass heavily-defended areas, which follow-up infantry units could deal with once they had been cut off from the rest of the British lines. The stormtroopers' tactic involved occupying territory rapidly so as to disrupt communication by attacking enemy headquarters, artillery units and supply depots in the rear. Each division "creamed off" its best and fittest soldiers into these storm units, from which several new divisions were then formed. This process gave the German army an initial advantage in the attack but meant that the best troops would suffer disproportionately heavy casualties, while the quality of the men in reserve declined.

Such new infantry tactics demanded a corresponding change in artillery tactics. Ludendorff abandoned the massive bombardment of enemy infantry in the forward trenches which took away the element of surprise. Developed by Lieutenant Colonel Georg Bruchmüller, a German artillery officer, a form of Feuerwalze, involved an artillery barrage concentrated on artillery and machine-gun positions, headquarters, telephone exchanges, railways and other important centers of communications. There were three phases to the bombardment: a brief attack on the enemy's command and communications, then destruction of their artillery and lastly an attack upon the enemy front-line infantry defenses. This very deep barrage aimed to knock out the British ability to respond; it lasted only a few hours before the infantry went in so as to retain surprise. Bruchmüller's tactics became possible due to the vast numbers of accurate heavy guns (well supplied with shells) which Germany had deployed all along the western front by 1918. They could launch an offensive at almost any point on the front without giving the Allies notice of their intentions by moving guns and shells to the sector.