Final Days of World War I and Retirement
Hutier's tactics were used in another major victory against the French in June 1918, but the Allies had begun to develop counters to his methods. In July, when the German Army advanced in what became known as the Second Battle of the Marne, they found the American and French defenders had created a deep defensive system which the depleted and exhausted shock troop units failed to break. Once the German advance lost the initiative, the Western Allies counterattacked. The introduction of new technology (improved aircraft, tanks etc.), tactics (combined arms, improved artillery handling), and training (ironically much of which was adapted from Hutier's earlier successes) meant that the Germans had lost the edge they had, and even the talent of Hutier, Hindenburg, and Ludendorff could not save the situation. The repeated batterings were to prove fatal to the German military, which eventually collapsed under the strain in all but a few sectors, forcing Germany to the peace table.
Nevertheless, Hutier returned to postwar Germany as a hero. Like his overall commander and cousin, General Erich Ludendorff, Hutier maintained that the German Army had not been defeated in the field, but was "stabbed in the back" by domestic enemies on the home front.
Hutier left the army in 1919 and served as president of the German Officers' League until shortly before his death in Berlin in 1934.
Read more about this topic: Oskar Von Hutier
Famous quotes containing the words final, days, world, war and/or retirement:
“I’ll give you my answer calmly and sensibly, my final answer. My final answer is finally no. The answer is no! Absolutely and finally no! Finally and positively no! No! No! No! N - O!”
—Abraham Polonsky (b. 1910)
“Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil.”
—Bible: New Testament, Ephesians 5:15-16.
“In a world where women work three times as hard for half as much, our achievement has been denigrated, both marriage and divorce have turned against us, our motherhood has been used as an obstacle to our success, our passion as a trap, our empathy for others as an excuse to underpay us.”
—Erica Jong (20th century)
“There are two things which will always be very difficult for a democratic nation: to start a war and to end it.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)