The Ludendorff Offensives of 1918: Part III—Operation MICHAEL, Tactical Success, Strategic Disappointment

Improvised British Defensive Position

The German Perspective on MICHAEL

On 5 April, Ludendorff would call off the MICHAEL offensive to prepare for future operations in Flanders. Operation MICHAEL failed to meet the OHL’s strategic goals, yet it clearly was a tactical success. The Germans had penetrated 40 miles and seized over 1,000 square miles of territory in a sector where month-long battles had gained but a few hundred yards. The Germans had caused over 240,000 Allied casualties, including 90,000 prisoners. The German price was also high (250,000 German casualties), including a high proportion of highly trained stormtroops that the OHL could not replace. 

Why were the attacking Germans stopped short of their strategic goals? Another way of looking at the problem is to examine why the advance failed in the 18th Army sector after its initial success. The reason that the 18th Army was stopped was that the relative efficiency of its infantry and artillery was degraded in proportion to the distance they advanced. The British and French forces, because they retreated on defensible terrain onto their own lines of communication, did not lose as much effectiveness.

German 77 Artillery Piece Crossing Broken Terrain

Stormtroop units, on the other hand, spent long hours in rehearsal on realistic mock objectives. Timing and coordination with the supporting arms was practiced constantly. As the stormtroops pushed through the defense, all these strengths began to fade. New obstacles, trench lines, and units appeared that the stormtroops did not anticipate. 

However, time and casualties were lost against these new positions. As the stormtroops advanced deeper, fewer artillery guns followed, so they were forced to rely on organic weapons. Finally, fatigue and horrendous casualties dulled the martial ardor of the most hardened stormtrooper. The deeper the Germans pushed, the less effective the infantry became.

In the same way, the artillery became less effective in proportion to the depth of the penetration. Bruchmüller’s techniques were superb for the initial bombardment, but they were not as effective supporting a deep advance. Bruchmüller relied on surprise and massed firepower to achieve his objectives. It is difficult to achieve that level of surprise during a major offensive. Massing guns was very difficult. It took a tremendous logistical effort to move guns and shells forward over a shell-holed battlefield. The dismal road conditions forced the Germans to leave the heavier guns behind. Light guns possessed sufficient power and range to destroy a bunker, but heavy guns were needed to conduct counter-battery missions. Thus, the Allied artillery took increasingly greater tolls of the German infantry as the advance progressed. Overall, the artillery support grew steadily weaker as the advance progressed.

Once the British lines were breached, the defenders were forced to fight from improvised defenses rather than formal trenches. However, the area behind the front in Operation MICHAEL was not the open fields of Russia. It was the old Somme battlefield, an area destroyed by the Germans as they retreated to the Hindenburg Line. This area was covered with old trenches, shell holes, and debris which the Allies could turn into defensive positions. The Allies could also move reserves by rail much faster than the Germans could advance. The resultant defense might not be as strong as an “elastic defense” system, but it was not an open field either. The improvised Allied defense was a strong obstacle to the weakened stormtroopers.

British Artillery at Ancre River Awaiting Approaching Germans

The Predicament of the British Fifth Army

When King George V came to France shortly after the fearsome setbacks of the opening of MICHAEL, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig shared two complaints with him. First, he pointed out that when the attack opened he had 100,000 fewer men than a year before, even though replacements were available at depots in England. Second, because of an Anglo-French agreement designed to relieve the French Army south of the River Somme, his smaller forces had a substantially longer portion of the front to defend. This extended area, assigned to the Fifth Army, would become the sector of greatest German success during Operation MICHAEL. Haig’s criticisms were on target, but it was Haig’s decision to deploy his forces in the manner he saw fit, and he chose to deploy in greater density in his northern (Arras & Flanders) sectors. Fifth Army would be charged with defending a longer section with fewer men and artillery pieces per mile than the other British armies to the north. For many years, responsibility for failure to replace men lost in the 1917 campaign has been laid at the foot of Prime Minister David Lloyd George. Recently, other suspects have emerged, such as Chief of the Imperial General Staff William Robertson, who may have labored behind the scenes to minimize British commitments and casualties while waiting for the Americans to leave major offensive initiatives to them. [This last point was shared with the editor by historian John Terraine in a 1989 interview.]

The situation of the Fifth Army on 21 March 1918 was somewhat precarious due to these problems, but other factors would exacerbate it. The emerging British doctrine for 1918 emphasized defense in depth. The front was to be divided into three zones: the “front zone” to be held by a third of the troops in a division; the “battle zone” about two miles to the rear, where the main resistance was to be offered; and the “rear zone” farther back, which was to be held if the battle zone was broken. The areas between the zones would be occupied by artillery with the longer-range pieces farther back. Sappers and pioneers would be concentrated in the rear zone for deployment as needed. This system worked somewhat for Third Army to the north in the opening of the battle and excellently when the Germans launched a secondary attack (Operation MARS) against Arras.  

Fifth Army, however, needed adjustments to cover its much broader front. It had to defend twice as much frontage as Third Army with two fewer divisions. In its front zone, just behind the advance trenches were built a series of 21 redoubts—strongpoints with numerous machine guns and an abundance of barbed wire. They were positioned so their fire would be interlocking and would therefore protect one another. Theoretically, this system should have countered the German plans to get stormtroops into the British rear areas speedily by avoiding strongpoints. Alas, fog on the morning of 21 March eliminated the machine gunners’ vision and the storm troops penetrated the front zone with maximum efficiency. All the redoubts fell by the afternoon of the first day of battle.

General Gough’s dispositions of his limited forces also played a role in the early disasters. As did many generals in the Great War, he loaded too many of his troops toward the front. These men were often crushed under the initial bombardment or later found themselves surrounded due to the enemy’s penetration tactics. Many of the men up front were forced to surrender without firing a shot. As the battle unfolded, French Army commander Philippe Pétain also proved slow in sending reinforcements to help Fifth Army.

What Next?

Even before OHL terminated operation MICHAEL on 5 April, Ludendorff decided that the British were on the verge of collapsing, and that the Germans had to hit them again and soon. He wanted to follow up immediately by launching operation GEORG in Flanders with Rupprecht's army group. Once GEORG had been downgraded to a deception operation on 21 January, however, far too many of GEORG’s forces and supplies had been drawn off to support MICHAEL.

The best the Germans could mount on such a short notice was a scaled-down version of GEORG, which was re-designated GEORGETTE. 

In September, when I return from my surgery, we will continue this series of  on the Ludendorff Offensives with articles on Operate GEORGETTE.  MH