prisoners were taken, and to the Germans the quite unexpected loss of the long impregnable Beaumont-Hamel " was a particu- larly heavy blow " (Ludendorff). Advantage was taken of this victory to deliver a successful attack on a front of three miles against the German trenches on the slopes above Pys and Grandcourt (Nov. 18), but then the return of bad weather finally stopped the prosecution of active operations.
General Aspects. The Allied offensive on the Somme had not yielded all the results that had been hoped for or that had at times seemed within reach. It was only natural that in some quarters the heavy cost at which the watershed between the Somme and Ancre had been mastered should be looked upon as altogether disproportionate to the gains, and that those who had not studied war sufficiently to realize that decisive victory is not to be had without a heavy price, and that it is not in achieving but in exploiting victory that the more tangible and spectacular gains are reaped, should be so disappointed as to overlook the substantial results which had been achieved. The Allies had begun the offensive with three main objects: to relieve the pressure on Verdun, to pin the enemy's main forces down to the western front, and, lastly, to wear down his powers of re- sistance. All these had been achieved, and of the three, the last, if the least tangible, was far from the least important. The 40,000 prisoners taken by the British and the 30,000 taken by the French might seem trifling in comparison with the vast captures made by both sides on the eastern front, but in quality the Germans taken on the Somme were very different from the half-armed Russians and the unenthusiastic mixture of nationalities who formed the Austro-Hungarian armies; and the decline of the German moral, admitted as it is by Ludendorff, outweighed in importance their losses in prisoners or material, considerable as these latter were. An eye-witness of the battle of Malplaquet wrote of that action, " the enemy was so advan- tageously posted that when the battle was over we wondered how we had surmounted the difficulties." Those who had been through the Somme might well have echoed his words, and despite the punishment they had received and the hardships they had endured the British and French had ample reason to be encouraged by their achievements. If the flower of the " new armies " of Great Britain and her Dominions overseas had been expended on the Somme, the Allies ended the year 1916 with a moral ascendancy over their enemies and with well justified hopes. It is only necessary to compare the strategical situation of Dec. 1916 with that of July i to see what a change had come over the war. On July i the Germans were certainly not con- templating attempting to negotiate a peace through the good offices of a neutral. And where had the change been brought about? Not on the eastern front, where Rumania had collapsed and the Russian offensive come to a standstill; not in Macedonia, where the capture of Monastir had been powerless to assist Rumania; not in the more distant theatres of war, where Kut was still in Turkish hands and the British had not yet reached the eastern frontier of Egypt; not in Italy, where the Austro- Hungarians were still holding up the Italian offensive across the Isonzo. Bad weather had prevented the immediate exploita- tion of the success earned in the struggles of July, Aug. and Sept.; changes of command and of plan were to throw away much of what the Allies had in their grasp early in 1917, but the change in the situation was the work of the Allied forces on the Somme. (C. T. A.)
II. GERMAN OFFENSIVE OF MARCH- APRIL 1918
As soon as the general military situation towards the end of 1917 seemed to offer the Germans a- possibility of conducting the war in the western theatre by means of attack, preparations for this were set on foot by the Supreme Command. The first German move was to fetch up all the troops from elsewhere that could be spared and establish at least temporarily, until the strong American reinforcements were added to the Allies a balance of forces in the western theatre of war, or, if possible, a preponderance on the German side. This would obtain the neces- sary time for rest and training. To this end German division
after division, and battery after battery, had been rolling up since the end of 1917 from Italy and the East into France. A number of heavy Austro-Hungarian batteries were also brought up. Finally 62 divisions and 1,706 batteries were made avail- able for the main attack. For a second simultaneous attack in a different place these forces were not enough.
Systematic training for the attack was begun simultaneously behind the whole German front. Side by side with following out the instructions issued by the Supreme Command, the whole body of men had to be brought to exchange the defensive idea with which they had been living for the idea of the attack. The troops had to be taught the full use of machine-gun fire, guns and minenwerfer, and the support which airmen could give to infantry. They had to be trained to the utmost mobility and uplifted morally. The idea of surprise, which offered the only chance of the successful execution of a break-through oper- ation, had also to be worked out in tactics.
Hand in hand with the equipping of the division chosen for the attack with horses and utensils of every kind went the col- lecting of munitions, supplies, building and sanitary materials, as well as the erection of railways, roads and battery positions.
Only a limited number of divisions could be equipped for the attack owing to the shortage of draft and horses. The building preparations were extended along the whole of the W. front so as to veil tactical purposes as long as possible.
At the end of Dec. 1917 the German Supreme Command had arranged for the mounting of quite a number of attacks. Al- though it was admitted that, for want of forces, the whole Allied front could not be attacked at once in order to find the suitable point for a break-through according to the Schlicffen idea, it was intended to keep the enemy as long as possible in ignorance of the German Supreme Command's actual intentions.
The decision as to which attack should actually be carried out was arrived at from a tactical point of view, strategical consider- ations being put aside. " Tactics had to be considered before purely strategical objects," writes Ludendorff, " which it is futile to pursue unless tactical success is possible. A strategical plan which ignores the tactical factor is fore-doomed to failure." Starting from this point of view Ludendorff decided to carry out the so-called " Michael " attack against the projecting southern sector of the British front. The attack was aimed at the British only, because they were still exhausted from the fighting of 1917 and it was desirable on general grounds to beat them first. It was to be executed at an early date independently of weather conditions. The sector to be attacked was thinly held and insufficiently fortified. It therefore seemed probable that the attack would succeed and that strategical use could be made of the break-through. It was unavoidable that the attack should take its course over the ground destroyed in the " Sieg- fried " retreat and the battle of the Somme.
The plans for the great attack were issued by the Supreme Command on Jan. 24 1918. The following individual attacks were to be prepafed: "Mars" (left wing) and "Michael I.," towards the N.E. past Bapaume, by the XVII. Army; " Michael II.," to the N. of the Omignon brook, by the II. Army; " Michael III.," on both sides of St. Quentin, by the XVIII. Army; " Archangel," south of the Oise, by the VII. Army. The " Michael " attack was proposed for March 20. The " Mars " and " Archangel " attacks were to follow a few days later, after the regrouping of the " Michael " artillery. The main attack was to break through the enemy front, and then, in conjunction with " Mars " left wing, to push on through Peronne-Arras. The XVIII. Army was to reach the line La Fere-Peronne. The "Archangel" attack was conceived merely as a diversion. The preparation of the attacks on Ypres-La Bassee (George I. and II.) was to be continued, the Hector- Achilles operations in the Argonne and Champagne were to be kept simmering. In case the Michael attack stopped short there was to be an attack by the III. Army. Instructions for demonstration actions were kept in reserve.
Rupprecht's group of armies, which, according to this plan, were to carry out the main assault with the XVII. and II.
