by Peter Brune
It was inevitable, therefore, that two of the Prime Minister’s sternest critics were the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), General Sir William Robertson, and the C-in-C Western Front, General Haig (promoted to Field Marshal in January 1917). Robertson had risen from the ranks to CIGS—most unusual in the British Army. A dour, thoughtful soldier, he was ‘not greatly interested in conversation, and even less interested in argument’.10 Perhaps Robertson’s greatest assets as CIGS were his loyalty to the Army in his dealings with politicians, and his steadfastness and trust in Haig. A cavalry officer, Haig shared two of Robertson’s personality traits: he was also dour and resolute. Haig was also a supreme optimist, and therefore prepared to push on in a campaign when circumstances appeared bleak. In terms of character, personality and their perceptions of how and where the Great War should be fought, Robertson and Haig were diametrically opposed to Lloyd George.
In his diary entry for 3 April 1918, Haig wrote: ‘L.G. seems a “cur” and when I am with him I cannot resist a feeling of distrust of him and of his intentions.’11 Both Haig and Robertson believed that the war could only be won by the defeat of the German Army in France and Belgium. Haig in particular believed that a renewal of his Flanders offensive of 1917 would cause a final break-through, provided his now well-below strength army was reinforced sufficiently from available drafts in England. Haig passionately believed that all that was required was a firm resolve to complete the strategy of 1917. Lloyd George would have none of it, and was utterly determined to go on the defensive on the Western Front, bolster and possibly break through on other fronts where possible, and, most importantly, await the arrival of American troops in 1918. The Australian Official Historian, Charles Bean:
. . . yet the Government did not feel itself strong enough to depose the two military leaders, who had much support in parliament and the nation, or, without some counteracting support, to decline to follow their advice. Lloyd George could not have secured unanimity in his cabinet for any such course; indeed, some of his conservative colleagues had made it a condition of their alliance that there should be no change in the military command. The result was that, in his endeavour to mould the Allies’ plans for 1918, he resorted to the indirect methods which were so strangely characteristic of him . . .12
There were a number of telling ‘indirect methods’ which were employed in late 1917 and early the following year. The formation of the War Cabinet in December 1916 had already been a concerted government attempt to bring the strategic conduct of the war under the control of the politicians. The best way to negate Haig’s desire for a resumption of his Flanders offensive was, quite simply, to deny him the necessary manpower to do so—despite the fact that the offensives of 1917 had caused the British Army on the Western Front to be some 95 000 soldiers below its normal establishment.
To further compound Haig’s problems, four other measures were adopted by Lloyd George and the War Cabinet. The first was to agree to a French appeal that the British take over a part of their front—the initial request was for a British occupation of the French Sixth Army six-divisional front from roughly east of Péronne to the River Oise. Haig protested and eventually secured a shortening of that line by the deployment of four rather than six of his divisions. The second measure involved Haig losing five divisions to the Italian front. The third, employed during late 1917 and early 1918, involved both the sacking of, and selection of replacements for, Haig’s GHQ staff. The changes were far-reaching. Among the many were a new Chief of Staff, Chief of Intelligence, Inspector General of Training and Transport, and a new Chief Engineer.
Lloyd George and the War Cabinet’s fourth method in wresting control of the conduct of the war on the Western Front from Haig and Robertson was the formation of a Supreme War Council. Formed in early November 1917, the Council comprised the prime ministers of Britain, France and Italy, a second political member from each country, and a permanent military representative from each (the United States was also allotted a military representative). By stipulating that the military representative must hold no other post, Lloyd George was therefore able to circumvent the influence of his CIGS, General Robertson. He appointed General Sir Henry Wilson to the Supreme War Council. It was Wilson who had suggested the formation of such a Council to Lloyd George. Charles Bean:
It happened that Sir Henry Wilson was at that time in England [late 1917], his restless intellect unemployed with any satisfying work upon the vital problems with which, like all other patriotic minds, it was incessantly grappling. He had warned Haig and others that, in these conditions, he would probably ‘get into mischief’.13
Very diplomatic. Bean might well have substituted ‘ambition’ for ‘intellect’ and ‘intrigue’ for ‘mischief’. Wilson was now in a position to decisively influence the course and conduct of the war directly through the prime minister and the War Cabinet, and thus, quite consciously, was the instigator in circumventing the power and influence of the professional head of the British Army: the CIGS, General Robertson.
A further significant initiative was planned by the Supreme War Council and endorsed by Lloyd George. In view of the fact that a German spring offensive was anticipated, if the present Allied manpower on the Western Front was to hold that line, a uniform Allied strategy must be planned and coordinated. There were two proposed mechanisms to achieve this. The first was to create a central reserve of 30 divisions whereby all three nations involved—France, Britain and Italy—would supply thirteen, ten and seven divisions respectively. It was also anticipated that the United States would supplement that reserve as its troops became available. In order to plan and execute the Allied strategy, and deploy the central reserve, the Supreme War Council also considered that the appointment of an Allied Commander-in-Chief would be desirable.
Generals Haig and Pétain were both against the first proposal. They argued that the number of allotted divisions was too high; that the brief time span between the acquisition of the general reserve and the likely German spring offensive made the venture too risky in the short term; and, critically, that each would assist the other with reinforcements depending on the location and strength of the German offensive. Such ‘assistance’ would be put to a severe test of national interest when Operation Michael was launched. The notion that there should be a C-in-C Western Front obviously appealed to the French, since such an appointment would more than likely be given to them, but Lloyd George could find very few British politicians—much less soldiers—who shared his desire to appoint a French C-in-C. Impending events would also cause a change to this attitude.
When General Robertson, after having been placed in an intolerable position, resigned on 11 February 1918, Lloyd George appointed Sir Henry Wilson as the new CIGS, with General Sir Henry Rawlinson as his Supreme War Council replacement.
As the German attack loomed, Field Marshal Haig knew that a spring renewal of his Flanders offensive was lost. The BEF now numbered some 57 divisions (including its ten Dominion divisions), and occupied a front of around 125 miles. Denied his requested reinforcements, he had been forced to reduce his brigades from twelve to nine battalions in each division. While this measure obviously stretched his limited manpower, it also impaired his ability to relieve units in the line and give them much-needed training.
Not only did Haig have no doubt that there would be a German spring offensive, but his intelligence as to when and where it would occur was quite accurate. On 16 February 1918, his new Intelligence Chief, General Cox, ‘gave a very clear account of the situation of the enemy’ and stated that ‘we must be prepared to meet a very severe attack at any moment now’. On 2 March Haig recorded that Cox had briefed him as to the ‘reasons why we think the enemy is preparing to attack on the fronts of our Third and Fifth Armies’.14 Haig remained confident and told his Army commanders to be ‘ready as soon as possible to meet a big hostile offensive of prolonged duration’. The next day he recorded that ‘Troop movements and prisoners’ statements all indicate that an
offensive on a big scale will take place during the present month.’ And on 19 March 1918—two days before Michael—he received ‘reports on the examination of certain prisoners showing that the enemy’s intention is to attack about March 20th or 21st’.15
In his defence of the BEF’s 125 miles of the Western Front, Haig’s chief focus was his northern flank and its protection of the Channel ports. Deployed in this area was General Plumer’s Second Army, occupying a line of 23 miles with nine divisions at the front and five in reserve; in its central portion of the line, occupying around 33 miles, he had General Horne’s First Army, with twelve divisions on the front and four in reserve; a portion of the central and southern front line, amounting to 28 miles, was occupied by General Byng’s Third Army, with ten divisions in the line and six in reserve; and, last, occupying around 42 miles of front with eleven divisions and three infantry and three cavalry divisions in reserve, was General Sir Hubert Gough’s Fifth Army. Clearly, Gough’s Fifth Army front was the most vulnerable part of the line, but Haig and GHQ believed that due to the much more extensive area to its rear a limited withdrawal and consequent loss of some ground could be tolerated if necessary.
The Principle of War ‘surprise’ has a number of elements. While Ludendorff’s Michael offensive did not embrace it in terms of its location or timing, it most certainly embodied that principle in a tactical sense.
That General Gough’s Fifth Army front was stretched and undermanned is beyond dispute, but two characteristics of his defence of that front exacerbated the problem. The first was the preparation of his defences. Tim Travers disputes the notion that Gough was given little time to construct them:
The difficulty . . . was labour, yet there were 354,577 men specifically available for this task on 1 January 1918 (including 104,739 coloured labourers, and 71,000 prisoners of war), and of course the infantry divisions themselves were also available. With this amount of labour power, it might be expected that reasonable defences could be ready for the anticipated attack in the spring.16
Travers points out that it took GHQ until 3 March 1918 to allot sufficient labour to Gough’s front; that despite this, Gough told Haig in early February that ‘in another month his front would be strong’; then, incredibly, on 15 February he told Haig that he had no labour; and again, on 8 March, he informed his C-in-C that ‘he had no defences and no labour’.17
If Gough—and GHQ—had been lethargic in their preparation of the Fifth Army front, then Gough’s emphasis upon his defence of the front or first defensive zone was the second factor that caused his army such difficulties in confronting Michael. By this stage of the Great War, it had become increasingly obvious that the first battle zone of any defence should be lightly held by machine gun posts and patrolling in front of that zone. In the second line of defences were to be found far more extensive interlocking trenches; significant artillery guns; a far greater preponderance of machine guns; and massed infantry. The rear or third zone contained the reserve, ready for a reinforcement of the battle zone or possible counter-attack.
By an insistence on deploying his strength at the front zone—especially in terms of his machine guns—Gough unwittingly exposed himself to the very attribute of surprise that Ludendorff and Bruchmüller had planned. The German ‘hurricane’ bombardment, followed by the elite Sturmtruppen advance of massed machine gun and flamethrower assaults on Gough’s front zone, and the sheer rapidity of it, would all cause that first British battle zone to break up into panic and confusion, with command, control and coordination lost. Once through it, the Germans would take ground, and take it rapidly and in great quantity.
The fact that Field Marshal Haig was oblivious to the potential disaster about to unfold is best illustrated by his diary on 5 March:
I also told the Army Commanders that I was very pleased at all I had seen on the fronts of the three Armies which I had recently visited . . . I was only afraid that the enemy would find our front so very strong that he will hesitate to commit his Army to the attack with the almost certainty of losing very heavily.18
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At the tactical level, Ludendorff’s Michael offensive (21 March to 5 April 1918) imposed a massive reverse upon the Allies, and, primarily, the BEF. In some sixteen days the Germans captured around 1200 square miles of territory (including the old Somme battlegrounds taken at such great cost by the BEF two years earlier); the British lost around 85 000 killed or wounded; a further 75 000 men became POWs; over 1000 guns were lost; and, by destroying or capturing much of the Fifth Army’s front zone posts, and a number of similar Third Army posts, large numbers of machine guns were also lost.
But from a strategic perspective, Michael failed because the Germans were unable to gain either of their objectives. When Arras was not taken and the BEF pushed northwards, Ludendorff pushed his strength westwards towards Amiens, where, it was hoped, he might cripple the railway system, disrupt the supply of the BEF and also drive a wedge between that force and the French. Although the Germans struck within some ten miles of that transport hub, and were able to shell it, they did not—thanks in a significant measure to the Australian and French defence of Villers-Bretonneux—gain their objective. In the end, Michael failed because of a breakdown of logistics: the Germans outran their ability to adequately supply their troops, and to maintain their artillery dominance. Ian Brown has best summed up this German logistical failure: ‘[Michael] . . . forced the troops to march and fight at substantial distances from their railheads . . . Sheer fatigue and outstripped rear-area services do not reflect well on the German staffs of the time, nor does the lack of a coherent plan of campaign.’19 The German offensive quite simply ran out of steam because of this ‘sheer fatigue’ and lack of adequate support. Forced to pause, the Germans gave the BEF time to reorganise, then to stall and eventually halt the offensive.
Despite the fluid nature of its withdrawal, no such logistical paralysis occurred within the BEF. Ian Brown gives us a striking example of the BEF’s superior logistical performance:
The BEF expended an enormous quantity of ammunition in the spring, which greatly taxed the lines of communication. In the three weeks following the launch of the Michael offensive, the artillery used just short of 5.5 million 18-pounder and nearly 1.5 million 4.5 [inch] howitzer shells. This represented nearly the total number of 18-pounder shells available to the BEF just prior to the Somme offensive twenty-one months previously. During April, 725 ammunition trains ran to the front—nearly as many as ran during the whole five months of the Somme offensive.20
But the startling fact Brown reveals is that, other than 9.2-inch Howitzer shells, the British production of these shells exceeded their substantial and concentrated use during Michael. The same phenomenon applied to its guns: although 859 were lost in the first week of the offensive, the BEF still held a surplus of guns (except 12-inch Howitzers). Brown gives us a telling conclusion: ‘This reflected not only the increased production in England but also better ability to keep and maintain stocks on the lines of communication for just such an eventuality.’21
It will be remembered that both Haig and Pétain had rejected two of the Supreme War Council initiatives upon its formation in late 1917: the creation of a central reserve and the appointment of an Allied Commander-in-Chief. Both had pledged to come to the aid of the other should the German offensive threaten the dislocation of the two national forces.
When Gough’s Fifth Army front collapsed and Ludendorff shifted his focus to the Amiens front, Haig, who had most of his reserves in the area north of Arras, appealed to Pétain for reinforcements. They were slow in coming. When Pétain admitted to Haig that he was contemplating swinging his left flank back to cover Paris, because he believed that the main German attack had not yet materialised, a crisis ensued. Haig recorded that: ‘Pétain struck me as very much upset, almost unbalanced and most anxious.’22 On 25 March, to avoid the calamity of a splitting of the French and BEF armies, Haig requested that the CIGS, General Wilson, and Lord Milner (Se
cretary of State for War) should come to France immediately to ‘arrange that General Foch or some determined General who would fight, should be given supreme control of the operations in France’.23
On 26 March 1918, a conference was held at Doullens (about 15 miles north of Amiens). Representing the French were President Poincaré, Premier Clemenceau and Generals Pétain, Foch and Weygand, while the British representatives were Lord Milner, Haig and Generals Wilson, Lawrence and Montgomery. Those gathered eventually saw the need for a supreme commander on the Western Front and identified General Foch as the soldier to lead the Allies. Haig noted that ‘Foch seemed sound and sensible but Pétain had a terrible look.’24 Foch’s appointment would prove an astute decision, as he had two priceless qualities that were drastically needed for the challenge ahead. First, he had that rare ability to engage in coalition warfare: he could see past the exclusive interests of just his own country and army, and perceive and fight an allied war (which was, of course, in the long-term interests of his country). Second, he had the admirable personality traits of resolution, perseverance and inspiring optimism.
Ample proof of Foch’s above-mentioned qualities was the almost immediate order to Pétain to fast-track the deployment of French First Army divisions to the line north of the Oise River, and to immediately create a strong reserve near Amiens, manned by a further number of French divisions. Foch knew that the real threat was to Amiens and therefore that there was potential for the dislocation of the union of the French and BEF front, as well as the BEF’s logistics capacity.
