by Peter Hart
Second Lieutenant John Thomason, 5th Marines, AEF
Communications difficulties were particularly evident when French tanks, Senegalese infantry and American soldiers found themselves fighting in the same patch of ground.
At 3:30 pm three small French tanks, supported by about sixty black Moroccans [Senegalese] in squad columns 50 yards behind the tanks, moved through us from the left rear and headed straight for Vierzy. There was some confusion as ‘M’ Company had some difficulty in keeping from being run down by the machines, lying, as we were, hidden in the wheat. The black men just followed along stoically – and too close. The machine guns in Vierzy opened up a terrific burst of fire and we were tight in the path of it. The Moroccans were simply mowed down but kept on until I did not see a single one left standing. This was literally the case. The tanks turned around and vanished to our left rear. ‘M’ Company had several casualties due to this foolish manoeuvre. How they happened to come there in the first place, I don’t know. I got a bullet in the knee.37
Lieutenant Ludislav Janda, 9th Infantry Regiment, AEF
But, for all the problems, the French and Americans drove back the Germans. The Renault tanks made a real difference, swarming over the battlefield, taking out German machine gun posts and generally assisting the infantry, with their fully rotating turret making them flexible in selecting targets. Although their small size precluded them crossing trenches, they were meant to work in tandem with sappers or specially trained infantry using picks and shovels to break down the trench walls and smooth out the way. As can be imagined, such arrangements did not often stand up to the test of battle. Like the British, the French would also find that the combination of high casualties, mechanical breakdowns and crew exhaustion meant that tank units melted away after a day or so in action.
Meanwhile, Lieutenant Émile Morin and his men were heading towards the Savière River. They managed to cross a bridge, but then found themselves trapped on a mid-stream island rather than on the far side as they had imagined.
We sink knee-deep in sticky black mud, trudging through a thick covering of reeds. Suddenly, the ground disappears beneath my feet and I fall up to my waist in the mud stirred up by the explosion of a shell. I try to get out of this mess, but every move worsens my situation. I feel drawn into this bog and there is no one to rescue me. My whole section has disappeared into the reeds. I shout out, but will I be heard in the deafening din of the bombardment? The seconds tick by slowly and gradually I feel myself slipping limply to the bottom of this grave that will quietly close up over me! The slime already reached up to my armpits. A few more moments and I will disappear forever in a painless death. And when the attack has ended; when they call out, ‘Lieutenant Morin?’ a voice will answer, ‘Missing 18 July!’ Where exactly? Under what circumstances? Nobody will ever know and I will have joined the large cohort of soldiers without an official grave. Suddenly, the reeds part and the Sergeant Major of my section appears. In the blink of an eye he grasps the situation and reaches out to me with his rifle, which I grab with both hands and he manages to drag me out of the depths of my muddy grave.38
Lieutenant Émile Morin, 60th Infantry Regiment
There were so many ways to die in service of the Republic. Shortly afterwards Morin was hit in the hand and thigh. His long war was over.
The Germans could not withstand the pressure and fell back towards the Aisne River. By 7 August all their gains from their 27 May offensive had been lost. Finally, Ludendorff was forced to face the fact that he no longer had the forces available to launch a viable offensive and would be on the defensive for the foreseeable future. His whole strategy for 1918 lay in ruins and defeat beckoned, no longer whispering softly, but shouting from the rooftops.
While the French took over the lead role, the British had been using the early summer interregnum to reorganise, giving valuable experience of Western Front conditions to the divisions sent from the sideshows and assimilating the copious drafts released from home service. On the newly constituted Fourth Army front on the Somme, General Sir Henry Rawlinson became aware that his German opponents were adopting a strangely placid role, failing to build up their defences in depth, indeed failing to build any proper defences at all. This was characteristic of a general decline in German military efficiency. Many of the better divisions had already been moved south, sucked into the great offensives against the French, while the best men from the divisions that remained had already been filtered out to restock the stormtrooper units. The remnants were in poor shape, unrecognisable from the German formations of earlier in the war. The failure to achieve a decisive victory coupled with the arrival of the American legions had undoubtedly dealt a severe blow to German morale.
We were like animals, for we lived as such. At times we did not wash for days; our bodies were infested with vermin and most of us suffered from worms. Our clothes were torn and filthy, rags were used as socks. We ate anything that was barely edible and were content when they let us sleep without interruption. Our brains grew numb. Something had put new life into our enemies, who seemed more confident, more determined. Had they really been reinforced by two million Americans? The Allied forces hadn’t struck yet, but we sensed that they were merely feeling out our weakened position. Their aircraft filled the air, raking us with machine gun fire and bombs from above, while artillery and trench mortars worked from every possible angle on the ground.39
Corporal Frederick Meisel, 371st Infantry Regiment
The German Army was near to breaking poimt. Not only that but the situation on the home front was grim, with chronic food shortages, problems providing enough labour to cope with the demands of industry and problems with what labour force there was, as socialist views began to take a grip on many of the workers, causing an increasing number of strikes and protests.
Tempted by the apparently frail nature of the German defences he was presented with, Rawlinson asked Lieutenant General Sir John Monash, commanding the Australian Corps, to prepare an exploratory local attack. Monash and his staff planned a line-straightening operation for the village of Hamel, to be launched at 03.10 on 4 July 1918. The tactics employed reflected the shift from manpower to firepower, a shift that had been gradually forced upon the British Army, but which was now wholeheartedly embraced in the concept of the ‘All Arms Battle’. The attack proved a stunning success achieving an advance of 2,000 yards.
As we got to our objective we found two dugouts. I happened to be there first and I heard movement in one of these shelters. When I yelled out to the occupants, out came two hands with a loaf of black bread in each, and presently a pair of terrified eyes took a glimpse at me. They must have been reassured by my look, because the Huns came out at once, and, when I sized them up, all thoughts of revenge vanished. We could not kill children and these looked to be barely that. If any of us had been asked how old they were, most of us would have said between fourteen and fifteen, and that was giving them every day of their age. With a boot to help them along, they ran with their hands above their heads back to our lines.40
Lieutenant Edgar Rule, 14th Battalion, AIF
The enfeebled German Army was in no fit state to withstand this kind of focussed onslaught.
Bolstered by this triumph, Rawlinson began to plan a much bigger battle to capitalise on the German weakness using a further development of the self-same tactics. But this was emphatically not the work of one man, or even of a small group of officers, but rather the synthesis of all that the British – aided by the French – had learnt over the previous three years, since the Battle of Neuve Chapelle. It was a collegiate effort, marked by the wholehearted involvement of experts at all levels of the BEF and fully integrating all the new weapons into one ferocious methodology of modern war. The guns of the Royal Artillery remained the backbone of the assault. A total of 1,386 carefully calibrated field guns and howitzers, with a further 684 heavy artillery pieces, were moved in secretly, their ammunition dumps stocked to the brim. The RAF, aided by flash s
potters and sound rangers, had already managed to identify 504 of the 530 German guns. When the attack was launched, they would be neutralised by lashings of gas and high explosive shells to prevent them intervening as the infantry crossed No Man’s Land. There was no longer any need to decide between counter-battery fire and a barrage: the BEF now had enough guns to allow for both with a comprehensive creeping barrage, forcing the Germans to keep their heads down as the British infantry approached. With them came the tanks: 324 heavy tanks to squash the barbed wire and help crush any surviving German strongpoints; then 96 light Whippet tanks to create havoc behind the German lines; while a further 120 supply tanks were loaded with munitions to resupply the infantry in case of German counter-attacks. This would be the biggest tank attack of the war. Above them flew the aircraft, strafing the battlefield and making contact reports to record progress, attacking airfields to neutralise their opposite numbers and launching interdiction bombing missions against rail junctions, arterial roads and key bridges. The infantry themselves were unrecognisable from the warriors of 1915. Fewer in number, perhaps, but covered by massed Vickers machine gun fire and carrying their own Lewis guns, Stokes mortars and rifle grenades for immediate powerful support. Furthermore, they no longer advanced in lines, but in ‘short worms’ of about eight men feeling their way in ‘strings’ across No Man’s Land preceded by well-trained scouts.
Haig and Foch accepted Rawlinson’s plans, indeed Foch intervened to expand the overall scale of the operations by including the neighbouring French First Army, commanded by General Marie-Eugène Debeney. Yet even as everything began to fall into place on the Western Front, back in London General Sir Henry Wilson, Lloyd George’s choice to replace Robertson as Chief of Imperial General Staff, was expressing his cautious views as to what should be done.
A period of preparation should ensue during which all the Allied resources should be husbanded, organised and trained for the culminating military effort at the decisive moment. This will not be a period of passive defence, far from it, but it will be a period during which no final decision is attempted. The first question that arises is – when is this decisive effort to be made? That is to say, will it be possible to accomplish it in 1919, or must we wait until 1920?41
General Sir Henry Wilson, Imperial General Staff
Wilson felt the decisive thrust might be made on 1 July 1919. It is evident that the generals at the front had a far clearer sense of purpose in conceiving the Battle of Amiens. When the guns blazed out at Zero Hour of 04.20 on 8 August the battle plan began to work like clockwork.
And suddenly, with a mighty roar, more than a thousand guns begin the symphony. A great illumination lights up the eastern horizon: and instantly the whole complex organisation, extending far back to areas almost beyond earshot of the guns, begins to move forward; every man, every unit, every vehicle and every tank on the appointed tasks and to their designated goals, sweeping on relentlessly and irresistibly. Viewed from a high vantage point and in the glimmer of the breaking day, a great artillery barrage surely surpasses in dynamic splendour any other manifestation of collective human effort.42
Lieutenant General Sir John Monash, Headquarters, Australian Corps
As the infantry attacked, helped by the cover of fog, they were simply unstoppable.
Then we were over the tape and away; me with my Lewis gun section. Off along with the tanks. But it was off in a fog as well, a fog that had been coming down all night, and was now so thick you could hardly see 20 yards in front of you. The tanks, unless one came very near to you, you could only place by sound. It was an eerie start. In no time Germans, ghost like in the mists, were showing up all over the place, most with their hands up above their heads in surrender. But here and there a machine gun still firing at random at us.43
Corporal William Kerr, 5th (Western Cavalry) Battalion, 1st Canadian Division
Where possible the infantry kept close up to the tanks and the creeping barrage, seeking to catch the Germans by surprise.
We knew that we had to follow our tanks so kept along after them. Every now and then ‘Fritzes’ would come running back with their hands up, well ‘souvenired’, watches and pocket books all gone. One Hun came suddenly in sight of a tank that I was near. He was so scared that he bounded right at me and would have knocked me down, but I poked the old bayonet at him and he steadied up. Their main idea seemed to be to get taken prisoner and to get out of the line at the earliest.44
Private Geoffrey Rose, 30th Battalion, AIF
On most of the front, the Allies surged through the German lines, only to find the innermost workings of the German war machine exposed before them.
We passed the wood into a corn field; by this time I was in the driving seat again, and as we kept meeting machine gun fire, we had to resort to the old zigzag again. We passed hundreds of Germans with their hands up, these we left for the Canadians to deal with, and in the late afternoon we reached our objective on the top of the ridge. The infantry came up and started to dig in, and at last we were able to open the doors and get out, only to fall in a heap on the ground on top of each other, out to the world. Gradually we came round and out came the bottle of rum, and we came to. We could not believe our eyes – in the valley below we could see the enemy piling stuff on to trucks on a train, men pulling out guns to get them away, and they were hauling in the observation balloons and trying to put them on their trucks. Utter chaos.45
Private Charles Rowland, 14th Battalion, Tank Corps
Despite the faltering of the British III Corps on the left flank, where a difficult ground configuration hindered progress, the Canadian and Australian Corps both had stunning successes, advancing up to eight miles across a 10-mile-wide frontage. The Germans suffered 27,700 casualties, of which 15,000 were prisoners-of-war. They also lost over 400 guns and large quantities of mortars and machine guns. It was a disaster that Ludendorff could not deny: ‘August 8 was the black day of the German Army in the history of this war.’46 All this for the loss of 9,000 British casualties and commensurate French losses. With its ‘All Arms Battle’, the British tactical rollercoaster had reached a peak to which the Germans had no counter: the complex, inter-twined war of competing tactical developments was over at last.
Over the next few days, the British and French continued to move forward, although the law of diminishing returns stalked their steps. The artillery were dislocated, communications were soon disrupted resulting in confusion in command and control, the infantry were becoming increasingly tired, the mechanically unreliable tanks broke down and the supply lines were stretched. Meanwhile, the Germans moved their reserves forward, stiffening the line and occupying the old trench lines that littered the whole Somme area. As resistance increased, it was beoming apparent that without efficient artillery and tank support British losses would rise astronomically. Rawlinson and his corps commanders realised that their attack was running out of momentum. But it was not their decision to suspend operations. That lay higher up the chain of command. Haig examined their case and decided his subordinates were right. But he still had to deal with Foch, who was determined to press on. A classic confrontation ensued in which Foch tried to order the implacable Haig to bend to his will. He soon found that, Supreme Commander or not, he did not have the right to control British tactical deployments.
Foch pressed me to attack the positions held by the enemy on the front Chaulnes–Roye. I declined to do so because they could only be taken after heavy casualties in men and tanks. I had ordered the First French and Fourth (British) Armies to postpone their attacks, but to keep up pressure on that front so as to make the enemy expect an attack on this front, while I transferred my reserves to Third Army. Foch now wanted to know what orders I had issued for attack: when I proposed to attack? Where? And with what troops? I think he really wanted a written statement to this effect from me for his records! I told Foch of my instructions to Byng and Horne; and that Rawlinson would also co-operate with his left between the Somme and the An
cre when Third Army had advanced and withdrawn some of the pressure which was still strong in that sector. I spoke to Foch quite straightly, and let him understand that I was responsible for the handling of the British forces. Foch’s attitude at once changed and he said all he wanted was early information of my intentions, so that he might co-ordinate the operations of the other armies, and that he thought I was quite correct in my decision not to attack the enemy in his prepared position.47
Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, General Headquarters, BEF
The result was that Haig ordered his Fourth Army to rest and recover its strength, while the neighbouring Third Army took over the attack. Thus the Battle of Amiens ended after just three days on 11 August 1918. A total advance of twelve miles had been achieved, but what really mattered was the severe body blow it had inflicted on the German Army. Although the Allies had lost some 46,000 casualties, estimates of the Germans losses range from 48,000 to 75,000, of which nearly 30,000 were prisoners of war. After the losses already suffered in the 1918 offensives the Germans could not sustain this level of sacrifice. Ludendorff could see the writing on the wall.
Our war machine was no longer efficient. Our fighting power had suffered, even though the great majority of divisions still fought heroically. August 8 put the decline of that fighting power beyond all doubt, and in such a situation, as regards reserves, I had no hope of finding a strategic expedient whereby to turn the situation to our advantage. On the contrary, I became convinced that we were now without that safe foundation for the plans of General Headquarters, on which I had hitherto been able to build, at least so far as is possible in war. Leadership now assumed, as I then stated, the character of an irresponsible game of chance, a thing I have always considered fatal. The fate of the German people was to me too high a stake. The war must be ended.48
