Summary

In March 1918, Germany launched a massive offensive, gaining ground fast but failing to capture Paris. By July it had stalled.

It could be argued that the failure of the Spring Offensive was the main cause of Germany’s defeat. It allowed the Allies to outflank and counterattack the retreating Germans. Meanwhile, supply problems left soldiers hungry and exhausted, often looting instead of fighting. Morale collapsed, and troops surrendered. Germany lost ⅔ million casualties – its best men. Their replacements were of lower quality, Ludendorff’s reputation and leadership were damaged, and disillusionment spread at home. So, when the Allies broke through the Hindenburg Line in September, Ludendorff recommended an Armistice to avoid “catastrophe” … thus it is clear that the defeat of the Spring Offensive was important in Germany’s defeat.

But other factors were also crucial. The failure of the Schlieffen Plan in 1914 had left Germany trapped in a long two-front war it could never win. The US entry in 1917 brought fresh troops, supplies and a morale boost for the Allies. Germany, though powerful, was unable to compete with the combined economic strength of the US, the British Empire, and France. Then, in 1918, its allies collapsed – Austria-Hungary fell apart, and Turkey surrendered, leaving Germany open to invasion from the Balkans. The U-boat campaign brought the US into the war, whilst the British naval blockade caused terrible shortages, weakening German war production and subjecting the population to starvation and disease. Unrest grew at home. All this shows that Germany was being worn down in many ways by 1918.

Meanwhile, some historians believe the importance of the Spring Offensive’s defeat has been overstated. The German Army remained organised, disciplined and retreated in good order. Germany itself had not been invaded, and the Allied advance was slowing. In October, Ludendorff changed his mind and claimed the war could still be won. In the end, it was not the war but political collapse – triggered by the Kiel naval mutiny and Bolshevik revolts – that brought down the Kaiser and forced an armistice.

So, while the failed Spring Offensive clearly damaged Germany’s war effort, it was not the main cause of defeat. The decisive factors were the failure of the Schlieffen Plan, the Allies’ superior resources and manpower, the entry of the US, the loss of its allies, and unrest at home caused by the Blockade. The Spring Offensive was a desperate gamble to avoid defeat – not the cause of defeat but a symptom of it.

‘The defeat of Ludendorff’s Spring Offensive was the main reason for Germany’s defeat in the First World War.’ How far do you agree with this statement?

In March 1918, the German Army launched its Kaiserschlacht (Kaiser’s Battle). Operation Michael (21 March) followed by Operations Georgette, Blücher-Yorck, Gneisenau and Friedensturm took the Germans to within 50 miles of Paris. In July, however, the Offensive ground to a halt, and on 8 August the Allies counter-attacked – the ‘Black Day’ of the German Army. In November, Armistice negotiations began, Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated and a German republic was proclaimed, and on 11 November the Armistice was signed.

So it could be argued that the defeat of Ludendorff’s Spring Offensive was the main reason for Germany’s defeat in the First World War.

There is no disguising that the Spring Offensive was a disaster for the Germany Army. Hastily- and poorly-planned, it was a desperate dash for Paris which, when it failed, left the Army’s flanks exposed. Once they had stalled the German attack, the Allies were able to outflank and defeat the retreating German Army.

The German Army suffered more than ⅔ million casualties. Meanwhile, requiring the infantry to advance on foot as well as fight, the attack ran ahead of its supports and supplies, causing exhausted and ravenous German soldiers to break off their attacks to loot abandoned Allied food depots; demoralised and starving, German soldiers started to surrender in large numbers (30,000 during the Battle of Amiens, August 1918).

The attack thus exhausted German manpower and quality. Particularly, not only did Germany not have the reserves to replace the high casualties of the attack, the very success of the new ‘stormtrooper’ tactics, using the most experienced troops to punch deep holes in the Allied lines, meant that it was the best officers and troops which suffered the most casualties, and those replacing them were of increasingly inferior quality.

Plus the effect on German morale in general was catastrophic; it showed that Germany did not have the resources or leadership to win the war. It thus undermined Ludendorff’s leadership and military credibility with the German government and Army, and deepened unrest and disillusionment on the German home front.

All this meant that, for the next ‘100 Days’, the Allies could not only drive back the German attack, but were able on 29 September to break through the Hindenburg Line, which had held back the Allied attack since 1917, leading Ludendorff to report to the German High Command: “the situation demands an immediate armistice in order to save a catastrophe”.

So we can see that the defeat of Ludendorff’s Spring Offensive appears hugely-important in Germany’s defeat.

But was the defeat of the Spring Offensive the MAIN reason for Germany’s defeat in the First World War? There were at least five other reasons why Germany was defeated.

It can be argued that the failure of the Schlieffen Plan in 1914 was the main cause of the Germany’s defeat. The whole point of the Plan was to defeat France quickly because Germany’s generals believed that Germany could not win a war on two fronts against France and Russia: ie that the surprise of WWI was not that – after its initial blitzkrieg was halted -- Germany was defeated, but that it took the Allies four years to do so. By this argument, the Spring Offensive was nothing but a weak echo of the Schlieffen Plan, with the same aims, the same flaws, and the same result.

The entry of the USA into the war is another reason often cited as the main cause of the end of the war. America had already been supplying vast loans and resources to the Allies, and in 1917-18 they sent 2 million service personnel, of whom more than half actually fought on the Western front, along with 2,000 tons of materials per day, including: 700,000 tons of steel, 30,000 tons of iron, 55,000 tons of brass & copper, 34,500,000 feet of wood … and, critically, huge exports of wheat. Meanwhile, the arrival of American troops was a great morale boost to the Allied forces, as well as fresh reinforcements.

Running through both of these factors – the failure of the Schlieffen Plan and the US entry into the war – is the superiority of Allied manpower and resources. Germany was arguably the most powerful industrial nation in 1914, but it could never out-produce the combined economies of the US, the British Empire, France and Russia. In a mechanised war, where valour meant nothing, as soon as the war of movement bogged down into a war of attrition, Germany’s defeat, it could be argued, was simply an inevitable result of inferior industrial production.

Connected with this, also, was the collapse in 1918 of Germany’s Allies. On 6 October, Austria-Hungary collapsed as Yugoslavia, Poland and Czechoslovakia proclaimed their independence, and on 30 October, Turkey signed an armistice with the Allies. This made Germany vulnerable to attack through the Balkans, opening up the second front which Churchill had tried (but failed) to create in 1915.

Another major cause of Germany’s demise was its defeat in the War at Sea. The U-boat campaign not only failed to cut off Britain’s supply-routes, but was a major factor in America’s entry into the war. Meanwhile, the German Navy – despite getting the better of the British at Jutland – failed to break the blockade. This not only hindered German war production, it led to economic hardship and resource shortages. The German people starved. Scurvy, tuberculosis and dysentery were widespread, and three-quarters of a million Germans died from hunger and disease. In 1918, Germans were living on K-Brot, potatoes and berries, and there were Hunger Riots in autumn 1915, summer 1916, and September 1918.

By contrast, is it possible that historians have exaggerated the significance of the defeat of the Spring Offensive for the German Army. The German Army remained in the field and did not collapse into disarray – it was withdrawing in good order, and resisting effectively, mounting delaying actions, and counterattacks. Despite desertions, German Army units maintained their discipline and cohesion. Unlike in 1945, Germany had not been invaded – the front lines in November 1918 were still in Belgium and France. And, although Ludendorff seems to have panicked in September 1918, by October he had changed his mood, and was claiming Germany could still defend itself. Meanwhile, the Allied troops were exhausted, beginning to get bogged down in the November mud, and both Haig and Foch warned that the ‘Hundred Days’ advance could not be sustained indefinitely. Plus there were increasing calls at home for an end to the loss of life, so that some historians argue that the Armistice was a stalemated exhaustion, not an Allied triumph.

Indeed, if you look at the events leading up to the end of the war, it is clear that it was civilian and naval political unrest, not a collapse of the Army, which brought about Germany’s capitulation. Turkey and Austria-Hungary capitulated in October. More significantly, on 3 November, the Kiel Navy mutinied, setting up Russian-style ‘soviets’, and there were Bolshevist-style uprisings in Munich, Stuttgart and Berlin. Within a week, Wilhelm had fled to Holland and – to forestall a Bolshevik Revolution – Ebert had proclaimed the republic and was seeking an Armistice.

Therefore, although the failure of the Spring Offensive undoubtedly damaged the capacity of the German Army, showed that victory was impossible, and destroyed civilian morale, it is hard to argue that this was a major cause of Germany’s defeat. The Army continued fighting effectively until 11am on 11 November.

It seems much more arguable that – once the Schlieffen Plan had failed and WWI bogged down into a war of attrition – the massive Allied superiority of manpower and economic resources, reinforced by the entry of American into the war, the collapse of Germany’s allies, and the economic shortages caused by the British naval blockade were the main causes of Germany’s defeat, triggered at home by the Bolshevik unrest and political alarm they caused.

Indeed, it is arguable that the reason Ludendorff gambled on the Spring Offensive was as an attempt to win the war before Germany’s allies capitulated, the Americans arrived and domestic support ran out. Looked at in this way, the Kaiserschlacht appears, not such much a cause of Germany’s defeat, as a result of Germany’s eroding circumstances.

Going Deeper

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