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Hello and welcome to a History of Europe

0:56

GearBattles podcast. My name

0:58

is Carter Islet, and today I'll be

1:00

continuing the story of the First World War.

1:06

So far we've talked about the origins of the

1:08

First World War and the conduct

1:10

of the war up until the end of 1917.

1:15

Today we move on to the final

1:17

year of the war, 1918.

1:34

On the 22nd of December, 1917, a peace

1:37

conference began at the fortress city of

1:40

Brest-Litovsk, then the German

1:42

military headquarters on the Eastern Front.

1:46

In attendance on one side were 14

1:48

of the high-ranking delegates of the

1:50

Central Powers, with representatives

1:52

from Germany, Austria-Hungary, the

1:55

Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria. On

1:57

the other was a delegation of Bolsheviks. a

2:00

radical left-wing group which had

2:02

just recently seized control

2:04

of St Petersburg. The

2:06

latter consisted of 28 members, including

2:09

workers, soldiers, sailors, women

2:12

and a peasant.

2:13

The Germans and their allies had never seen anything

2:16

like it at a formal diplomatic

2:18

meeting.

2:22

The Germans sought to conclude war on

2:24

the Eastern Front as quickly as possible,

2:27

while at the same time trying to establish an informal

2:30

empire in East-Central Europe, one

2:33

composed of newly independent nation-states

2:36

on Russia's western periphery, Poland,

2:39

Ukraine, Lithuania, Estonia,

2:42

Kourland, Finland, Livonia

2:45

and Bessarabia, whose future would then

2:47

be controlled by Germany. The

2:52

leading Bolsheviks had differing ideas about

2:54

how best to proceed.

2:56

Lenin assessed the situation pragmatically

2:59

and favoured a peace agreement at any price in

3:02

order to stabilise the Bolsheviks' hold on

3:04

Russia.

3:06

Others were optimistic about a socialist

3:08

revolution breaking out in war-weary

3:10

nations across Europe and that

3:12

therefore, in the meantime, they should

3:15

play for time.

3:17

The German delegation were impatient and

3:19

were particularly keen for Ukraine to

3:21

quickly gain independence so as

3:23

to ensure supplies of grain and ore

3:26

to Central Powers' continuing war effort.

3:30

On 9 February, they signed a separate

3:32

peace with Ukrainian officials who

3:34

agreed to provide Germany and Austria-Hungary

3:37

with bread in return for recognition

3:39

of their independence from Russia.

3:43

The leader of the Bolshevik delegation,

3:46

Lev Trotsky, was furious

3:49

and stormed out of the conference, but

3:51

the truth was that he had no army capable

3:53

of resisting the Central Powers.

3:57

By February 1918, one million Germans were

4:00

and Austro-Hungarian troops were pushing

4:02

eastwards and covered 240km in just five

4:04

days.

4:08

During their rapid advance they

4:10

made huge conquests, meeting

4:12

almost no resistance as they conquered Latvia,

4:15

Livonia, Estonia, Belarus

4:17

and Ukraine,

4:18

whose capital, Kiev, they

4:21

occupied on the 1st of March. Two

4:26

days later the Bolsheviks capitulated

4:29

and signed a treaty even worse than the one

4:31

they had rejected. The

4:33

Russian Empire lost around 2.5

4:36

million square kilometers of territory, with 50

4:39

million inhabitants, 90% of its

4:41

coal mines, 54% of its industry and a third

4:43

of its agriculture

4:47

and railways. The

4:49

newly independent states of east-central

4:51

Europe

4:52

would be satellite states of Germany.

4:56

Compared to life under Tsarist Russia, at

4:59

least they would be able to build some of their

5:01

own institutions.

5:03

In addition, the Russians were expected to

5:06

return provinces in the Caucasus

5:08

to the Ottomans, which they had gained after

5:10

the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878.

5:18

In spite of these draconian terms, Lenin understood

5:21

that the survival of his regime depended

5:25

on external peace, which would buy

5:27

him time to secure the dictatorship of the proletariat from internal

5:29

enemies. One benefit of the agreement

5:31

for the Russians

5:34

was that the release of hundreds of

5:36

thousands of prisoners of war back to the homeland, having

5:38

been influenced by Bolshevik ideology,

5:40

would be highly disruptive for the countries to

5:43

which they returned, especially Austria-Hungary. Among

5:46

those were Bela Kun, who set up the party of

5:48

communists in

5:55

Hungary and the future president

5:58

of Yugoslavia, Josip

5:59

The

6:04

Treaty of Brest-Lutovsk was a triumph

6:06

for the Germans and they were now able

6:08

to focus their military resources on

6:10

the Western Front. For

6:14

the first time they enjoyed numerical

6:17

superiority over their opponents and

6:19

made plans for a decisive victory on

6:22

the battleground, or at least a victory

6:24

significant enough to force a peace on

6:26

favourable terms. However

6:30

back on the German home front, after four

6:33

harsh winters, a widespread hunger,

6:35

political unity was framed and

6:37

riots and strikes occurred across the country.

6:42

The army had taken control of the economy, but

6:44

it did not control Parliament. The

6:46

Reichstag and its elected members

6:49

still held the power to approve or withhold

6:52

war credits.

6:55

In the summer of 1917 these members

6:57

demanded permanent reconciliation without

7:00

forcible acquisition of territory.

7:03

The German Chancellor, Befman Holwig, was

7:06

forced to resign.

7:07

Parliament backed down and war credits

7:10

were eventually granted.

7:12

To counter the advocates of peace, the German High

7:14

Command sponsored the launch of a

7:17

new fatherland party to

7:19

campaign for a tough line on any

7:21

peace negotiations.

7:23

They received much popular support and

7:25

within a year numbered one and a

7:27

quarter million members

7:29

a populist right-wing movement which

7:32

foreshadowed things to come in Germany.

7:40

Generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff were

7:42

well aware that if a victory was to be achieved

7:45

it would have to be done soon.

7:47

There were increasing signs of exhaustion and

7:50

political dissent in Germany and

7:52

in particular Austria-Hungary, culminating

7:54

in massive strikes in the cities

7:57

of Vienna, Budapest and Berlin.

8:01

The majority of the German forces deployed

8:03

in the East had to remain so as

8:05

to maintain order among the chaotic conditions

8:08

there. But

8:09

they were able to move 44 divisions

8:12

to the Western Front, bringing their total to

8:15

99 divisions.

8:16

Against these the French could field about 100 divisions,

8:20

the British 58, and none yet from

8:22

the United States. Everything

8:26

now depended on the success or failure of

8:29

the German Spring Offensive in The

8:34

German High Command realised it was

8:36

a massive gamble, but one they were prepared

8:38

to take,

8:39

and still believed in the possibility of

8:41

a decisive breakthrough.

8:44

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8:46

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8:49

it would be evacuated before dealing a

8:51

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10:00

The British command were feeling confident, even

10:02

complacent. On the eve of the attack,

10:06

General Sir Douglas Haig approved Special

10:08

Leave for 88,000 troops and

10:10

the Mibar Reserve was

10:12

held back in Britain because of his assurances

10:15

that he could withstand any attack for 18

10:17

days.

10:20

Meanwhile, the German General Ludendorff

10:23

launched raids and bombardments all along

10:25

the front so as to obscure where

10:27

the blow might fall.

10:30

The Germans also concealed the attack zone

10:33

by moving up infantry at night,

10:35

covering ammunition dumps and battling to keep

10:37

air superiority.

10:42

The initial thrust was

10:44

to be against the southern part of the line east

10:46

of the city of Amiens, then

10:49

to draw in their reserves from the north where

10:51

a second blow would break through so

10:54

as hoped to the Channel ports.

10:58

Sir Douglas Haig, judging his left wing

11:01

in the north to be the decisive front,

11:03

had deliberately weakened the right. So

11:06

when the Germans attacked the early in the morning

11:08

of the 21st of March 1918, they

11:11

enjoyed a huge numerical advantage, some 52

11:14

divisions against his 26th. Operation

11:19

Michael, as the Germans named it, began

11:21

with a devastating artillery bombardment, directed

11:24

as much against communications and command centres

11:27

as against frontline troops.

11:30

65,000 guns fired

11:32

on a 44 mile front, destroying

11:35

all communications behind the lines and

11:38

drenching the front line with gas and

11:40

high explosives.

11:42

The British command, with their communications

11:44

disrupted, struggled to respond, made

11:47

worse by dense fog, which reduced visibility

11:49

to just a few metres.

11:52

The main German infantry attacks

11:54

began at around 9.40 in the

11:56

morning, and the British could often not

11:58

see them until it was done.

11:59

too late.

12:02

One eyewitness wrote of the ensuing chaos,

12:05

quote, the first attackers were into the trench long

12:08

before the mist lifted. I

12:10

was so occupied with the flanks that I barely

12:12

saw them before they peered out of the mist and

12:15

leapt down into the trench.

12:16

In a moment we were all mixed up in hand-to-hand

12:19

fighting.

12:20

Our two men come at me with their bayonets, one

12:22

of whom I think I shot with my revolver, while

12:25

a sergeant standing just behind me shot the other

12:27

at point blank range with a rifle barrel over

12:30

my shoulder.

12:31

For almost at the same second a

12:33

German stick bomb came whistling into the trench and

12:36

killed or wounded practically the whole lot

12:38

of us, English and German alike, end

12:40

quote.

12:44

All along the front the British forward zone

12:47

was overrun by German stormtroopers

12:49

who pushed deep behind the lines, leaving

12:52

any remaining sensors of resistance to the

12:54

follow-up troops. They

12:56

pressed into the battle zone. This

12:58

was where the main defence works were supposed to be,

13:01

but a shortage of labour meant that they were

13:03

not already for this kind of severe test,

13:06

and the British also lacked the

13:08

reserve forces to recover lost areas.

13:12

The Germans, however, began to have increasing

13:14

problems as the fog cleared.

13:17

British batteries that had been held well

13:19

back from the forward zone could now take their

13:21

toll on the advancing enemy,

13:24

and many Germans were caught in the open and

13:26

sometimes found themselves engaged in local

13:28

skirmishes.

13:30

Cushities were immense on both sides. By

13:33

the end of the first day the Germans had lost

13:35

between 35,000 and 40,000 cushities,

13:38

of which up to 11,000 were dead. The British lost 7,512 dead, 10,000 wounded

13:46

and 21,000 captured.

13:50

The next day, the 22nd of March, there

13:52

was a thick fog again, and the Germans

13:55

made further progress, breaking through at several

13:57

points against the British Fifth Army.

14:01

As the 5th Army fell back, many of the isolated

14:03

redoubts were left to be surrounded and

14:05

overwhelmed by the advancing German infantry.

14:08

The right wing of the British 3rd Army

14:11

became separated from the retreating 5th Army,

14:14

so also had to retreat to avoid being

14:16

outflanked.

14:19

The attack now threatened to separate

14:21

the British from the French armies. If

14:23

that happened, the British would have to fall back to the north

14:26

along their lines of communication to the channel

14:28

ports, while the French would have

14:31

to withdraw to the south to cover

14:33

Paris, leaving the way clear for the

14:35

Germans to advance to the coast. All

14:39

now depended on the French and British maintaining

14:41

contact. It was the worst setback

14:44

suffered by the British in the entire war

14:46

and forced the Allies on 3rd April to

14:49

overcome their internal rivalries by creating

14:51

a joint supreme command under

14:54

the French General Ferdinand Foch.

14:58

Back in Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm

15:01

was jubilant and was convinced that the battle

15:03

was won and that the English had been utterly defeated.

15:07

This optimistic view that victory was

15:09

imminent also took hold on the German

15:11

front, a critical factor in how Germany

15:14

later understood its defeat.

15:16

Meanwhile however, the German advance

15:19

was slowing to a halt. Their communications

15:21

were overextended, artillery could

15:24

not keep up with the pace of the infantry

15:26

advance, and progress was difficult

15:28

over the wasteland of the Somme battlefields.

15:34

The General Commander Ludendorff

15:36

broke off the operations on 5th

15:39

April and switched the attack to the north. Within

15:42

a few days the Germans captured ground to

15:44

the west of Ypres, which the British had conquered

15:47

the previous autumn. However,

15:49

British resistance stiffened and

15:51

on 3rd April Ludendorff called

15:53

off the attack.

15:55

Other German advances during Operation Michael

15:58

were impressive in relative

15:59

they did not amount to anything decisive.

16:04

The British were bruised but not broken

16:06

and the conquered territory was a worthless

16:09

wasteland, devastated by the last

16:11

four years of fighting.

16:14

Worse still the Germans had lost some 240,000

16:16

men during

16:18

the offensive with particularly high

16:20

casualty rates among the irreplaceable

16:23

elite assault units.

16:26

The British on the other hand could replace most

16:28

of their losses with new recruits shipped across

16:30

the Channel

16:31

to say nothing of the imminent arrival of the

16:33

Americans.

16:39

Ludendorff increasingly erratic in the search

16:41

anywhere for the necessary breakthrough now

16:44

turned to the French and the sector he chose to attack

16:46

was around the River Ein, where

16:49

Nivel had launched his disastrous offensive

16:52

a year earlier.

16:54

In the second battle of the Marne again the

16:56

Germans used huge amounts of artillery and

16:58

made significant advances.

17:01

After taking the town of Chateau Thierry,

17:04

German troops once again as in

17:05

1914 within reach

17:08

of the French capital where long-range

17:10

artillery fire killed nearly 900 Parisians.

17:17

Then came the French riposte. On

17:20

the 18th of July joined now by a large number

17:22

of American troops they struck the

17:24

Germans hard at soisom.

17:26

The Allied tanks made a real

17:29

difference swimming over the battlefield

17:31

taking out German machine gun posts and

17:33

assisting the infantry. The

17:36

Germans could not withstand the pressure and

17:38

fell back towards the River Ein.

17:41

Ludendorff was forced to face the fact that

17:44

he no longer had the forces available to

17:46

launch a viable offensive and

17:48

so would be forced back on the defensive. On

17:52

top of the military losses the first wave

17:54

of the Spanish flu particularly

17:57

aggressive influenza virus reached

17:59

the German

17:59

lines in the summer.

18:02

Initially the virus affected Allied

18:05

troops less severely than German ones.

18:08

The German 6th Army in Ozas alone

18:10

reported 10,000 cases per day during

18:13

the first half of July. In

18:15

total over 1 million German

18:17

soldiers fell ill between May

18:19

and July 1918. The

18:24

French counter offensive on the Marne was followed

18:27

by on the 8th of August a British

18:30

attack outside the town of Amiens

18:33

which

18:33

started what became known as the Hundred Days

18:35

Offensive.

18:37

Finally German defenses started to

18:39

crack

18:40

as Allied forces advanced over seven

18:42

miles on the first day, Canadian

18:45

and Australian units achieving particular

18:47

successes. German

18:49

morale broke as they suffered 27,000 casualties, 15,000

18:52

of whom

18:55

gave themselves up as prisoners of war.

19:02

Over the next days the British and French both

19:04

continued to move forward although as usual

19:06

progress became more difficult as lines

19:09

of communication became more stretched.

19:11

Also the Germans moved their reserves

19:14

forward stiffening a line and occupying

19:16

the old trench lines that littered the whole

19:18

Somme area.

19:20

After three days General Haig ordered the army

19:22

to rest and to recover its strength.

19:25

Advance of 12 miles had been achieved but

19:27

what really mattered was the severe body

19:29

blow it had inflicted on the German army.

19:33

Ludendorff described those days as the worst

19:35

he experienced until the final collapse

19:38

shaken in particular by the mass surrender

19:41

of his troops.

19:44

The next phase was one of piecemeal Allied

19:46

advances until mid September which

19:48

drove the Germans out of the remaining territory

19:51

it occupied since March.

19:53

The recaptures of historic towns

19:55

and fortification complexes became

19:58

weekly news items

19:59

The campaign was hard fought,

20:02

with combat ranging from full-on assaults

20:04

on defensive positions to bloody ambushes

20:07

and frantic skirmishes.

20:10

The war was in its last phase, but

20:12

the casualties were still mounting fast. By

20:16

early September, the British suffered losses

20:19

of 190,000 and the French about 100,000.

20:24

One event of note was on

20:26

12th September,

20:28

when took place the first fully-fledged

20:30

offensive by the Americans.

20:33

It was a learning experience for the inexperienced

20:35

American soldiers, who wisely leaned

20:37

on French artillery and support. It

20:41

was a relatively easy triumph for them, as

20:43

the Germans had been preparing in any event

20:46

to evacuate the lines, but

20:47

the Americans did well to achieve their

20:49

objectives.

20:54

The Allies were keen to keep up the momentum,

20:56

and to try to achieve victory before winter set

20:59

in. On 26th

21:01

September, they launched a general Allied

21:03

offensive along the entire Western

21:06

Front.

21:13

My name is Card Rider and

21:15

you've been listening to a History of Europe key

21:17

battles podcast.

21:20

Feel free to leave comments on the Facebook

21:23

page, or you can write to me directly

21:26

at carl.historyeurope.net.

21:30

It's always great to hear from you.

21:37

In the next episode, which will be the penultimate

21:40

of the whole series, I

21:43

will be talking about the last

21:45

battles of the First World War. It

21:47

will be entitled Endgame. I

21:50

hope you can join me then. Until

21:52

then, all the best and goodbye.

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