Back to Part 8
Operation
Michael
The fog on the morning of 21 March 1918
caused problems to both sides. With its
Forward Zone paralysed, much of its artillery suppressed, and communications
severely disrupted by the initial German barrage, the fog proved more
problematic to the BEF. Within the first
few hours of the German infantry assault 47 battalions, deployed in the Forward
Zone, had disappeared from the BEF’s order of battle (Gray, Kaiserschlacht
1918, p 36.). At the end of the first day Maxse, XVIII
Corps commander, was to report to Gough that all nine of his battalions
deployed in the Forward Zone had been almost annihilated (Gough,
The Fifth Army, p 267.). When the fighting stopped at the end of the
first day German stormtroopers had penetrated up to 8,000 yards behind the
British front in some places. The
greatest losses were experienced at the southern end of 5th Army’s
front where III Corps, outnumbered eight to one, had been pushed out of its
Battle Zone (J.P.
Harris, Douglas Haig and the First World
War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 447 and, Middlebrook
The Kaisers Battle p. 274.).
GHQ was slow to appreciate the true
impact of the days fighting. Chief of
the General Staff, Lawrence, during a phone call with Gough, went so far as to
speculate that:
‘the
Germans would not come on again the next day’. Gough,
The Fifth Army p. 271.
The two GHQ reserve divisions,
earmarked as 5th Army reserves, had been released to Gough and were
being fed piecemeal into the line. The
promised French divisions were not immediately available. French G.Q.G believed a German offensive in Champagne was highly
likely having been misled by a German signals deception plan that created a
false Army opposite the French front.
The first French division arrived on 22 March. Additional BEF reserves were to be moved
south with 3rd Army receiving the first divisions, 5th
Army would have to hold on with what it had.
Gough had little choice but to implement his ‘gradual retirement’. At 10.45 a.m. on 22 March 1918 he authorised
a general retreat. At this stage the
‘fog of war’ descended on both sides.
Confusion over Gough’s withdrawal
orders compounded by growing command dislocation within 5th Army on
22 March resulted in Maxse’s XVIII Corps retiring prematurely to the Somme
river, leaving Watt’s XIX Corps to its north with an exposed right flank, and
Butler’s III Corps the same problem on its left. Coincident with this, and perhaps because of
it, Ludendorff decided to switch the main focus of the German attack to the
south to take advantage of the success against III Corps; the aim was to force
a split between the French and British armies.
It was arguably this switch in focus that doomed the offensive to
failure.
By the 26 March with the BEF on the
verge of pulling back and northwards, effectively abandoning 5th
Army, after 3rd Army’s withdrawal from the Flesquieres salient had
left a gap between 3rd and 5th Armies (the Flesquieres
salient had been held by Byng’s 3rd Army against Haig’s better
judgement), and the French looking to cover Paris, the allies finally unified
their commands under General Foch.
Whilst not necessarily saving the day the appointment of Foch as
‘Generalissimo’ served to steady both Haig and Pétain, improved allied understanding
and coordination, and prevented a catastrophic split between the two allied
armies.
Next: Operation Mars