August 6, 2018 • 26 mins
We’re coming up on the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Amiens, near the end of World War I. Amiens was the start of what came to be known as the 100 Days Offensive, which was the Allies’ final push to win the war.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Hony Fry. We are
coming up on the hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Amian,
(00:21):
which started what came to be known as the Hundred
Days Offensive. That was the Allies final push to win
World War One, and this particular battle and the Hundred
Days Offensive aren't really talked about as frequently as some
of the other big moments in World War One. All
of our other World War One related episodes are from
much earlier in the war a lot of the time
(00:43):
because it was the hundredth anniversary of that thing. So
we're gonna set the stage a little bit in this
episode before we get to the battle itself, especially with
how events that played out in nineteen seventeen led to
all of this and how the Battle of Aman ultimately
led to the end of the war. Also, World War
One was massive, there was a lot going on in
(01:06):
other parts of the world during the time period that
we're talking about, so we are really just focused on
Europe here, particularly the Western Front, with the key players
being the British Empire, France, the United States, and Germany.
It is much too large to also talk about all
of the other battles going on in all of the
other places with all of the other countries in nineteen
(01:29):
seventeen and nineteen eighteen. So World War One started, of course,
in nineteen fourteen. Although international tensions had been rising in
Europe for years before this point, things shifted with the
assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. They
were shot to death in Sara Jevo on June nineteen
fourteen by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip. The art Duke had
(01:52):
been the heir to the throne of the Austro Hungarian Empire.
The Empire suspected that the Serbian government was involved in
the assassination, so Austria Hungary declared war on Serbia, and
soon much of Europe was involved in this conflict. Within
two weeks, the allies of Russia, Belgium, France, and Great
Britain had all sided with Serbia. Germany had sided with
(02:16):
the Austro Hungarian Empire as part of what would be
called the Central Powers, and more declarations of war followed
from there. This quickly became a war of attrition, with
the war on land in Europe being fought primarily along
the Eastern and Western fronts. Battles went on for months,
with millions of casualties and catastrophic effects for the civilian population,
(02:38):
including famines and food shortages all over Europe. For most
of it, the situation between the Allies and the Central
Powers was essentially a stalemate. This was especially true along
the Western Front, which ran from the English Channel to Switzerland,
primarily through France. Something started to shift at the end
of nineteen seventeen, though Russian involvement in the war had
(03:01):
never been popular there and the war had compounded ongoing
economic problems and food shortages In Russia. The February Revolution
started on March eighth of nineteen seventeen. It's called the
February Revolution because Russia was still on the Julian calendar,
so from the Russian point of view, that was February.
The February Revolution started with strikes and riots, and it
(03:24):
led to the abdication of Czar Nicholas. The Second Unrest
continued after the February Revolution. The Bolshevik Revolution followed in
November of nineteen seventeen, and that was followed by the
Russian Civil War. With all of this going on, Russian
involvement in World War One effectively ended, and Russia signed
an armistice with the Central Powers in December of nineteen seventeen.
(03:47):
A lot of the fighting along the Eastern Front at
this point had been between Russia and Germany, so with
Russia out of the picture, German forces were freed up
to move to the Western Front instead, more and forty
divisions of German troops prepared to do exactly that. After
Russia withdrew from the war, the United States had also
(04:08):
declared war on Germany in April of nineteen seventeen. Although
the US had avoided becoming directly involved in the war
until that point, it had been providing supplies and other
aid to the Allies for quite some time, so at
first the United States declaration of war didn't do much
to shift the balance of power, But the US committed
(04:28):
troops to the war effort as well, and those troops
started arriving in June of nineteen seventeen and entered combat
that October. In terms of actual troops, the American presence
in the war was pretty small in nineteen seventeen, that
first arrival of troops was only fourteen thousand men. By
July of nineteen eighteen, though, there would be more than
(04:49):
a million American troops in France alone, and unlike their
counterparts who were already there, these American troops weren't necessarily experienced,
but they were fresh. Most of the Allied troops who
are already in Europe were exhausted after months or years
of fighting. So in late nineteen seventeen, with Russia out
of the war and the United States ramping up to
(05:10):
join it, Germany recognized that it had a limited window
of opportunity. The German military was running out of everything,
including people, but with a quick decisive action, it might
be able to force the Allies to negotiate for peace
before so many American reinforcements arrived, or failing that, Germany
(05:31):
might be able to level the playing field, putting it
on more equal footing with the Allies during negotiations later on,
rather than being at a clear disadvantage. The Allies also
recognized that Germany had this one last opportunity to try
to break out of the stalemates, so at the start
of nineteen eighteen. Allied leaders were confident that a major
(05:52):
German attack was on the way and soon, but they
weren't really sure exactly when or where it came. On
the first day of Spring, that was March twenty one,
nineteen eighteen, German forces attacked a stretch of the Western
Front south of the French city of ARUs. This was
at a point where French and British forces met on
the Western Front, and it was the weakest point along
(06:14):
that line. Part of the German objective was to cut
these two forces off from one another and then at
least in theory, Germany could fight French and British forces separately,
overcoming both of them. The German attack incorporated air strikes,
a massive artillery of bombardment and gas, including tear gas,
chlorine and fostergene, and this attempt to break through the
(06:36):
Allied line, and they were immediately successful. The morning they
attacked was foggy and the Allies were caught by surprise.
The British third and fifth Armies were forced to retreat,
and on March one alone, the British military saw thirty
eight thousand, five hundred casualties that included twenty one thousand
soldiers taken prisoner. Germany was able to ad it's about
(07:00):
four miles or six and a half kilometers, reclaiming in
one day all the ground that they had lost over
the previous two years. This March twenty one assault was
the start of what came to be known as the
Spring Offensive or the Ludendorff Offensive that was named after
Quartermaster General Eric Ludendorff, who was leading the German military
with Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg. In Germany, it was
(07:24):
called Kaiserschlacht or Kaiser's Battle, and the first phase was
codenamed Operation Michael because it covered some of the same
territory as the Battle of the Sum in nineteen sixteen.
Sometimes it is also called the second Battle of the Sum.
Operation Michael ended on April five, and by that point
the German army had captured about twelve thousand square miles
(07:45):
of territory it's about thirty one thousand square kilometers. This
had come at a great cost, though, with about two
and forty thousand casualties that the German Army just had
no good way to replace. Together. French and British forces
includeing those from Canada, Australia, and other parts of the
British Empire had suffered nearly two fifty thousand casualties. Just
(08:07):
to be clear, casualty numbers include everyone killed, wounded, or captured.
That initial goal of splitting the British and French troops
didn't ultimately work out because Germany didn't have the manpower
to really divide and fight against both armies. The Allies
also quickly realized the threat and united the Allied troops
(08:27):
under the command of French General Ferdinand Foch to better
coordinate their efforts. So, rather than facing an army that
was divided and left in chaos, Germany instead faced a
force that was united under one command. The overall Spring
Offensive ended on July with the second Battle of the Marne.
General Ludendorff tried to capture the city of Rem, hoping
(08:50):
to divide the French forces and set a stage for
an assault on Flanders, but unlike on March one, General
Foch anticipated this attack. He in the Allies mounted a
counter attack, and by July eighteenth German forces were retreating.
Germany could not afford this loss, especially since American troops
were now arriving in France at a rate of about
(09:12):
three hundred thousand per month. The nineteen eighteen flu pandemic
was also sweeping across the globe at this point, including
through all of the armies involved in the war. But
the war was not over yet, which brings us to Amia,
and we're first going to pause and have a sponsor
break before we dig into that. The Spring Offensive and
(09:39):
the Allied counter attacks at the Second Battle of the
Marne were a shift in how the war was being
fought on the Western Front for years that had been
defined by the trenches. Trenches had been used during battles
in one way or another for centuries, and they continued
to be a part of warfare after this point, but
in World War One they were a side effect of
(10:00):
evolving military technologies, specifically machine guns and artillery. Trenches were
away for troops to gain some measure of protection from
these devastating weapons, even though it meant that they couldn't
really move once they were dug in. During those years
of stalemate, an attack on the enemy's trench had usually
combined a preliminary bombardment called a creeping barrage with an
(10:23):
advancing infantry. The barrage was supposed to lay down artillery
just ahead of the soldiers advance, providing cover and clearing
out the opposition. But a lot of the time this
didn't work. Barrages got too far ahead of the troops,
effectively serving as an advanced warning for the opposite side,
or they tore up the terrain so much that the
(10:44):
soldiers had trouble crossing to get to the enemy, or
barrages might move too slowly or fall short, and the
advancing infantry were killed as a result. Regardless, though, armies
wound up facing huge casualties in exchange for a few
yards of territory or none at all. By the spring
and summer of nineteen eighteen, though, World War one's opposing
(11:08):
armies were starting to make better use of all the
available military technology to effectively assault the other side's trenches,
and the allies first truly effective use of all that
technology was at the Battle of Hamel, led by Australian
Core commander Lieutenant General John Monash. Monash planned the early
morning attack in absolute secrecy. He added smoke shells to
(11:31):
the creeping barrage to obscure the battlefield. He also used tanks,
which had been introduced in nineteen sixteen, to plow through
the Germans barbed wire and fortifications, and to deliver supplies
from behind the infantry advance. Eighteen aircraft were involved as well,
including some older ones specifically chosen because their engines were
(11:51):
loud enough to cover up the sound of the tanks.
The planes dropped bombs and flares, providing covering fire, and
reported back with information about the Germans positions. The plan
also included faking troop movements in using dummy installations to
further disguise what they were doing, and sending messages back
and forth by pigeon. This battle was an enormous success
(12:14):
for the Allies. The Allied troops, including American and Australian forces,
attacked early in the morning on July four. Within two hours,
they had obtained all of their objectives. This was really
the first time that all of the available military technology
had been put into use at once in such a
coordinated way. It was so effective that all of the
(12:36):
commanders of the British Expeditionary Force got a report about it,
detailing what had gone so well after the battle was over.
The Battle of Ammia built off these same strategies that
Monash had put into place at Hamel. The city of
Amia was a major junction for railroads and communications, and
Germany had repeatedly tried to take it during the Spring offensive.
(12:58):
Germany had not succeeded, but it had stretched out its
line in the attempt, creating a bulge that it didn't
have the manpower to thoroughly defend. The Allies attack on
the salient was as before planned, in total secrecy. Before
it started, they used fake radio transmissions and phony troop
movements to disguise Theirst activity during the day, while putting
(13:21):
the men into their real positions at night. The assault
combined air support, artillery, tanks, and infantry. In terms of numbers,
the Allies had seventy five thousand men, more than five
hundred tanks, and nearly two thousand aircraft that troops included British, Canadian,
Australian and French infantry, tank brigades, British cavalry divisions, the
(13:43):
Royal Air Force, and American troops that were held in reserve.
Australian and Canadian troops formed the spearhead of the infantry
attack at Ammiam. By this point, Australia's military had distinguished
itself as part of the Australian and New Zealand Army
Corps that's ANZAC in the Globe League campaign, and the
Canadian units had developed a reputation as the British Empires
(14:04):
shock troops. Germany was out everything in this battle. Exact
numbers are in dispute. It is difficult to track down
precise numbers and a conflict like this, but they had
a much smaller fighting force, with only about five hundred
thirty guns and three hundred seventy aircraft. They had three
lines of trenches, but these trenches weren't well fortified and
(14:26):
the communication networks among them were really spotty. When the
attacks started at four twenty in the morning on August eight, eighteen,
it came as a total surprise. Fighting at the Battle
of Amien went on for three days. By that point,
the Allies had advanced eight miles it's about thirteen kilometers.
They had liberated more than one hundred towns and villages
(14:47):
from the Germans. They had also captured a two hundred
eighty millimeter or eleven inch Krup naval gun that had
been used to shell Amien from about twenty five kilometers
or that's sixteen miles away. This gun had been mounted
on a railway carriage, and the Australian thirty first Battalion,
fifth Division captured it by commandeering the carriage and driving
(15:08):
it back into Allied territory. They're very proud of capturing
this gun. I mean, it's not surprising that they were,
but it comes up a lot in accounts of this day.
After this hugely effective first day, the Allied advance slowed
over August night through eleventh. The German forces started to
regroup and offer a stronger resistance, and on the eleventh
(15:32):
Sir Arthur Curry of the Canadian Corps convinced General Sir
Henley Rawlinson of the British fourth Army that they should
consolidate their gains instead of continuing to try to push
ahead against increasingly tougher resistance. But before that decision, the
battle had devastated the German army. Ludendorff called August eight
the black day of the German Army in the history
(15:53):
of the war. He also said that it quote put
the decline of that fighting power beyond all doubt and
inside just situation as regards reserves, I had no hope
of finding a strategic expedient whereby to turn the situation
to our advantage. This wasn't just because of the tens
of thousands of casualties that the German army saw that day.
(16:15):
It was also that it revealed the terrifically terrible morale
among the German troops. At least twelve thousand of them
were taken prisoner, with huge numbers of soldiers surrendering it once.
There were even stories of whole groups of Germans surrendering
to a single Allied soldier, or surrendering even when they
had the Allies in that particular spot vastly outnumbered. Altogether.
(16:40):
This was the worst German defeat since the start of
the war. Until this point, Allied leaders had thought the
war would last at least until nineteen nine, but this
was the start of the final one days offensive that
finally ended it. And we're going to talk more about
that after we pause for a little sponsor break. After
(17:05):
the Battle of Ammon, both General Eric Ludendorff and kaiserville
He the Second, the Emperor of Germany, agreed that there
was no way for the German army to recover. Their
goal became to avoid an outright surrender, and the German
army continued to fight even as it fell back towards Germany.
The Allied forces continued to press ahead in this final
(17:25):
push to bring the war to an end. The last
major objective to this end was the Hindenburg Line, which
was Germany's last large scale fortification. The Hindenburg Line was
a set of three well defended trenches that had been
established in nineteen seventeen. The Allies planned their assault on
the Hindenburg Line for a full month before actually attacking
(17:47):
its forward outposts near f A, France, on September eighth.
The Allied forces finally breached the Hendenburg Line on September
twenty nine, after four days of heavy fighting, include firing
nearly a million artillery shells, and at that point, Paul
von Hennenberg and Eric Ludendorff told Kaiservillehelm that the war
(18:08):
was lost. On October one, at a meeting of representatives
of all the major German political parties, Ludendorf and Hennenberg
told the assembled group the reality of the situation. A
lot of them were shocked to learn that things were
going so badly for Germany. Germany requested peace negotiations on
October three. Ludendorf revised his opinion a little later in October,
(18:32):
as Allied attacks slowed down to allow the supply lines
to catch up to the troops advance. But by that
point word of the dire condition of the German military
had spread through its civilian population. Like much of the
rest of Europe, German civilians had faced extreme hardship during
the war, including near starvation conditions thanks to an Allied blockade.
(18:55):
In the face of such grim news, the war just
no longer had the support of the German people, especially
once he heard the terms of the armistice, which involved
making Germany completely unable to renew hostilities. Ludendorff wanted to
renew the fight, but on October six he was forced
to resign. By this point there were rampant desertions going
(19:18):
on all over the German military. A massive mutiny also
swept through the Navy in late October and early November
over orders that they stayed an attack on the Royal
Navy and an attempt to derail the armistice negotiations. The
armistice was finally signed on November eleventh night at five am,
and the war ended at eleven am that same day.
(19:41):
The Canadian Corps also liberated the city of mont France
that day, which was where the last shot of the
war was fired. It was also the site of one
of the war's earliest battles, and there's actually an episode
about that battle in our archive. By this point, Kaiser
Vilhelm the Second had been forced to abdicate and had
gone into exile, and German Chancellor Friedrich Ebert had started
(20:02):
to form a provisional government. During the last hundred days
of the war, French forces saw five hundred and thirty
thousand casualties. There were more than four hundred thousand casualties
among the British troops, including the troops from the rest
of the British Empire, that's not just from the UK.
American forces saw a hundred and twenty seven thousand casualties,
(20:25):
and there were seven hundred and eighty five thousand casualties
just among the Germans, with three hundred and sixty eight
thousand taken prisoner. The German army was also very clearly defeated.
After that initial rally in the Spring Offensive, the tide
of the war had turned hard against it, and with
millions of American troops on the ground in Europe, dramatically
(20:46):
increasing the Allies numbers. There was just no way that
Germany could have turned that around. But the false idea
spread through the German military that Germany had not been defeated. Instead,
this idea took route, didn't take root, as though it
came out of nowhere, like it was intentionally spread that
the German army had been stabbed in the back by
(21:08):
civilian leaders who negotiated and signed the armistice. According to
this mindset, which was spread by Ludendorf and other high
ranking officers intentionally, the officials who signed the armistice were traders.
Adolf Hitler would later brand them the November criminals. This
led to a whole conspiracy theory about a betrayal of
(21:28):
the German military at the hands of Jews, which became
part of Nazi propaganda in the years after the war.
The terms of the armistice and the Treaty of Versailles
that ended the war also contributed to the run up
to World War Two. Under that armistice, Germany had to
surrender territory and war materials, including thousands of pieces of
artillery guns, trains, aircraft, battleships, submarines, destroyers, and other naval vessels.
(21:55):
Germany was also to surrender its prisoners of war immediately,
but there were no reciprocal terms for the other nations
to return German prisoners. Under the Treaty of Versailles, Germany
was prohibited from joining the League of Nations until The
treaty also drew new borders that gave territory to Germany's neighbors,
(22:16):
stripped Germany of its colonies, and required Germany to pay
reparations that were economically disastrous. All of this ultimately contributed
to Hitler's rise of power, which we talked about in
our episode on the Night of the Long Knives. There's
a really bummer place to end an episode. So, uh,
if you were listening to this and you were like,
(22:37):
this reminds me of Wonder Woman, Yes, obviously Ludendorff in
Wonder Woman is a fictionalized version of this guy, Uh,
who we talked about in this show. Uh. Do you
(22:58):
also have nonfictional listener may? No, Actually, I have listener
mail that's also related to popular culture. This is from Ryan.
And Ryan wrote about our recent episode on Libertalia, which
Holly actually did all the research and writing for. And
Ryan says, hey, y'all. I love y'all's podcast. I'm just
gonna take a moment to say I love the word y'all.
(23:18):
I've been listening for years and every time podcast suggestion
time comes up, and believe me, I make sure it does.
I make sure to recommend stuff you miss in history.
I listened to the episode about the pirate utopia Libertalia today,
and you mentioned how it is referenced with a location
area of the same name and Fallout four. I just
so happened to be playing through it recently, but I
got home kind of forgot about it, and lo and behold,
(23:41):
guess what I stumbled onto while roaming the waste land
Libertalia out of the blue. Immediately I remembered and proclaimed
to my cats, Libertalia. I had to let y'all know,
thanks so much for your hard work. Have a wonderful day, sincerely, Ryan.
Ryan then also sends some compliments to Holly for her show,
which is rapping as we record this. It will all
(24:05):
be out in the world by the time this episode
comes out, right. That show is drawn story of animation. Um,
we will publish the last bonus episode today while we record,
which means by the time you hear this, it will
have been in the world for a couple of weeks
at least. We're running ahead of schedule in our production. So, uh,
Ryan says, I've been listening to Drawn and I've been
(24:25):
so giddy about the show. I'm glad there is such
a mutual connection around the medium for those that enjoy it.
Animation is such a joy. It truly is magic. Thank
you again for all you do. I'm sad that season
is ending. I'm hoping there will be more in the future.
I don't want to pressure, just want to let you know,
be incredibly appreciated. Take care. Thank you, Ryan. I wanted
to read this email for a couple of reasons. One,
(24:46):
it's always fun to get an email about somebody yelling
Libertalia to their cats. I mean, I just do that
casually around the house. I look at them ago Libertalia
and hope that they'll set up some sort of feline
you to opia where everyone gets a vote, but they
never do. They're so lazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's cats.
So the the other reason is that, Uh, it's come
(25:09):
up a couple of times on the show before that
I've played Fallout for I had to put that game
down for about eighteen months because I was just like,
I can't spend my free time wandering around a post
nuclear waste land for right now. But I got back
to it just over the last couple of weeks, and
I just wanted to share that I stumbled over a
weird tourist attraction in that world that is a combination
(25:33):
of the Winchester Mystery House and the Lizzie Borden House,
and it's amazing. If you're playing through some fallout for
specifically some fallout for DLC beyond the lookout for that,
and if you would like to write to us about
this or any other podcast where a history podcast at
how stuff works dot com. We're also all over social
(25:55):
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(26:16):
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Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Hony Fry. We are
coming up on the hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Amian,
(00:21):
which started what came to be known as the Hundred
Days Offensive. That was the Allies final push to win
World War One, and this particular battle and the Hundred
Days Offensive aren't really talked about as frequently as some
of the other big moments in World War One. All
of our other World War One related episodes are from
much earlier in the war a lot of the time
(00:43):
because it was the hundredth anniversary of that thing. So
we're gonna set the stage a little bit in this
episode before we get to the battle itself, especially with
how events that played out in nineteen seventeen led to
all of this and how the Battle of Aman ultimately
led to the end of the war. Also, World War
One was massive, there was a lot going on in
(01:06):
other parts of the world during the time period that
we're talking about, so we are really just focused on
Europe here, particularly the Western Front, with the key players
being the British Empire, France, the United States, and Germany.
It is much too large to also talk about all
of the other battles going on in all of the
other places with all of the other countries in nineteen
(01:29):
seventeen and nineteen eighteen. So World War One started, of course,
in nineteen fourteen. Although international tensions had been rising in
Europe for years before this point, things shifted with the
assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. They
were shot to death in Sara Jevo on June nineteen
fourteen by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip. The art Duke had
(01:52):
been the heir to the throne of the Austro Hungarian Empire.
The Empire suspected that the Serbian government was involved in
the assassination, so Austria Hungary declared war on Serbia, and
soon much of Europe was involved in this conflict. Within
two weeks, the allies of Russia, Belgium, France, and Great
Britain had all sided with Serbia. Germany had sided with
(02:16):
the Austro Hungarian Empire as part of what would be
called the Central Powers, and more declarations of war followed
from there. This quickly became a war of attrition, with
the war on land in Europe being fought primarily along
the Eastern and Western fronts. Battles went on for months,
with millions of casualties and catastrophic effects for the civilian population,
(02:38):
including famines and food shortages all over Europe. For most
of it, the situation between the Allies and the Central
Powers was essentially a stalemate. This was especially true along
the Western Front, which ran from the English Channel to Switzerland,
primarily through France. Something started to shift at the end
of nineteen seventeen, though Russian involvement in the war had
(03:01):
never been popular there and the war had compounded ongoing
economic problems and food shortages In Russia. The February Revolution
started on March eighth of nineteen seventeen. It's called the
February Revolution because Russia was still on the Julian calendar,
so from the Russian point of view, that was February.
The February Revolution started with strikes and riots, and it
(03:24):
led to the abdication of Czar Nicholas. The Second Unrest
continued after the February Revolution. The Bolshevik Revolution followed in
November of nineteen seventeen, and that was followed by the
Russian Civil War. With all of this going on, Russian
involvement in World War One effectively ended, and Russia signed
an armistice with the Central Powers in December of nineteen seventeen.
(03:47):
A lot of the fighting along the Eastern Front at
this point had been between Russia and Germany, so with
Russia out of the picture, German forces were freed up
to move to the Western Front instead, more and forty
divisions of German troops prepared to do exactly that. After
Russia withdrew from the war, the United States had also
(04:08):
declared war on Germany in April of nineteen seventeen. Although
the US had avoided becoming directly involved in the war
until that point, it had been providing supplies and other
aid to the Allies for quite some time, so at
first the United States declaration of war didn't do much
to shift the balance of power, But the US committed
(04:28):
troops to the war effort as well, and those troops
started arriving in June of nineteen seventeen and entered combat
that October. In terms of actual troops, the American presence
in the war was pretty small in nineteen seventeen, that
first arrival of troops was only fourteen thousand men. By
July of nineteen eighteen, though, there would be more than
(04:49):
a million American troops in France alone, and unlike their
counterparts who were already there, these American troops weren't necessarily experienced,
but they were fresh. Most of the Allied troops who
are already in Europe were exhausted after months or years
of fighting. So in late nineteen seventeen, with Russia out
of the war and the United States ramping up to
(05:10):
join it, Germany recognized that it had a limited window
of opportunity. The German military was running out of everything,
including people, but with a quick decisive action, it might
be able to force the Allies to negotiate for peace
before so many American reinforcements arrived, or failing that, Germany
(05:31):
might be able to level the playing field, putting it
on more equal footing with the Allies during negotiations later on,
rather than being at a clear disadvantage. The Allies also
recognized that Germany had this one last opportunity to try
to break out of the stalemates, so at the start
of nineteen eighteen. Allied leaders were confident that a major
(05:52):
German attack was on the way and soon, but they
weren't really sure exactly when or where it came. On
the first day of Spring, that was March twenty one,
nineteen eighteen, German forces attacked a stretch of the Western
Front south of the French city of ARUs. This was
at a point where French and British forces met on
the Western Front, and it was the weakest point along
(06:14):
that line. Part of the German objective was to cut
these two forces off from one another and then at
least in theory, Germany could fight French and British forces separately,
overcoming both of them. The German attack incorporated air strikes,
a massive artillery of bombardment and gas, including tear gas,
chlorine and fostergene, and this attempt to break through the
(06:36):
Allied line, and they were immediately successful. The morning they
attacked was foggy and the Allies were caught by surprise.
The British third and fifth Armies were forced to retreat,
and on March one alone, the British military saw thirty
eight thousand, five hundred casualties that included twenty one thousand
soldiers taken prisoner. Germany was able to ad it's about
(07:00):
four miles or six and a half kilometers, reclaiming in
one day all the ground that they had lost over
the previous two years. This March twenty one assault was
the start of what came to be known as the
Spring Offensive or the Ludendorff Offensive that was named after
Quartermaster General Eric Ludendorff, who was leading the German military
with Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg. In Germany, it was
(07:24):
called Kaiserschlacht or Kaiser's Battle, and the first phase was
codenamed Operation Michael because it covered some of the same
territory as the Battle of the Sum in nineteen sixteen.
Sometimes it is also called the second Battle of the Sum.
Operation Michael ended on April five, and by that point
the German army had captured about twelve thousand square miles
(07:45):
of territory it's about thirty one thousand square kilometers. This
had come at a great cost, though, with about two
and forty thousand casualties that the German Army just had
no good way to replace. Together. French and British forces
includeing those from Canada, Australia, and other parts of the
British Empire had suffered nearly two fifty thousand casualties. Just
(08:07):
to be clear, casualty numbers include everyone killed, wounded, or captured.
That initial goal of splitting the British and French troops
didn't ultimately work out because Germany didn't have the manpower
to really divide and fight against both armies. The Allies
also quickly realized the threat and united the Allied troops
(08:27):
under the command of French General Ferdinand Foch to better
coordinate their efforts. So, rather than facing an army that
was divided and left in chaos, Germany instead faced a
force that was united under one command. The overall Spring
Offensive ended on July with the second Battle of the Marne.
General Ludendorff tried to capture the city of Rem, hoping
(08:50):
to divide the French forces and set a stage for
an assault on Flanders, but unlike on March one, General
Foch anticipated this attack. He in the Allies mounted a
counter attack, and by July eighteenth German forces were retreating.
Germany could not afford this loss, especially since American troops
were now arriving in France at a rate of about
(09:12):
three hundred thousand per month. The nineteen eighteen flu pandemic
was also sweeping across the globe at this point, including
through all of the armies involved in the war. But
the war was not over yet, which brings us to Amia,
and we're first going to pause and have a sponsor
break before we dig into that. The Spring Offensive and
(09:39):
the Allied counter attacks at the Second Battle of the
Marne were a shift in how the war was being
fought on the Western Front for years that had been
defined by the trenches. Trenches had been used during battles
in one way or another for centuries, and they continued
to be a part of warfare after this point, but
in World War One they were a side effect of
(10:00):
evolving military technologies, specifically machine guns and artillery. Trenches were
away for troops to gain some measure of protection from
these devastating weapons, even though it meant that they couldn't
really move once they were dug in. During those years
of stalemate, an attack on the enemy's trench had usually
combined a preliminary bombardment called a creeping barrage with an
(10:23):
advancing infantry. The barrage was supposed to lay down artillery
just ahead of the soldiers advance, providing cover and clearing
out the opposition. But a lot of the time this
didn't work. Barrages got too far ahead of the troops,
effectively serving as an advanced warning for the opposite side,
or they tore up the terrain so much that the
(10:44):
soldiers had trouble crossing to get to the enemy, or
barrages might move too slowly or fall short, and the
advancing infantry were killed as a result. Regardless, though, armies
wound up facing huge casualties in exchange for a few
yards of territory or none at all. By the spring
and summer of nineteen eighteen, though, World War one's opposing
(11:08):
armies were starting to make better use of all the
available military technology to effectively assault the other side's trenches,
and the allies first truly effective use of all that
technology was at the Battle of Hamel, led by Australian
Core commander Lieutenant General John Monash. Monash planned the early
morning attack in absolute secrecy. He added smoke shells to
(11:31):
the creeping barrage to obscure the battlefield. He also used tanks,
which had been introduced in nineteen sixteen, to plow through
the Germans barbed wire and fortifications, and to deliver supplies
from behind the infantry advance. Eighteen aircraft were involved as well,
including some older ones specifically chosen because their engines were
(11:51):
loud enough to cover up the sound of the tanks.
The planes dropped bombs and flares, providing covering fire, and
reported back with information about the Germans positions. The plan
also included faking troop movements in using dummy installations to
further disguise what they were doing, and sending messages back
and forth by pigeon. This battle was an enormous success
(12:14):
for the Allies. The Allied troops, including American and Australian forces,
attacked early in the morning on July four. Within two hours,
they had obtained all of their objectives. This was really
the first time that all of the available military technology
had been put into use at once in such a
coordinated way. It was so effective that all of the
(12:36):
commanders of the British Expeditionary Force got a report about it,
detailing what had gone so well after the battle was over.
The Battle of Ammia built off these same strategies that
Monash had put into place at Hamel. The city of
Amia was a major junction for railroads and communications, and
Germany had repeatedly tried to take it during the Spring offensive.
(12:58):
Germany had not succeeded, but it had stretched out its
line in the attempt, creating a bulge that it didn't
have the manpower to thoroughly defend. The Allies attack on
the salient was as before planned, in total secrecy. Before
it started, they used fake radio transmissions and phony troop
movements to disguise Theirst activity during the day, while putting
(13:21):
the men into their real positions at night. The assault
combined air support, artillery, tanks, and infantry. In terms of numbers,
the Allies had seventy five thousand men, more than five
hundred tanks, and nearly two thousand aircraft that troops included British, Canadian,
Australian and French infantry, tank brigades, British cavalry divisions, the
(13:43):
Royal Air Force, and American troops that were held in reserve.
Australian and Canadian troops formed the spearhead of the infantry
attack at Ammiam. By this point, Australia's military had distinguished
itself as part of the Australian and New Zealand Army
Corps that's ANZAC in the Globe League campaign, and the
Canadian units had developed a reputation as the British Empires
(14:04):
shock troops. Germany was out everything in this battle. Exact
numbers are in dispute. It is difficult to track down
precise numbers and a conflict like this, but they had
a much smaller fighting force, with only about five hundred
thirty guns and three hundred seventy aircraft. They had three
lines of trenches, but these trenches weren't well fortified and
(14:26):
the communication networks among them were really spotty. When the
attacks started at four twenty in the morning on August eight, eighteen,
it came as a total surprise. Fighting at the Battle
of Amien went on for three days. By that point,
the Allies had advanced eight miles it's about thirteen kilometers.
They had liberated more than one hundred towns and villages
(14:47):
from the Germans. They had also captured a two hundred
eighty millimeter or eleven inch Krup naval gun that had
been used to shell Amien from about twenty five kilometers
or that's sixteen miles away. This gun had been mounted
on a railway carriage, and the Australian thirty first Battalion,
fifth Division captured it by commandeering the carriage and driving
(15:08):
it back into Allied territory. They're very proud of capturing
this gun. I mean, it's not surprising that they were,
but it comes up a lot in accounts of this day.
After this hugely effective first day, the Allied advance slowed
over August night through eleventh. The German forces started to
regroup and offer a stronger resistance, and on the eleventh
(15:32):
Sir Arthur Curry of the Canadian Corps convinced General Sir
Henley Rawlinson of the British fourth Army that they should
consolidate their gains instead of continuing to try to push
ahead against increasingly tougher resistance. But before that decision, the
battle had devastated the German army. Ludendorff called August eight
the black day of the German Army in the history
(15:53):
of the war. He also said that it quote put
the decline of that fighting power beyond all doubt and
inside just situation as regards reserves, I had no hope
of finding a strategic expedient whereby to turn the situation
to our advantage. This wasn't just because of the tens
of thousands of casualties that the German army saw that day.
(16:15):
It was also that it revealed the terrifically terrible morale
among the German troops. At least twelve thousand of them
were taken prisoner, with huge numbers of soldiers surrendering it once.
There were even stories of whole groups of Germans surrendering
to a single Allied soldier, or surrendering even when they
had the Allies in that particular spot vastly outnumbered. Altogether.
(16:40):
This was the worst German defeat since the start of
the war. Until this point, Allied leaders had thought the
war would last at least until nineteen nine, but this
was the start of the final one days offensive that
finally ended it. And we're going to talk more about
that after we pause for a little sponsor break. After
(17:05):
the Battle of Ammon, both General Eric Ludendorff and kaiserville
He the Second, the Emperor of Germany, agreed that there
was no way for the German army to recover. Their
goal became to avoid an outright surrender, and the German
army continued to fight even as it fell back towards Germany.
The Allied forces continued to press ahead in this final
(17:25):
push to bring the war to an end. The last
major objective to this end was the Hindenburg Line, which
was Germany's last large scale fortification. The Hindenburg Line was
a set of three well defended trenches that had been
established in nineteen seventeen. The Allies planned their assault on
the Hindenburg Line for a full month before actually attacking
(17:47):
its forward outposts near f A, France, on September eighth.
The Allied forces finally breached the Hendenburg Line on September
twenty nine, after four days of heavy fighting, include firing
nearly a million artillery shells, and at that point, Paul
von Hennenberg and Eric Ludendorff told Kaiservillehelm that the war
(18:08):
was lost. On October one, at a meeting of representatives
of all the major German political parties, Ludendorf and Hennenberg
told the assembled group the reality of the situation. A
lot of them were shocked to learn that things were
going so badly for Germany. Germany requested peace negotiations on
October three. Ludendorf revised his opinion a little later in October,
(18:32):
as Allied attacks slowed down to allow the supply lines
to catch up to the troops advance. But by that
point word of the dire condition of the German military
had spread through its civilian population. Like much of the
rest of Europe, German civilians had faced extreme hardship during
the war, including near starvation conditions thanks to an Allied blockade.
(18:55):
In the face of such grim news, the war just
no longer had the support of the German people, especially
once he heard the terms of the armistice, which involved
making Germany completely unable to renew hostilities. Ludendorff wanted to
renew the fight, but on October six he was forced
to resign. By this point there were rampant desertions going
(19:18):
on all over the German military. A massive mutiny also
swept through the Navy in late October and early November
over orders that they stayed an attack on the Royal
Navy and an attempt to derail the armistice negotiations. The
armistice was finally signed on November eleventh night at five am,
and the war ended at eleven am that same day.
(19:41):
The Canadian Corps also liberated the city of mont France
that day, which was where the last shot of the
war was fired. It was also the site of one
of the war's earliest battles, and there's actually an episode
about that battle in our archive. By this point, Kaiser
Vilhelm the Second had been forced to abdicate and had
gone into exile, and German Chancellor Friedrich Ebert had started
(20:02):
to form a provisional government. During the last hundred days
of the war, French forces saw five hundred and thirty
thousand casualties. There were more than four hundred thousand casualties
among the British troops, including the troops from the rest
of the British Empire, that's not just from the UK.
American forces saw a hundred and twenty seven thousand casualties,
(20:25):
and there were seven hundred and eighty five thousand casualties
just among the Germans, with three hundred and sixty eight
thousand taken prisoner. The German army was also very clearly defeated.
After that initial rally in the Spring Offensive, the tide
of the war had turned hard against it, and with
millions of American troops on the ground in Europe, dramatically
(20:46):
increasing the Allies numbers. There was just no way that
Germany could have turned that around. But the false idea
spread through the German military that Germany had not been defeated. Instead,
this idea took route, didn't take root, as though it
came out of nowhere, like it was intentionally spread that
the German army had been stabbed in the back by
(21:08):
civilian leaders who negotiated and signed the armistice. According to
this mindset, which was spread by Ludendorf and other high
ranking officers intentionally, the officials who signed the armistice were traders.
Adolf Hitler would later brand them the November criminals. This
led to a whole conspiracy theory about a betrayal of
(21:28):
the German military at the hands of Jews, which became
part of Nazi propaganda in the years after the war.
The terms of the armistice and the Treaty of Versailles
that ended the war also contributed to the run up
to World War Two. Under that armistice, Germany had to
surrender territory and war materials, including thousands of pieces of
artillery guns, trains, aircraft, battleships, submarines, destroyers, and other naval vessels.
(21:55):
Germany was also to surrender its prisoners of war immediately,
but there were no reciprocal terms for the other nations
to return German prisoners. Under the Treaty of Versailles, Germany
was prohibited from joining the League of Nations until The
treaty also drew new borders that gave territory to Germany's neighbors,
(22:16):
stripped Germany of its colonies, and required Germany to pay
reparations that were economically disastrous. All of this ultimately contributed
to Hitler's rise of power, which we talked about in
our episode on the Night of the Long Knives. There's
a really bummer place to end an episode. So, uh,
if you were listening to this and you were like,
(22:37):
this reminds me of Wonder Woman, Yes, obviously Ludendorff in
Wonder Woman is a fictionalized version of this guy, Uh,
who we talked about in this show. Uh. Do you
(22:58):
also have nonfictional listener may? No, Actually, I have listener
mail that's also related to popular culture. This is from Ryan.
And Ryan wrote about our recent episode on Libertalia, which
Holly actually did all the research and writing for. And
Ryan says, hey, y'all. I love y'all's podcast. I'm just
gonna take a moment to say I love the word y'all.
(23:18):
I've been listening for years and every time podcast suggestion
time comes up, and believe me, I make sure it does.
I make sure to recommend stuff you miss in history.
I listened to the episode about the pirate utopia Libertalia today,
and you mentioned how it is referenced with a location
area of the same name and Fallout four. I just
so happened to be playing through it recently, but I
got home kind of forgot about it, and lo and behold,
(23:41):
guess what I stumbled onto while roaming the waste land
Libertalia out of the blue. Immediately I remembered and proclaimed
to my cats, Libertalia. I had to let y'all know,
thanks so much for your hard work. Have a wonderful day, sincerely, Ryan.
Ryan then also sends some compliments to Holly for her show,
which is rapping as we record this. It will all
(24:05):
be out in the world by the time this episode
comes out, right. That show is drawn story of animation. Um,
we will publish the last bonus episode today while we record,
which means by the time you hear this, it will
have been in the world for a couple of weeks
at least. We're running ahead of schedule in our production. So, uh,
Ryan says, I've been listening to Drawn and I've been
(24:25):
so giddy about the show. I'm glad there is such
a mutual connection around the medium for those that enjoy it.
Animation is such a joy. It truly is magic. Thank
you again for all you do. I'm sad that season
is ending. I'm hoping there will be more in the future.
I don't want to pressure, just want to let you know,
be incredibly appreciated. Take care. Thank you, Ryan. I wanted
to read this email for a couple of reasons. One,
(24:46):
it's always fun to get an email about somebody yelling
Libertalia to their cats. I mean, I just do that
casually around the house. I look at them ago Libertalia
and hope that they'll set up some sort of feline
you to opia where everyone gets a vote, but they
never do. They're so lazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's cats.
So the the other reason is that, Uh, it's come
(25:09):
up a couple of times on the show before that
I've played Fallout for I had to put that game
down for about eighteen months because I was just like,
I can't spend my free time wandering around a post
nuclear waste land for right now. But I got back
to it just over the last couple of weeks, and
I just wanted to share that I stumbled over a
weird tourist attraction in that world that is a combination
(25:33):
of the Winchester Mystery House and the Lizzie Borden House,
and it's amazing. If you're playing through some fallout for
specifically some fallout for DLC beyond the lookout for that,
and if you would like to write to us about
this or any other podcast where a history podcast at
how stuff works dot com. We're also all over social
(25:55):
media at the user name missed in History. That's where
we're on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Pinterest. If
you come to our website, which is missed in History
dot com, you can find a un searchable archive of
all the episodes that we have ever done on the
show before. You can find the show notes to all
the episodes that Holly and I have done together, and
(26:16):
you can find and subscribe to our podcast on Apple
podcasts and Google podcasts and really anywhere else you want
to get a podcast. For more on this and thousands
of other topics, visit how staff works dot com.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
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Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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