In 1918 the Germans began to view the war as a race against the expansion of the American Expeditionary Force
Allan Mallinson
A propaganda photograph showing German soldiers loading a Minenwerfer short-range mortar during the Operation Michael spring offensive on the Western Front in March 1918ALAMY
In his memoir, General Erich Ludendorff, Erste Generalquartiermeister of the German army, effectively running the war and wielding increasing power over German politics and industry, wrote that in early 1918 “the condition of our allies and of our army all called for an offensive that would bring about an early decision. This was only possible on the Western Front.”
The Royal Navy’s blockade was beginning to cripple German civilian morale, as well as constricting supplies for the front. One deserter, Heinrich Fleischer, volunteered to work for the British Secret Service Bureau after going on leave to Berlin and finding his family “white and emaciated, with nothing to eat but turnips and watery potatoes”.
If Ludendorff could not force a decision on the Western Front by the end of the year, more than a million newly arrived Americans would be poised to decide matters in 1919.
With the signing of the peace treaty with the Bolshevik government at Brest-Litovsk, Ludendorff could turn his back on the Russian front and transfer the remaining troops to France. “I set aside all idea of attacking in Macedonia or Italy. All that mattered was to get together enough troops for an attack in the west,” he wrote. When he told the kaiser that he planned to assemble 900,000 men for what would be called Der Kaiserschlact (the Kaiser’s Battle), the reply was: “Add another hundred thousand and make it a million.”
