Western Front: 1918: The Year of Decision
General Commentary
Defeat of the German Army
When it became clear to the German military leaders
that victory was no longer possible, they made every effort to escape
the blame. No military leader participated in the armistice discussions.
Though several admitted defeat to Allied leaders, the situation was
portrayed differently to the German people. The theme adopted was that
the war had been terminated to prevent further bloodshed and to raise
the blockade so that the sufferings of women and children might be alleviated.
Returning troops were received as conquering heroes and marched in holiday
fashion through gaily decorated streets. When this myth began to be
exploded, the German Army accused the home front, charging that its
disloyalty and lack of support had caused the catastrophe. Ludendorff
heard the phrase "stabbed in the back" and took it as his
slogan. Later, Adolf Hitler was to adopt this theme in his exhortations
to his Nazi followers. Nevertheless, the facts prove without question
that the German Army had been decisively defeated in 1918.
American Participation
The importance of American participation in the war
has often been exaggerated in the United States and minimized in Britain
and France. At the time of the armistice there were more American troops
in France than British troops, and they held a wider front. The American
Army was still growing rapidly, and munitions production in the United
States was reaching great heights. If the war had lasted until 1919,
American troops would undoubtedly have struck the principal blows. While
the United States can scarcely claim to have played the major role in
the war, it may fairly be said that it could not have been won without
American aid.
To participate effectively in the 1918 battles, the
American Army required substantial support from its allies. A little
more than half of the 2 million American troops shipped to France were
transported in British vessels. Divisions arriving overseas before July
1, 1918, had to be equipped with the French automatic rifle and machine
gun; those arriving thereafter had the new American Browning automatic
rifle and machine gun, considered the best in the world at the time.
Almost complete reliance had to be placed on the French for artillery:
of the 2,250 artillery pieces used by the Americans in action, only
about 100 were of American manufacture. On the advice of her allies,
the United States concentrated on producing aircraft engines and observation-bomber
planes. The 12-cylinder Liberty engine was developed and put into mass
production. It was a superior engine, in great demand by the British
and French, and constituted the greatest single American contribution
to World War I aviation. By the end of the war, 45 American squadrons
were operating at the front, but only about a fourth of them were equipped
with American-built aircraft. American battle casualties during their
brief role totaled 257,404-a very small number compared with the millions
suffered by each of the other Allies during four years of bitter war.
Developments in Warfare
World War I saw an increasing tendency toward the subordination
of man to the machine. The growing importance of armament meant that
a nation's industries exerted a decisive influence on its military operations.
The bravest and most skillful fighting man, if improperly armed, might
find himself helpless in combat. Logistics was transformed from a relatively
simple business to a vast field of endeavor equal in complexity and
importance to the control of operations. The proportion of noncombatant
soldiers needed for the great logistical machines would have astounded
Frederick the Great or Napoleon, though it did not approximate the proportion
that was to be required in World War II.
The introduction of new methods, based upon the design
and production of new equipment, was an outstanding feature of the war
of 1914-1918. Except for the atomic bomb, almost every major development
of World War II was foreshadowed in World War I. The tactical effect
of the increased power of the machine gun and the modern artillery piece
gave an ascendancy to the defense that baffled commanders on both sides
for a long time.
The tank was undoubtedly the war's most remarkable development
in the field of ground combat. Despite its slowness, limited operational
radius, and mechanical unreliability, it achieved some spectacular results
in 1918; and even the brilliant Ludendorff was unable to find any adequate
means of coping with it.
The airplane became an important weapon. Though the
results attained by airpower during the war were hardly decisive, its
potential was clearly demonstrated. By war's end strategic bombing had
passed its infancy. German dirigibles and aircraft had bombed London,
and British aircraft had frequently bombed Rhineland towns. Had the
war lasted another week, British bombers would have attempted to bomb
Berlin with one-ton bombs.
Gas warfare was employed on a large scale by both sides-initially,
with serious effects. Countermeasures were promptly developed, however,
and poison gas became a harassing rather than a decisive weapon.
The warring nations undertook psychological warfare
on a systematic basis. The Germans harassed Paris with their long-range
gun, and propaganda "hate" campaigns and subversive leaflets
were used by both sides. Many of these efforts were amateurish by later
standards, but they had considerable effect.
Throughout the war the development of battle tactics
centered on the basic problem of breaking through a strong defensive
position without prohibitive casualties and such loss of time as to
make the breakthrough useless. What was accomplished by the capture
of a trench line if it took so long that the defender had time to construct
another a mile or so in the rear? In his first three drives of 1918,
Ludendorff solved the initial breakthrough problem by achieving surprise
and by creating a highly efficient body of troops. He gained great local
successes, but he could not in a strategic decision because he had no
powerful, highly mobile force capable of extended operations to exploit
a tactical breakthrough. The Allies, however, were never able to force
tactical breakthroughs comparable with those achieved by Ludendorff.
In a military sense the net result of World War I was
that the Allies became convinced of the superiority of the defense and
made their future plans and preparations accordingly; the Germans, having
been frustrated by the lack of a strategic exploiting force, sought
ways to build one. They found an answer in the tank-airplane team, the
heart of the blitzkrieg, which in 1940 achieved in three weeks what
the Germans could not do in the four years of World War I.
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