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Allied plans 1918?

Johnson quotes 2.7m British (and Empire) casualties for WW1 (not including RN and MN). 830k were suffered between March and November 1918, and he says that only 1917 came close with 818k cas.
 
An interesting side question; if the 1918/1919 offensives had stalled or politicians/generals had seem them as too costly; would there have been another "side-show" to attack Germany via their allies? Would there have been another attack on the ottoman empire (other than through Iraq?)? Increased supplies and a focus on the Italian front?
 
ugly said:
mushroom said:
I need to re-read '1918 The Unexpected Victory' by J H Johnson. If I remember rightly everyone bar Haig thought the best policy was to hold the Germans over the winter and then have a big spring offensive using the US Divisions which would by then be in place and trained. Haig took the view that the Germans were near to collapse and couldn't survive a winter.

Casualties in 1918 were the worst of the war, though how many were due to the Kaiserschlact and how many to the general advance I can't recall.
Thanks for that, are they even worse tha the big set piece battles of 1916 and 1917?

Christ - I hope that's not the J Johnston I work for!
 
crabby said:
An interesting side question; if the 1918/1919 offensives had stalled or politicians/generals had seem them as too costly; would there have been another "side-show" to attack Germany via their allies? Would there have been another attack on the ottoman empire (other than through Iraq?)? Increased supplies and a focus on the Italian front?

I don't think that there would have been sideshows as we were involved in quite enough already with Italy and Palestine.
Plus the fact that had the offensives stalled then certainly Lloyd George would have veteoed further adventures to prevent casualties. Also by that time the war had focused on the Western Front as the key to it all.
Don't forget that the Frogs were not up to anything apart from defensive stuff in general. Also that we had been obliged to do a major restruction of our divisions going to 3 Bn brigades rather than 4 and so on, to compensate for lack of troops on the ground an to give more flexibility. So we weren't up to spreading ourselves about.
But The Germans were shot in manpower and economically, they had only one card and they blew it in 1918 by attacking us not the Frogs. The offensives wouldn't have stalled as the german reserves were not there.
 
Dwarf - There were several threads going on here. LLoyd George and the Supreme War Council ordered against all military advice the changes in Divisions and Brigades (these were politicians not soldiers). LG was all for knocking out the Turks as a way of getting at the Germans and was furious that both Clemenceau and Robertson (CIGS) was against him.

The French Generals and the British Generals all saw the Western Front as the key area to beat the hun. LG was furious that the CIGS sided with Haig and very politely removed him to command Eastern District.
 
mushroom said:
Dwarf - There were several threads going on here. LLoyd George and the Supreme War Council ordered against all military advice the changes in Divisions and Brigades (these were politicians not soldiers). LG was all for knocking out the Turks as a way of getting at the Germans and was furious that both Clemenceau and Robertson (CIGS) was against him.

The French Generals and the British Generals all saw the Western Front as the key area to beat the hun. LG was furious that the CIGS sided with Haig and very politely removed him to command Eastern District.


Ah. Thanks for that.
However the changes in divs-bdes did give more flexibility whatever the reason.
Got any good reding material about this?
 
Try John Terraine ' To Win a War' IBSN 0-304 35321-3.

A couple of interesting quotes from that book.

In the period 18 July to 11 November the British Armies (British and Empire) took 188700 pow and 2840 guns. Comparable figures for our allies were,

French 139000 and 1880
US 43000 and 1421
Bel 14500 and 474

Foch said 'Never at any time in history has the British Army achieved greater results in attack than in this unbroken offensive........ The victory gained was indeed complete, thanks to the excellence of the Commanders of Armies, Corps and Divisions.
 
Another stat I've found - The British Army with 66 Divs took on the Germans with 99 Divs in a series of five offensives over the period August - November.
 
Suddick said:
Did the Allies have a plan in 1918 for an offensive or were they content (after 3rd Ypres/Nivelle) to sit it out until 1919 when the Yanks would be there in numbers?

I do not recall seeing anything about plans that were interupted by Op Michael/Op Georgette and the initial success of these German ops seems to have more than just caught the Allies of guard.

Any pointers?

The short answer is: b) "sit it out until 1919 when the Americans could come in with the numbers to compensate for the loss of Russia."

At the end of 1918 the balance of forces on the Western Front was in the German's favour. Between the Ruissians leavign and the Americans arriving, there was a short time when the Germans had a narrow window of opportunity to win the war through an offensive.

Its may be contary to the current revisionism, but perhaps Lloyd Geroge was justified in denying Haig the troops to stage an offensive. Lloyd George's government did withhold half a million men in England, including the 18 year olds. LG mistrusted Haig and porofoundly disagreed with his view that the War could only be won by attrition on the Western Front. A lot of people thought since 1918 have thought that we should at all costs avoid another Passchendaele.

I suspect that the historic result may have worked out in our favour. Suppose Lloyd George had let Haig have another 500k men. Suppose Haig deployed them in the 5th and 3rd Armies and enabled the 5th Army to prepare decent defensive positions. Maybe the Germans would not have achieved the breakthrough they did on 21st March. A bloody failure on the scale of the first day of The Somme or Neville with, say 200k casualities may have forced the Germans to call off their 1918 offensive earlier - but without the losses that crippled them and broke their spirit. A stronger more resilient German army could have waged a long defensive war for many more years. Germany should not have been starving with Russia knocked out of the War.

As it was Ludendorff expended Germans' last physical and psychological on a desperate series of offensives which cost them around 1 million casualties in four months. By breaking the front the Germans created the conditions for open warfare which increased the rate of attrition on both sides. When the allies went on the offensive in August the game was up for the Germans. They knew that they had blown the only chance of winnimng the war on their terms.


Just a thought.
 

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