Introduction
From Alexander to Napoleon, there have always been military commanders who have usurped civilian rule to advance their military ambitions. Such were the actions of Field Marshal Paul Ludwig von Beneckendorf und von Hindenburg (hereafter written as HB) and Lieutenant-General Erich Ludendorff (LD), German commanders on the Eastern and Western Front in the Great War. They were not on first sight an ideally compatible pair according to the social values of the early 20th Century. HB was from the ruling Prussian class, whilst LD had much more humble origins being the scion of family of rural merchants that originated from the Prussian part of Poland.
HB had retired from the German Army in 1911, after a rather lack-lustre career, only to be recalled to duty on the 22nd August 1914, when things started to go badly on the Eastern Front.
LD had gained promotion through diligence and intelligence under the wing of the likes of General Alfred von Schlieffen (author of the famous Plan that bore his name), becoming something of an authority on the logistics of mobilisation. He made a very good start in the war, on the 6th August 1914, by personally leading the seizing of the Belgium fortress of Liège after a tremendous artillery barrage by heavy siege guns.
Where the two were alike was in their appearance; stocky, even square-headed, with brush cropped hair and majestic military moustaches. But certainly in temperament they differed completely. LD was mercurial, brash and rather a bully. HB was the complete opposite, calm, even stoic, of measured thought and action, all accentuated by his very authoritative appearance.
Not withstanding these apparently completely contrasting tendencies, they formed the most influential German military partnership of the Great War.
Partnership on the Eastern Front
Their first close collaboration in the Great War was in East Prussia - it is said they met on a train en route to the Eastern Front - where, in late August 1914, after the initial military set-backs under General von Prittwitz, HB took over as the Commander of the Eighth Army with LD as his Chief-of-Staff.
Success was immediate and rapid. Although the impressive victory of Tannenburg was planned by the staff of the German Eighth Army in advance of HB's arrival, and was tactically conducted by LD, the kudos went to HB with LD happily sharing the reflected glory. Thus was the military liaison between HB and LD forged with a status worthy of hero-worship established in the minds of the German people. This was further enhanced by the less dramatic, but none-the-less well-received, victory over the Russians at the battle of Masurian Lakes. Success also came in Poland in late 1914 and, in 1915, in the Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive in Galicia and the so-called Triple Offensives on the Polish Front.
Following on from his much-lauded second victory in East Prussia, HB was promoted to Field Marshal and made the commander of all the German Army on the Eastern Front. He was lionised by the German public as the 'Saviour of East Prussia'.
Regardless of the denial of adequate reinforcements to the Eastern Front by the then Army Chief-of-Staff, General Erich von Falkenhayn, LD was able to make quite modest victories on the Eastern Front appear, and be reported as, significant. He also made it seem as if HB was the motivating force. Whereas, in fact, the military genius and initiative behind it all was largely LD. HB was an excellent 'front-man' - if somewhat inarticulate - whilst LD laboured behind the scenes, loyally supporting HB with the realisation that with HD's aura of authority, he, LD, could run the Eastern Army much as he wished and have an increasing say in German politics too. A situation which would have been a most unlikely event if HB was not there to vouch for him and, when necessary, cover for him when his brash and abrasive manner caused upset. HB would, on occasion, threaten resignation if his, and his protégé's, authority was challenged.
Promotion and the Western Front
HB was promoted to the pinnacle of military power on the 29th August 1916, becoming the German Army Chief-of-Staff after machinations by LD had further discredited Falkenhayn, who was already vulnerable due to the 1916 operational failures, particularly that of Verdun, and had led to his dismissal.
HB left for the West Front with LD in tow as his Quartermaster General. HB's promotion to this high post was arranged by German right-wing factions who wished to establish a military dictatorship - The Third Supreme Command - and saw HB as the 'acceptable face' by which the military dictatorship itself could be made acceptable to the German public.
Shortly afterwards, HB launched his Hindenburg Programme of which LD was the prime architect. This Programme gave the German military elite almost total control of all of the country's civil and military resources It was aimed at confirming German's commitment to the concept of Total War; leading to the award of massive reparation payments and territorial annexations to the Central Powers. In this punitive vein, this concept of Total War also included the recommencement of the doctrine of unrestricted submarine warfare against all Allied and Neutral shipping, including that of the United States.
HB may not have entirely agreed, in principle, with the entire doctrine, but he openly supported it and did nothing to impede its implementation, or any of the other draconian measures that emerged under the umbrella of the Hindenburg Programme. It caused the resignation of the German Prime Minister Bethmann Hollweg and made LD the virtual dictator of Germany in cahoots with the German industrialists and with the full compliance of HB.
Also, as soon as they arrived on the Western Front HB and LD had made a decision to refrain from any new offensives that were aimed at occupying even more of France, in favour of an impregnable defence structure. This materialised into what the British called the Hindenburg Line; a series of interlinked fortifications 15km (10miles) deep. These Stellung were located behind the existing trench-lines so they could be constructed without undue interference. Eventually they extended from the Belgian coast in the North to Verdun and Metz deep in the south of France.
Ludendorff's planned withdrawal from the central section of the Western Front from Arras to Soissons to the Hindenburg Line that began on 21st February 1917 - Operation Alberich (the malign dwarf) - took the Allies by surprise.
No one more so than General Georges Nivelle whose Offensive was launched in the Chemin des Dames Sector on 16th April 1917, only to find it had to advance over a whole swathe of wasteland, devoid of shelter and strewn with booby traps, and a screen of cunningly sited machine gun nests. These were utilised in a system of elastic defence that lured the advancing troops into a killing ground of machine-gun and artillery fire. When the Offensive collapsed, 100,000 Frenchmen had been killed or wounded, for an advance of 600 yards (400m). The seeds were sown for the genesis of the French mutiny in the Spring of 1917.
The British response
The British tried again at Messines Ridge, South of Ypres, on 7th June 1917 with an unprecedented firing of 19 mines, and although the Ridge was seized, it cost the British 25,000 casualties.
As Ludendorff and his staff had anticipated, the British attack on Messines Ridge was followed several weeks later, on the 31st July 1917, with the ill-starred Northern Operation (also known as the 3rd Battle of Ypres) aimed at Passchendaele Ridge. It concluded five months later with the capture of the Ridge at a cost of around 300,000 dead each for the British and the Germans.
As the 3rd Ypres drew to its unsatisfactory end, the British launched yet another offensive at Cambrai, east of the Somme. Using over 400 tanks, including some of the new Mark IV's, on more suitable ground, and a 'creeping barrage', it was launched of the 20th November 1917 and was aimed at breaking the Hindenburg Line. Despite an encouraging initial success, by the 5th December, after heavy fighting, the Germans had regained most of the lost territory and the Hindenburg Line was still intact.
The work on strengthening the Hindenburg Line continued into 1918.
The end of the partnership
The nemesis of LD began when, on the 21st November 1917, he arranged a meeting with his advisers in the Belgian town of Mons. The subject was, firstly, the imminent arrival of the Americans and how that would change the balance of power on the Western Front? And secondly, could a pre-emptive strike on the Western Front, bring a quick and irreversible conclusion to the war? LD's view was that to beat the French would not stop the war, as the British would probably fight on with American support, using their joint naval resources to maintain the crippling naval blockade of Germany. But if the British could be beaten, then the French would be likely to collapse and the Americans would be willing to seek some sort of settlement favourable to Germany.
The idea for a new offensive on the Western Front arose out of the fear of the German High Command that American's recent entry into the war would completely change the balance of power. Of course, the fact that the American's participation was brought about by LD's insistence on the resumption of unrestricted U-boat warfare, was, perhaps, a moot point and was unlikely to have been on the agenda.
It was agreed that a sharp, mortal blow was needed before the full strength of the American Army, and its country's vast resources, could reach, and be deployed, on the Western Front in any significant way. LD also knew that although the forces available to him in France had risen by 30% due to the influx from the Eastern Front, those of the Allies had actually dropped by 25%. Moreover, The Allies were in the throes of reorganisation, replenishment and training after the costly battles of 1916 and 1917, and were also engaged in trying to integrate the ever-increasing numbers of Americans. In France, the still rumbling discontent of the ill-used poilus (French infantrymen) made the urgency to launch the new attacks even more pressing.
Accordingly, the Mons meeting agreed with LD Britain must be defeated before the Americans could tilt the balance. And thus, was born the much vaunted Kaiserschlacht (Emperor's Battle) on the Western Front or, as it was also known, the Michael Offensive. The British variously called it the 1918 Spring German Offensive, the Second Battle of the Somme or the March Offensive.
This was, again, largely LD's project. He, with HB support, put together huge amounts of scarce resources, and the introduced newly developed tactics and equipment, into the preparations for this offensive. LD selected three Armies for the offensive - the Second, the Seventeenth, and the Eighteenth, under Generals Marwitz, Below and Hutier, respectively. They comprised of 63 divisions that were poised along a 90km front from Arras to La Fère - from the River Scarpe to the River Oise. Against them were 26 British Divisions, of which 14 were in the Third Army under General Sir Julian Byng in the North and another 12 in Fifth Army in the South, commanded by General Sir Hubert de la Poer Gough. These latter divisions were rather more thinly spread out. Also there were British reserve troops in the rear areas giving a total of 500,000 men.
LD's strategy was neither a simple one in concept, nor in implementation. It was not a classic all-out offensive on a wide front, but spaced over time to react to operational needs and changes. Initially, it was focused at the juncture of the British and French Sectors where LD thought they were at their weakest. Accordingly, it was an offensive based on a whole series of hard, sharp attacks made on a limited front in many areas.
The Michael Offensive
Although the whole concept was called the Kaiserschlacht- The Emperor's Battle it had eleven tentative operations coded from North to South as:
- George I and II - Hazebrouck/Ypres;
- Georgette - Lille;
- Mars/Valkyrie - Arras;
- Michael III - Bapaume;
- Michael II - Albert;
- Michael I - Crozat canal;
- Blucher - the Aisne river/Chemin des Dames;
- Rheims/Marneschutz - Rheims and The Marne;
- Gneisenau; Compiègne/Chateau Thierry.
A series of hammer blows that would destroy the resistance of the short-handed British, and the French, the latter weakened by mutiny. In one fell swoop the German Army would descend onto the indispensable Channel Ports. But everything depended on the success of the initial operations of the Michael I-III Operations.
The massive blow of Michael I - III fell on the British lines on the 21st March 1918. First came a creeping barrage of 6,000 guns that delivered three million shells on the first day alone; amongst them many gas shells. Over 700 German aircraft maintained a constant shield over the advancing troops. A thick morning mist assisted the storm troopers in deploying their infiltration techniques and the defending troops were quickly put to rout with a huge gap opening up. More German infantry poured through mopping up any pockets of resistance.
Whilst British resistance around Arras stiffened, in the South Byng's Third Army flank was in danger of collapse, and on the 22nd March he had to withdraw to a hastily prepared second defence line. But his troops were negligent about destroying useful installations and facilities as they withdrew, and as the Germans Eighteenth Army forged on across undamaged bridges and roads, the British were obliged to continually retreat. By the 25th March General Gough's Fifth Army had retreated for 40km along almost its entire front, dragging the right wing of the British Third Army with it. Huge guns were marshalled forward and shelled Paris.
The British were in serious trouble and back in London there were concerns about the security of the Channel Ports and the fate of the whole BEF. The King (George V) was desperately concerned. And still sections of the German Eighteenth Army advanced until, on the 27th March 1918, they halted at Montdidier leaving a salient 65-km (40miles) deep behind them.
In the North, around Arras, although the maximum German effort had been concentrated here, progress was less spectacular, and LD decided to bring forward all of the nine divisions of his reserves to apply pressure to the Amiens Sector. By the 26th April this attack had lost its momentum, and although Villiers-Brettoneux fell to an attack led by the huge new German tanks - the Sturmpanzerwagen A7V - in the first ever tank-to-tank engagement, the German advance was still 20km short of Amiens. Although the fighting continued around Arras, on the 28th March, LD launched the Mars Operation on Arras, but without conspicuous success.
The Michael Offensive had run out of steam: the German troops were exhausted, had outrun their supply chain and in this war-torn landscape there was little to scavenge. Moreover, many of the German troops had gorged themselves to torpitude on captured British food and French alcohol. They had ceased for several critical hours, or days, to be effective fighting units and were unresponsive to the orders of their officers and NCO's.
LD's Michael Offensive was down, but not out, and he and launched another attack on the 30th April without further success. His final throw was to order another attack on Amiens on the 14th April with 15 more divisions, but the exhausted and demoralised troops failed to make any real progress. The Allies had suffered grievous casualties in the German offensive. German casualties, at 250,000, were even worse than the British - 200,000 - but there were another 80,000 French casualties. Some authorities (e.g. Churchill and Lloyd George) cite much higher figures.
Still hoping salvage some success from his carefully drawn plans, LD called a halt to the operations in the Somme Sector on the 5th April and switched his attention northward with the Lys Operation - not on the original list - on the 9th April 1918.
LD's extraordinary gain of territory in such a short period had not only shocked the Allies to the core; it had concentrated their minds on the parlous state of the alliance. Immediate steps were taken to restructure the command system (French Marshal Ferdinand Foch was appointed as Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies on the Western Front), and increase the flow of men, arms and munitions - particularly on the part of the Americans. Efforts were also made, with some success, to alert the war weary general public of the Allies to the fact that the war still had to be won and, in particular, the deleterious effects striking workers were having on the war-effort.
But though perhaps dimmed somewhat, LD's ambition still burned bright, and the 9th of April 1918 he tried again. This time against the Portuguese at Neuve Chapelle in an Operation called 'George' - a modification of the Georgette Operation. Pushing aside the Portuguese, the storm troopers pushed on into British defensives around Givinchy and on into the Ypres Sector, where a defeat was inflicted on the French at Kemmel Hill.
Next, on the 27th April, LD loosed the Blucher Operation on the French 6th Army, and by 1st June 1918 the Germans had captured both Soissons and Chateau Thierry.
Here the Americans went to the aid of the French - who they considered as their principal ally - joining in on the ground for the first time on the 3rd June 1918. Next day, the American Marines attacked Belleau Wood and, in a famous victory, went on to capture it on the 25th June, after a long hard slog, with the loss of 5000 men and with 50% of their officers casualties.
Still LD, persisted believing just one more 'push' would do it. This time it was Operation 'Gneisenau' on the 9th April, and when that failed on the 14th April, a final effort was made with Operation 'Reims/Marneschutz. After the usual storming spectacular start, it made some progress around the city of Rheims, and then fizzled out. LD had played all his cards, including the Jokers, but the Michael Offensive had failed to attain its objectives. The British were still in the field, as were the French and the newly bloodied Americans were as keen as ever to get into the War. LD had lost many of his new force of highly trained and experienced infantrymen in the fury of the Kaiserschlacht. And his army was exhausted and low in supplies and munitions.
The Allied riposte
Now it was LD's turn to await the riposte. It wasn't long in coming. The first attack was made by the French 10th Army on the 18th June 1918 in the forest area of Compiègne. It forced the German to give up some of the recently captured ground in that area and reeled in 25,000 German prisoners.
On the northern front in the Somme Sector, the British, relieved by LD's decision to switch his main attack from Amiens - they, the British, seriously thought it might well have fallen if the Germans had persisted - set to reorganising the army making the 4th Army's General Sir Henry Rawlinson a key figure. This reorganisation quickly produced a victory; on the 4th July at Hamel for the Australian Corps under Lieutenant-General Sir John Monash. This victory set a welcomed trend for the Corps of Dominion countries - Australia with New Zealand (the ANZACs) and Canada - to fight independently whilst collaborating under British overall command.
General Foch launched a French attack at Villers-Cotterets, near Soissons on the 18th July and took the Germans completely by surprise.
On the 8th August the British, in concert with the French, launched an attack - the Amiens Offensive - on a twelve mile (20km) front south of Amiens, heading towards the ultimate objective of Ham. The Allies superiority in aircraft (2,000 against 400) and tanks (including 342 of the vastly improved Mk V's) and over 2000 artillery guns, spaced at intervals of 25 yards (23m) and matched with new tactics, proved to be too much for the exhausted German Army. There was an 8 mile (12km) advance. German losses were set at over 25,000.
LD was caused to say ' August the 8th was the black day of the German Army in the history of the war'. The die was truly cast. He was so shocked that he asked HB to replace him. HB refused. The Kaiser also made it clear that LD retained his confidence, although the Kaiser later admitted he realised at that point the war was lost.
The Americans, now in their stride, and strengthening in numbers by the day, eliminated the St Michiel salient near Verdun by the 15th September. They then continued their advance towards the extension of the Hindenburg Line - the Kreimhilde Line - and broke through to eventually reach the Meuse River in October 1918.
After a pause for replenishment, the British 4th, 3rd and 1st Armies, and the Dominion Corps, began a series of attacks that came to be known as the '100 Days Campaign. Starting with an attack north of Albert, the vital Somme towns of Bapaume, St. Quentin and Peronne had all fallen by the 2nd of September.
LD was depressed by these events, as well he might be: the writing was on the wall for the German Army on the Western Front. He had hoped to spend the winter hunkered down behind the Hindenburg Line defences, but that too was broken by the British 4th Army in the first week of October. To be followed a whole series of victories in the North with British, Dominion, French and Belgian troops. By the end of October, the British were once again in Mons, Belgium; back where they had begun 51 months previously. Their losses since August 1918 amounted to 300,000 men; many young 18-19 year olds and older men caught in the widened conscript net of late 1917 and early 1918.
General Haig paid a visit London and on the 10th September asked the War Office for more mounted men and munitions for the 'war of movement' which he anticipated was about to begin.
Capitulation
On the 28th September LD urged HB to sue for an Armistice. HB, as usual, hesitated.
LD next approached the Kaiser, on 1st October, and begged him to issue a German offer of Peace. The Kaiser also procrastinated.
On the 2nd October the first act of revolution took place in Germany in the chamber of the Crown Council in Berlin. Prince Max of Baden was appointed as Chancellor with specific conditions; parliament would decide matters of war and peace and the Kaiser must not interfere. LD was taken out of the command structure and his power passed to the Chancellor and his government.
HB passed on LD's recommendations of the 28th September and the 1st October, to the Kaiser and informed him that the army could not wait another 48 hours. At this juncture, Prince Max demurred, insisting that matters were not at such a pass as many feared, and negotiation from a position of strength was still possible - perhaps for several months. HB again insisted that there must be an immediate cease-fire. Prince Max then replied that if this was so, why hadn't the German Army surrendered in the field? To which HB had no reply, inarticulate as always. Again, as always, BD responded on HB behalf - by telephone - from his Western Front HQ at Spa giving the reasons why the war could no longer be won.
Prince Max then took charge and on the 4th October telephoned a pre-warned Washington requesting an Armistice. On the 8th October President WoodrowWilson sent a note rejecting the offer: only a total withdrawal from all the occupied territories on the Western Front and Serbia would suffice.
Then, on the 17th October, in an amazing volte face, LD, in discussions with the Kaiser about a suitable response to President Wilson's Note, recommended that Central Powers should fight on, and spoke of plans a new offensive on the Western Front in the Spring of 1919.
HB and LB then took the further extraordinary step of circulating, by telegram a letter addressed to senior commanders on the Western Front urging them to 'fight to the finish'. One influential commander immediately lodged a protest, and the letter was hastily withdrawn. But it was too late; it had already been leaked to the socialists at the Reichstag in Berlin. The letter was also published in the German newspapers. Prince Max, incensed, went to see the Kaiser with an ultimatum that either LB went, or he and his government would go.
LD was called to a personal interview with the Kaiser and, after the usual arrogant bluster claiming support of other senior officers and HB himself, he resigned. It was the 27th October 1918. Shortly afterwards he went into exile in Sweden in what was claimed to be a state of nervous collapse.
Following his usual loyal and unconditional support of LD, HB also offered his resignation, but the Kaiser refused to accept it.
LD took no further part in military activities. However he returned to participate in Bavarian militarist politics and authorship. He died in 1937 aged 72.
Postscriptum
Outwardly unperturbed by these seemingly fatal reverses, HB continued stoically to hold his post and went on to retire, in June 1919, highly respected and revered by the German public. In 1925 he was elected President of the Weimar Republic, and died in 1934, aged 87.
In the '100 Day's Campaign', the British had had 23 victories and not a single lost battle. It was victorious army hardened and matured by war.
However, at the Armistice, not a single Allied soldier had set foot voluntarily on German soil and the German Army still held a largely intact Front Line. Many German soldiers, including a certain Corporal Adolf Hitler, felt betrayed by the German Government's decision.
N.B.: There is much debate, and no consensus, about who first said, or wrote, the famous words about the British soldiers of the Great war, and the generals that led them: Quote … Lions led by donkeys…Unquote. What cannot be garnered from a multiplicity of sources is an assurance that these words were ever said, or written, as such. What Ludendorff definitely said to Major-General Max Hoffman was: Ludendorff…'The English fight like lions'.
Hoffman replied. …'True, but don't we know that they are lions led by donkeys'.
