The March Offensive, 1918: Part II

‘The enemy’s resistance was beyond our powers,’ Ludendorff wrote, ‘the German Supreme Command was forced to take the extremely hard decision to abandon the attack on Amiens for good.’ The date was April 5th, 1918. By John Terraine.

John Terraine | Published in History Today Volume 18 Issue 4 April 1968

'At 10 minutes past 5 I was awakened by the roar of a bombardment, which... was so sustained and steady that it at once gave me the impression of some crushing, smashing power. I jumped out of bed and walked across the passage to the telephone in my office and called up the General Staff. On what part of our front was the bombardment falling? The answer came back almost immediately: “All four corps report heavy bombardment along their front.”'

So, on the morning of March 21st, 1918, General Sir Hubert Gough, commanding the British Fifth Army, learned that the long-awaited German blow had fallen upon his troops. The attack extended northward, beyond the Fifth Army front, along a great part of the sector held by Sir Julian Byng’s Third Army. An officer of Heavy Artillery in the Third Army area, Arthur Behrend, wrote:

‘I awoke with a tremendous start conscious of noise, incessant and almost musical, so intense that it seemed as if a hundred devils were dancing in my brain. Everything seemed to be vibrating—the ground, my dug-out, my bed... The great offensive had begun.’