Some of our long term fans out there may have forgotten what’s happened over the course
of the war, and some of you newer fans may wish to catch up.
So we do a recap special every three months so you can get up to speed and this is one
of them.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to a Great War Recap special covering the months May, June,
and July 1918.
May began on the western front with the end of the Battle of La Lys, which had good tactical
success for the German, but was an operational failure, since it did not take its main objectives.
German Quartermaster General Erich Ludendorff was already making plans for yet more western
front offensives, designed to win the war before the Americans could arrive in force,
but they were in fact already coming in droves, well over 100,000 per month and that number
grew and grew.
However, on May 1st, at an allied command meeting, American Commander John Pershing
made clear that he was not going to send them into the lines with the French and British
yet- well, not all of them, he was waiting to build a whole American army first.
On the 10th, the British launched an amphibious attack on Ostend to try and sabotage the harbor
as a German submarine base.
This was fairly successful, though by the end of the month, the Germans had dredged
a new channel and were back in business.
The British army was trying again in Palestine, attacking across the River Jordan.
They took Es Salt, but were forced back by the enemy.
That front would remain quiet over the summer.
As for the Central Powers action, the Germans established a military dictatorship in Ukraine
beginning May 1st.
This was done as part of their efforts to gather the Ukrainian harvest for their starving
troops and population.
Russia had given up all claims to Ukraine under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
Romania signed the similar and rather humiliating Treaty of Bucharest the 7th, giving up loads
of land, but perhaps more importantly, giving Germany majority control of the Romanian oil
fields.
Down in eastern Anatolia, in mid-month the Ottomans declared that the old peace terms
with the Armenians and Georgians were no longer valid, and they demanded new territory and
the unlimited use of the Transcaucasian railways.
Without even waiting for an answer, their armies marched on the Caucasus.
They advanced for the rest of the month, but their ally Germany had issue with this.
Germany wanted the oil from the Baku oilfields, so they made Georgia a German protectorate
at the end of the month, to stop the Ottomans from advancing to Baku.
The Ottomans were furious.
The Macedonian Front briefly flared to life for the Battle of Skra di Legen the 29th and
30th.
This was notable as the first action of the war fought by Greek troops, who, together
with a French brigade, were successful against Bulgarian positions.
In France itself, the first half of the month saw the Bonnet Rouge treason trial- 7 people
from the Bonnet Rouge newspaper were accused of passing on military information to the
Germans.
The paper’s director was sentenced to death, while the others receive sentences of hard
labor.
Mid month in Ireland, 150 Sinn Fein leaders were arrested for plotting with Germany, and
those arrests foiled a planned uprising.
These antiwar or treasonous acts weren’t just happening with civilians, though, there
were by now semi-regular mutinies within the AH army, several just that month.
Finally on the 27th, came the next German Western Front Offensive- the Third Battle
of the Aisne.
It was initially a huge success, and just the first day the Germans advanced 22km, which
was the largest single day advance of any attack by any army of the entire war.
They took tens of thousands of French prisoners, and by the end of May, for the first time
since 1914, were on the banks of the River Marne, 50 miles from Paris.
As June began, plans were made to evacuate Paris, but that never became necessary.
The Germans had taken Soissons, but were unable to push beyond it, thanks to the French and
American defenses- the Americans would fight off the Germans all month at Belleau Wood,
which really announced that though new to the fight, they were a force to be reckoned
with.
The Germans were also unable to take Reims, so Germany now held a large salient, vulnerable
on multiple sides, and with only a single railway line as supply chain.
Still even though they had been stopped for moment, they launched yet another attack beyond
Soissons in the second week of June- the Battle of Matz.
This began as yet another German success, but the French counter attack on the 11th
under Charles Mangin beat the Germans so suddenly and totally, that they called off the offensive
after just a couple of days.
This was the last big German offensive of the month.
The German-Georgia plans in the Caucasus did not, as it turned out, stop the Ottoman offensive.
In fact, Ottoman troops encountered and skirmished with German troops in the field.
This caused German High Command to threaten a removal of all German troops, personnel,
and everything from the Ottoman Empire if the advance did not stop.
That would be a big calamity for the Ottomans if it happened, so they stopped their advance,
but not their plans.
They then formed a new army of Azeri in Azerbaijan, and marched their other armies across Armenia-
with or without consent to foil the German plans and advance on Baku and its oil.
Pretty much everyone was after the oil by now, the Germans, the Ottomans, the Soviets,
the British, the Azeri, and the Armenians, and the chaos grew and grew in the region.
On the 15th, Austria-Hungary launched a two pronged offensive on the Italians front, with
attacks across the Piave River and on the Asiago Plateau.
The river attack went well on day one, but though the Austrians made a bridgehead, they
couldn’t really expand it.
The second prong of the attack was an absolute disaster, and by day two, the Austrians were
in retreat.
By then, rain had caused the Piave to rise, and the first prong was having troubles of
its own.
The Italian counterattack the 19th was a rousing success, and the last Austrians of the failed
offensive retreated back across the Piave the 23rd.
Over the next few weeks, the Italians would slowly advance and consolidate their positions.
There were some changes in leadership in June, on both sides.
PM Radoslavov and his cabinet resigned in Bulgaria and the new government tries to pursue
peace negotiations with the Allies.
These are unsuccessful, and civilian unrest in Bulgaria, like regular food riots, grows
and grows.
Franchet D’esperey- AKA Desperate Frankie- takes command of the multi-national Allied
Army of the Orient, opposite the Bulgarians on the Macedonian Front.
He begins making plans and asking permission from Supreme Command for a large late-summer
offensive.
July began with a shake up in the German leadership.
Foreign Minister Richard von Kuhlmann was replaced by Paul von Hintze.
Kuhlmann had indicated a willingness to listen to peace proposals and had said he didn’t
think Germany could win the war militarily.
This was not a popular opinion, apparently, though the Germans certainly had a loss in
the field in early July.
The Battle of Hamel, planned and executed by John Monash, was a big Allied success and
is called by many the first truly modern battle for its combined use of air, infantry, artillery,
and armor.
The Germans had more attacks up their sleeves, in spite of being- like the other armies-
hard hit by the Spanish Flu, which was now at epidemic levels and killing soldiers by
the thousands.
They would attack east of Reims, to try and open up their salient so they could bring
in another railway supply line, and then when Allied reserves were drawn from up north in
Flanders, would follow up with an attack there.
However, when they went over the top mid month, they found that the French had finally begun
using a defense-in-depth system, which exhausted and defeated the German shock troop tactics.
Still, the German attack persevered for a couple of days... until the unexpected Allied
counter attack.
The Germans were totally surprised, and were smashed into retreat.
Toward the end of the month, their salient was no longer really holdable, and once they
couldn’t hold it, the Flanders offensive was indefinitely postponed.
As July faded to August, the Allies advanced at the Somme and in Champagne, though the
advances were slower and slower as the days wore on.
By the end of the month, the Allied leaders had decided that they would launch a series
of small offensives all up and down the entire front, which the Germans would be unable to
predict and- hopefully- defend against.
The Germans made a final attempt on Reims the 25th, but it was a failure.
Their situation on the Western front by the beginning of August was ever more dire.
Something else happened in July- the former Tsar Nicholas Romanov and his family were
executed in Yekaterinburg.
He was one of the architects of the war in July 1914.
A war which now turned four years old and there was no real end in sight, although in
just the final two weeks of the month the situation on the Western Front had reversed
itself and finally was looking up for the Allies.
The Ottomans were still advancing in the Caucasus, though, and the Bulgarians and Austro-Hungarians
were anything but defeated, so four years of war had produced no victory for anybody,
just casualties in the tens of millions.