The Third Bloodiest: The Spring Offensive
Fundamentally, the Spring Offensive was an attempt by German forces, under the command of Ludendorff, to end World War I with a German victory. The path to the Spring Offensive was cleared by the withdrawal of the Russians from World War I following the October Revolution, ending fighting on the Eastern Front. This freed some 500,000 German troops for service on the Western Front. The British and French attempted to prepare for the attack, but were well aware of the weaknesses in their own defenses.
The initial attack in the Spring Offensive came to the west of Cambrai, with a massive artillery assault beginning on March 21, 1918. The Germans advanced rapidly and successfully through the British Fifth Army, following the artillery assault with a division of elite troops, carrying weapons designed to cause fear. The Germans regained land lost in the Battle of the Somme, and brought large cannons within range of the city of Paris; shelling of the city began at once. German troops were ordered to take the city of Amiens; however, the assault and offensive began to fail due to supply line issues.
The Spring Offensive looked to be a great success in March, with the Germans declaring March 24 a holiday in celebration of their early successes. The Americans arrived on the Western Front at the end of March, and while there were some conflicts over command responsibilities, this was the German army’s worst-case scenario. By April, the Germans had suffered 230,000 casualties. By July 15, the Spring Offensive was over. German casualties numbered nearly one million, and Allied casualties around half that. The Americans had turned the tide of war, and were, by the end of the Spring Offensive, arriving in numbers totalling several hundred thousand each month.