![]() ![]() Before the offensive drew to a close in mid-July, the Germans had advanced to within 40 miles of the French capital.While the Germans were still attacking, Allied Generalissimo Ferdinand Foch had approached British Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig in May about crafting plans for an offensive in mid-June. Although the danger of a German breakthrough to Paris had ended later that month, the Germans continued to make gains. The Germans had come to within nine miles of Amiens in the British sector in early April before they were halted. The Kaiserschlacht Offensive would ultimately fail in large part because the German logistic system was unable to support the rapidly advancing German stormtroopers in the early weeks of the offensive. ![]() The impetus of the Kaiserschlacht Offensive that began on March 21 was to strike a blow against the British, Commonwealth, and French forces on the Western Front before the men and matériel of the United States turned the tide of battle irreversibly in favor of the Allied powers.Īt that point, the Germans had the advantage in numbers because the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed March 3 had freed up 50 German divisions previously committed to the Eastern Front. The Allied offensive would be a key turning point, considering the Germans had launched a massive offensive five months earlier. One of the most significant Allied offensives of the Great War was beginning. With visibility down to just a few dozen feet, the Canadians followed the rolling barrage that hurled a curtain of death forward in 100-yard intervals. Through a heavy fog blanketing the terrain near Amiens, soldiers of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Canadian Divisions pushed forward. ![]() The German guns returned fire, but owing to McNaughton’s counterbattery planning, the enemy’s artillery fire was mostly neutralized. “ Boche is getting his now,” he told her. Andrew McNaughton, the Canadian Corps counterbattery officer, in a letter to his wife. The noise of the bomber soon faded as it flew away, only to be replaced with the deafening crash of artillery.Īll hell broke loose on the German lines at 4:20 am when a heavy barrage erupted, lighting up the dawn. ![]() The lone aircraft sought to cover the rumbling and clanking of hundreds of tanks moving forward to the start line to support an imminent attack. The drone of a Royal Air Force bomber could be heard overhead in the early morning of August 8, 1918, as it flew up and down the Allied line near Amiens, France. ![]()
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