But, even if he had captured the Channel ports, the war would still have gone on, as it did in 1940. Even if he had taken Paris, the Americans and the British would have continued to fight. Ludendorff’s object, not unlike that of Falkenhayn two years earlier, was not so much to destroy the Allied armies as to destroy the will of the Allied governments to persevere with the war and compel them to accept a compromise peace. He might have succeeded with the French. In another year it might even have been possible with the British. But it was out of the question with the United States.
By the beginning of 1918 there were already a million American troops in France, although they were not yet organized in fighting formations. From the beginning Pershing insisted that they should operate as a distinct army. He had been allotted his own front on the far right of the Allied line, in the as yet inactive theatre of Lorraine. But, although the United States could mobilize men with astonishing speed—conscription was introduced in May 1917—it took longer to tool up her industries to provide heavy weapons.
Until the end of the war her army was dependent on her European allies for tanks, aircraft, and—most important of all—artillery guns and ammunition. This being so, and given the American lack of combat experience, it seemed logical to the French and British that these raw American units should, at least initially, be amalgamated with their own more experienced forces to learn their trade. This Pershing, under President Wilson’s direction, understandably refused. He did, however, allow US divisions once they were formed to serve under French command.
The First Division was blooded at Cantigny on 28 May—a notable date in American military history—and two more were available to help seal the French line at Château-Thierry when the German attack penetrated thus far at the beginning of June. The gallantry of inexperience made their losses heavy—over 10,000 killed or wounded—but they learned fast; and the very presence of these tall, cheerful, well-fed boys from the Middle West with their boundless optimism convinced their weary allies that the war could not now be lost. More important, it convinced their yet more weary adversaries that it could not now be won.
Ludendorff planned a final blow against the British in the north, but after a month of indecision he decided first to launch one more violent and, he hoped, final blow against the French—a Friedenssturm he termed it for the benefit of his exhausted troops, a blow for peace. The blow was struck on 16 July at Reims, on the eastern edge of the salient that the Germans had now driven as far south as the Marne. But this time the French were ready for it. German deserters—their very number an indicator of German demoralization—had given warning of the attack, and the French were able to preempt the German bombardment with a barrage of their own.
They had also at last learned the lesson of flexible defence. They allowed the Germans to bombard and occupy a front line that was empty except for barbed wire, mines, and a few machine-gun posts, before decimating them with a counterbarrage and fire from the flanks. Two days later the fiery General Mangin launched a counter-attack against the western flank of the salient with an army that now included American divisions. By 5 August a combined French, American, and British force had reconquered the entire salient and taken 30,000 prisoners. Ludendorff cancelled his orders for a final attack he was planning in the north. He had finally shot his bolt.
The Ludendorff Offensive, March 1918
