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Metal cross grave marker of Corporal Jakob Naumann who died on April 10, 1918, likely in Operation Georgette, the Lys Offensive, launched the previous day. From the Laventie German Military Cemetery, Laventie, France. © 2013 by John M. Shea
Barbed wire helps stop the Hun on the Western Front. A March 14, 1918 photograph, one week before the beginning of Operation Michael, Germany's Somme Offensive.
Metal cross grave marker of Army Reservist Paul Schwarz, who died on April 12, 1918, likely in Operation Georgette, the Lys Offensive, launched April 9. From the Laventie German Military Cemetery, Laventie, France.
Detail from Cram's 1903 Railway Map of the German Empire with the states of the Empire: Elsass and Lothringen, or Alsace and Lorraine, the regions taken from France after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71.
Map of the 1918 German offensives on the Western Front from The Memoirs of Marshall Foch by Marshall Ferdinand Foch. © 1931 by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc.
"On the Western Front, the situation was worsening for the Allied forces. On April 10 [1918] the British were driven from Messines, which had been gained at such cost nine months earlier. Almost all the officers in charge of the British gas companies were themselves incapacitated by German gas shells. 'Inferno continues,' one of them, Donald Grantham, wrote in his diary that day. 'Hun is nearing Béthune. Everyone clearing out. Everything in a muddle. Everyone flying. Refugees on road terrible. Have left behind in cellar pounds worth of kit.'" ((1), more)
"There is no other course open to us but to fight it out. Every position must be held to the last man; there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us much fight on to the end. The safety of our homes and the freedom of mankind depend alike upon the conduct of each one of us at this critical moment." ((2), more)
"After crossing the Lawe Canal, General von Quasts's troops seized Locon and Estaires and, farther north, Hollebeke. On the 12th Merville and Merris fell into their hands, and their advance guards were already on the edge of the Nieppe Forest. The depth of the progress had thus attained 11 miles. Faced with this development of the battle, Field Marshal Haig saw his resources being rapidly used up, and he deemed it more than ever essential that the French co-operate in Flanders." ((3), more)
"— While informing us that a raid on Cologne caused 248 deaths, the newspapers strive to confer the monopoly of frightfulness on German shells, accusing them of carefully picking out nurseries and churches for their attentions. Would it not be more straightforward to blame such outrages on the base folly of war itself?" ((4), more)
". . . Foch remained adamant that French reserves must be husbanded for his offensive schemes. No pleas, no threats, no reports of danger or disaster would move him, and at a conference held at Abbeville on April 14th he refused pointblank to allow any reliefs of the divisions fighting the Lys battle; 'the operation would immobilize the relieving troops and those being relieved during the time required for the operation, and this at the very moment when the size of the Allied reserve is barely sufficient.'" ((5), more)
(1) April 10 was the second day of German commander Erich Ludendorff's second great offensive of 1918, Operation Georgette, the Lys Offensive. On the first day, after a two-day preliminary bombardment, the Germans demolished a half-strength Portuguese line. The offensive, a pared-down version of a previously rejected plan, was an attack on the Lys River along the Franco-Belgian border.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 414, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
(2) British Commander General Douglas Haig's Order of the Day for April 11, the third day of German commander Erich Ludendorff's second great offensive of 1918, Operation Georgette, the Lys Offensive. The offensive, a pared-down version of a previously rejected plan, was an attack on the Lys River along the Franco-Belgian border. On the first day, after a two-day preliminary bombardment, the Germans demolished a half-strength Portuguese line then spread north and south attacking the British to either side.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, page 105, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(3) The British were in increasingly difficult straits on April 12, the fourth day of German commander Erich Ludendorff's second great offensive of 1918, Operation Georgette, the Lys Offensive. On the first day, after a two-day preliminary bombardment, the Germans demolished a half-strength Portuguese line, then spread north and south striking the British to either side. The offensive, a pared-down version of a previously rejected plan, was an attack on the Lys River in Flanders along the Franco-Belgian border. British commander was Douglas Haig already badly weakened by Operation Michael in March, looked to newly appointed Commander-in-Chief Ferdinand Foch for reinforcements.
The Memoirs of Marshal Foch, translated by Col. T. Bentley Mott by Ferdinand Foch, pp. 286–287, copyright © 1931 by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., publisher: Doubleday, Doran & Co., publication date: 1931
(4) Undated entry between April 12 and 14, 1918 from the diary of Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government, about the Allied bombing of Cologne, Germany. The German advance in Operation Michael put Paris within the range of a new German gun. On Good Friday, March 29, a shell had struck the Church of St. Gervais, tumbling part of the walls onto the congregation, killing 91 and wounding 68. In his diary, Corday often comments on the hypocrisy of the French government, press, and pro-war populace. Cologne, Germany, was a major communication center between Germany, Belgium and France, being about 75 km from the Belgian border and 260 km north northeast of Verdun.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 336, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(5) The British were in increasingly difficult straits on April 14, the sixth day of German commander Erich Ludendorff's second great offensive of 1918, Operation Georgette, the Lys Offensive. The offensive, a pared-down version of a previously rejected plan, was an attack on the Lys River in Flanders along the Franco-Belgian border. British commander was Douglas Haig already badly weakened by Operation Michael in March, looked to newly appointed Commander-in-Chief Ferdinand Foch for reinforcements. Foch had for months pressed for a unified command and a reserve force that could seize the offensive when the opportunity presented itself. In mid-April 1918, he held both.
1918, the Last Act by Barrie Pitt, pp. 125–126, copyright © 1962 by Barrie Pitt, publisher: Ballantine Books, Inc., publication date: 1963
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