Centennial of the End of the Great War

[Capt. Harlock]

27 March 1918

The German gains, and the heavy casualties of British troops, were causing a political uproar back in England. The British High Command turned to the classic solution: find a scapegoat. The obvious choice was Sir Douglas Haig, the senior British commander on the Western Front. However, as Haig later confessed, he was "conceited enough to think that the Army could not spare" his leadership. He therefore chose another sacrifice.

General Hubert Gough returned to his headquarters late in the afternoon and was met by Haig's Military Secretary, who gave him the unexpected and unpleasant news that he was ordered to hand over command of the Fifth Army to General William Rawlinson the next day. This was probably unfair to Gough, who had done reasonably well in the face of the formidable German offensive with the minimal reinforcements provided to him. And it happened as the Allied lines were stabilizing, though it was hard to realize just at that moment.



In the Middle East theater, the British launched an attack on Amman, which was not a capital at that point. (Jordan had not yet been created.) However, it was a key stop on the Hejaz Railway, and therefore on the route to Damascus.

Even further to the east, the mobile force under General H. T. Brooking, fresh from the victory at Khan Bahgdadi, advanced up the Euphrates. 46 miles from Khan Bahgdadi was and encampment at Ana, where the Ottomans had established their main supply base. This was now overrun by the British, so swiftly that they managed to bag a few high-ranking German officers who were there to observe and advise the Turks.

[Capt. Harlock]

28 March 1918

The two key cities in the sector of Operation Michael were Arras to the north and Amiens to east. Amiens was much further from the jump-off lines of March 21, but the German forces seemed to be making steady progress towards it. In the north, however, Byng’s Third Army had been retreating very slowly. Hoping to rectify this, Ludendorff now launched an auxiliary attack to Operation Michael, code-named Operation Mars. This was an assault to the north against the Third Army, hoping to widen the bulge in the British lines, and just possibly break the link between the Third and Fifth Armies. Nine German divisions attacked four British divisions near Arras.

Operation Mars had been planned for some time. Unfortunately for the Germans, they were not the only planners: this was one of the areas where the British had been working on the new system of defenses for some time. As the German troops advanced beyond the first, lightly held British lines, they entered the “Battle Zone”, where the British artillery had been systematically targeted. On this day there was no fog to hinder the artillery spotters, and the German infantry was decimated. They failed to breach the heavier defense lines in the rear. When informed of the casualties, Ludendorff called off Operation Mars after just one day, which was unusual for his aggressive nature.

It is worth noting that as deadly as machine-guns were, WWI artillery was more lethal still. At the beginning of the war, many armies issued cloth caps as headgear for their soldiers. But by this time, every nation that could afford it was equipping its troops with metal helmets against the fragments from artillery shells. The famous German Stahlhelm was introduced in 1916, and was remarkably similar to the ones the Nazi soldiery would wear throughout WWII.


Though the heaviest attack on this date had been against the Third Army, the Germans continued their push against the Fifth Army. They made a determined assault on the town of Hamel, where the improvised Carey's Force was posted. However, Carey’s force was not alone. There was artillery, depleted but experienced British infantry from the 16 Division, and even some troops from the 1st Cavalry Brigade. By mid-afternoon the first German attack had been repelled. The Allies then unwisely mounted a counter-attack, which was stopped in turn. German artillery then entered the fray, and Carey’s Force had reached its limit for the day. They fell back, and the Germans were able to take the village of Marcelcave.

While this had been going on, William Rawlinson officially assumed command of the battered British Fifth Army. He would keep the command for the rest of the war, but not the army’s name: it was considered a defeated force, and would soon be disbanded, and the Fourth Army re-constituted from its ashes.

[Capt. Harlock]

29 March 1918

“All quiet on the Western front” was not quite an accurate description of this day; both sides fired occasional machine-gun bursts against the other’s lines. However, there was a breather in the intensity of the fighting: no serious infantry assaults were made by either side.

But it was the worst day for the bombardment of Paris. A shell from the Paris Gun struck the roof of the St-Gervais-et-St-Protais Church, causing it to collapse. Tragically, it was a Good Friday, and there was a large congregation attending the service. 91 people were killed, with 68 more wounded.


The church, which has stood since 1578, was repaired, and is now the headquarters of the Monastic Fraternities of Jerusalem.

[Capt. Harlock]

30 March 1918

The Germans returned to their drive against the Fifth Army. A two-pronged attack was launched, to the west towards Amiens, and to the southwest against French units that had been brought up to reinforce the area.

However, the day’s fighting showed that the pause of the 29th had been more profitable to the Allies than to the Germans. One day’s rest was not enough for the wearied and bloodied attackers, and their supplies were still coming forward slowly. Most importantly, there were not as many of the elite Stosstruppen as there had been nine days ago; their units had, as might be expected, taken the heaviest casualties. The ground gained for the day was measured in mere meters rather than kilometers (or yards instead of miles). The drive towards Amiens was stopped outside the village of Villers-Bretonneux.


In the Palestine theater, the British attack on Amman was brought to a halt. The Ottomans had managed to bring in reinforcements, including a German infantry battalion. Although the British blew up the railway tracks south of the city, their attempt to take the city proper was repulsed. Hill 3039 on the outskirts was overrun during the wee hours, but daylight brought heavy counter-fire from artillery and machine-guns. Ottoman counter-attacks were defeated in turn, but the British could not take the Citadel, the key to the defense of Amman. Casualties on both sides were substantial.

[Capt. Harlock]

31 March 1918

It was Easter Sunday for those who used the Gregorian calendar. (The countries to the east using the Julian calendar would celebrate it on May 5.) Artist Norman Rockwell had managed to enlist in the U.S. Navy by gorging on bannanas and doughnuts after he was first rejected for being underweight. However, he had already done some of the Saturday Evening Post covers which would make him famous, and the Navy recognized his talent. He was made a military artist and kept from active service, producing images such as this one for Leslie’s Weekly.


In Palestine, it was now clear that the Ottoman forces, with German help, had been built up too strongly for the British to complete the capture of Amman. General Allenby took the decision to retreat, meanwhile informing the War Office that he had achieved his objective by cutting the Hejaz Railway. In truth, the railway was still in operation up to the Amman station; it was only further on that the tracks had been destroyed.


The German Navy had made the same assumption, and as it turned out, the same mistake as the German Army was making. They had believed that unrestricted submarine warfare could win the war before the Americans could build up enough strength to affect the outcome. The U. S. Navy's battleships and cruisers were immaterial to the critical Battle of the Atlantic; what counted was destroyers and other escort ships to fight the U-boats. And the Americans were new to submarine-hunting, whereas the German submarine officers and crews had years of experience under their belts.
For a brief time the Germans seemed to have guessed correctly. A staggering 869,000 tons of Allied cargo ships had been sunk in April 1917, more than would be lost in any month of WWII. A full quarter of the merchantmen that sailed failed to return to their home ports. There can be little doubt that a few more months of such losses would have collapsed the British economy and war effort.


But the situation began to improve for the Allies the next month. The convoy system was implemented, and the results were dramatic. (German wolf packs were not used seriously until WWII.) American cargo ships helped to replace the shipping losses, and American destroyers provided welcome additions to convoy escorts. Since U. S. industry turned out good quantities of naval munitions, the Yankee crews occasionally dropped depth charges "without rhyme or reason", which technique rendered the U-boat captains' cleverest tactics useless. It did not sink many submarines, but it kept them from torpedoing the ships in the convoys. And that, of course, was the primary goal.

The British were having rather more success with their own violation of the rules of war. Their surface ships had imposed a complete blockade, including foodstuffs. This was prohibited by the Hague Conventions, which were the forerunners of the more famous Geneva Conventions, and other governments including the U.S. had protested at first. But after the sinking of the Lusitania and other ships without warning, world opinion had swung strongly against the Germans, and the blockade had been accepted. Food shortages in Germany had been serious during 1917, and although the conquest of grain-growing territory in the east had prevented outright starvation, the economies of both Germany and Austria-Hungary were in poor shape. Metals were also a problem: the German war effort would very likely have collapsed without the ores from the mines they had captured in Belgium and northern France. As it was, they found it expedient to train the Stosstruppen rather than build large numbers of tanks to break through the trenches.

The German high command concealed the situation at sea from the German population. According to the press releases from Berlin, unless American troops learned to fly, they could not get past the U-boats to fight in Europe. "Foch's reserves" became a phrase to describe illusionary things. But in fact, by the beginning of spring in 1918 the higher-ups on both sides knew that the submarine blockade was failing, and the Allies would soon have hundreds of thousands of fresh troops for their counter-attacks.

When the figures were totaled up, Allied shipping losses for March would be 342,600 tons. This was no light matter, but well below the estimate of 600,000 tons per month which the Germans had calculated would be needed to knock Britain out of the war. It was also the beginning of the final decline of the U-boats’ war: never again would the monthly losses exceed 300,000 tons. With more confidence in their shipping capacity, the Allies relaxed their demand for Dutch cargo vessels, allowing the little nation to keep its neutrality.

[Capt. Harlock]

1 April 1918

The United States was oddly lagging in aviation at this point. Britain and France had taken a commanding lead in warplanes: total U.S. production during WWI would actually be less than that of Italy. American pilots would largely fly borrowed French aircraft instead. On this date, the British decided to merge the two wings of their air effort, the land-based or Royal Flying Corps, and the sea-based or Royal Naval Air Service. The Royal Air Force became the world’s first independent military service dedicated to aircraft. For the time being, the R.A.F. headquarters was established in the Hotel Cecil, a hotel on the Strand in London which had been requisitioned for the war effort.

[Capt. Harlock]

2 April 1918

For the moment at least, the lines on the Western front had stabilized. It was time for reinforcement, re-supply, and re-organization. The decimated British Fifth Army was officially dissolved, and the Fourth Army re-formed in its stead. However, it had the same commander in General William Rawlinson, occupied much the same position, and comprised many of the same units. There were a few differences, and one of them was the addition of an American unit, the 131st Infantry Regiment, borrowed from the 33rd American Division. Below is the regiment's insignia:

[Capt. Harlock]

3 April 1918

Slowed in the west, the German advance to the east rolled on. A German expeditionary force landed at Hangö in south Finland, where civil war had broken out in the wake of the disintegration of the Russian Empire. Not surprisingly, the Germans were there to help the anti-communist forces against the Reds. Further to the south, in what is now the Ukraine, the city of Ekaterinoslav was seized by German forces. It has since been renamed to Dnipro, and is now the third-largest city in the Ukraine.

[Capt. Harlock]

4 April 1918

The temporary lull in combat on the Western front had allowed the Germans to reinforce and re-supply their thinned ranks. They had even brought up heavy guns, no small feat given that the roads, bridges, and even the ground itself, were devastated. To be fair, much of the damage had been done by the Germans themselves, to make it difficult for the Allies to advance the year before when there had been a withdrawal to the Hindenburg lines.

On this date, Ludendorff ordered one more attack, hoping to break through and capture the city of Amiens and its key railroad hub. The first objective was the town of Villers-Bretonneux, and the surrounding high ground. If that could be taken, heavy guns could be mounted and the rail yards bombarded into ruins, even if Amiens itself remained in Allied hands. The attack would be a powerful one, using several of Germany’s very few A7V tanks.

After the now-standard opening bombardment, the German troops surged forward. At first, the attack seemed to be succeeding. To the south, the French units that had finally arrived as reinforcements were pushed back. To the north, the British 14th division actually broke and ran, allowing the village of Hamel to be captured.

But the Allies rallied. The French, fighting for French soil, regained the ground they had yielded, though at a heavy cost. To the north, Australian units arrived, and with that encouragement, the 14th division regrouped. The 18th division held its ground until the afternoon, preventing a German breakout. Seeing this, the Germans launched a fresh attack at 1600, finally breaking the line of the 18th division. However, a Lieutenant Colonel managed to scrape together a force of British and Australians, and thrust the Germans back in a counter-charge. By 1900, the Allied lines were holding again, and Villers-Bretonneux was saved – for the time being, at least.


At sea, U.S. armed transports Henry R. Mallory, Tenadores and Mercury were part of a convoy headed back to the United States after having completed a voyage to France delivering troops. At 11:45 am, a German U-boat surfaced and fired torpedoes at the Mallory (below). Happily, the lookouts aboard Mallory spotted the torpedoes, and the ship managed to dodge.


The submarine was now sighted by lookouts on Tenadores and Mercury as well, and all three ships fired on the U-boat. The German vessel dived, but apparently not fast enough, with a hit observed before she submerged. The American transports were also armed with depth charges, and they proceeded to the spot where the U-boat had disappeared and dropped charges. Nothing more was seen of the submarine, and the American vessels were credited with a kill. It was one of only a handful of U-boat sinkings officially credited to U.S. ships during the war.

[Capt. Harlock]

5 April 1918

The Germans attempted one further assault in the area of Villers-Bretonneux. This time, it went nowhere, and the British counterattack forced the Germans to fall back even beyond their starting point. Upon receiving the battle reports, Ludendorff ordered a complete halt to advances in the area.

Operation Michael was at an end. Measured by sheer combat power, it had been the mightiest offensive the world had yet seen, surpassing even the Von Schlieffen plan that had come close to taking Paris in 1914. Going by raw numbers, Operation Michael was a tactical victory for the Germans. They had gained considerable territory, and inflicted 235,000 casualties on the British and French forces while losing 220,000 themselves. In addition, the British had lost 1,600 guns and 400 tanks. Exact German losses of these are unknown, but likely much smaller for guns and miniscule for tanks.

However, the victory was not the knock-out blow that Ludendorff wanted and needed. And the principal reason it had not achieved its goals was the extraordinarily stubborn resistance of the British Fifth Army. It had been bled to a shadow of its former self, it had been forced to retreat again and again –- but it had somehow refused to collapse, making the Germans pay for every bit of ground they gained.

[font="Times New Roman"]. . . I won’t swear that the British soldier is braver than any other -- or even, as Charley Gordon said, that he’s brave for a little while longer. But I will swear that there’s no soldier on earth who believes so strongly in the courage of the men alongside him – and that’s worth an extra division any day.

[center]--George MacDonald Fraser, Flashman and the Mountain of Light[/center] [/font]

The tanks and guns were rapidly replaced by British industry, and the American troops would make good the losses in men. Most of all, many of the German casualties were the valuable Stosstruppen. The necessary time to train fresh units of these was time the Germans did not have. And lastly, the ground gained gave no real strategic advantage:

[font="Times New Roman"]No fertile province, no wealthy cities, no river or mountain barrier, no new untapped resources were their reward. Only the crater-fields extending abominably wherever the eye could turn, the old trenches, the vast grave-yards, the skeletons, the blasted trees and the pulverized villages—these, from Arras to Montdidier and from St. Quentin to Villers-Bretonneux, were the Dead Sea fruits of the mightiest military conception and the most terrific onslaught which the annals of war record.

[center]--Winston Churchill, The World Crisis Vol. 3[/center][/font]


The Germans had been stopped in one place. But the Central Powers were still on the advance elsewhere. German troops continued to make gains in the east, and Turkish troops were likewise occupying areas the collapse of Russia has left vulnerable. On this date, the Turks re-took the Armenian city of Van.

This was rather poor timing, for at the Trabzond peace conference, the head of the Transcaucasian delegation finally accepted the territorial changes of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. He sent a telegram to the governing bodies of the mini-states, urging them to agree. But the Armenian council at the city of Tiflis was incensed. Instead, they acknowledged a state of war (there seemed no need to formally declare it when combat was well underway) with the Ottoman Empire.

[Capt. Harlock]

8 April 1918

In the U. S., conscription applied to African-American men as well. For a time it seemed that the government shouldn't have bothered. Demonstrating that racism is idiotic as well as evil, the Army's higher-ups forgot about the fine service rendered by “colored” regiments during the Civil War, and decided that black recruits would not fight effectively. Their units were generally confined to rear-echelon duties such as stocking supplies, and the soldiers were frequently mistreated. On this date, the African-American 369th Infantry Regiment was transferred to service in the French army.

The U.S. Army’s loss was everyone else’s gain: the French were used to soldiers from their African colonies, and welcomed the 369th warmly. They even provided some better equipment than had been originally issued, especially metal helmets. The African-Americans repaid their new hosts by compiling an exemplary combat record. Now known to fame as the “Harlem Hellfighters”, they would stay in the line longer than any other American regiment, and during that time never yielded so much as a meter (or a yard) of ground.

[Capt. Harlock]

9 April 1918

Ludendorff was a very offensively-minded general, and he had already planned other attacks besides Operation Michael. The first effort had aimed to break the junction between the British and French armies, and now he sought to sever the link between the British and the remaining Belgian forces near the northern coast. Originally this had been code-named Operation George, but Ludendorff had found it necessary to reduce its scale after the heavy losses of Operation Michael. The new code-name was Operation Georgette. The primary goal was to cause the British to shift large numbers of troops to the north, weakening the lines near Amiens. However, if the attack were successful enough, there was a possibility of seizing the channel ports of Dunkirk and Calais, which would severely cripple the British supply route. Even if the Germans could not make it that far, capturing the rail hub at Hazebrouck would put a serious crimp into Allied operations.

The opening bombardment was grimly effective. Over 8,000 casualties were sustained by the Allied defenders, though less than 100 were fatalities. But incapacitated soldiers were as good or even better for the Germans as dead ones, for the gassed men generally had to be escorted to the rear by healthy ones.


Although Spain stayed neutral during WWI, and would during WWII as well, Portugal had joined the Allies and declared war on Germany. (The primary reason seems to have been to preserve its African colonies.) Unfortunately it had neither a rich economy nor great reserves of manpower, so it could provide only a couple of divisions of not very well equipped troops.

It was on one of the Portuguese divisions that the first wave of the German assault struck. The troops were tired, having been in the line for months and due to be relieved in a few days. Many of them felt they had been abandoned by the government in Lisbon. With those factors and the heavy losses from the bombardment, it was more than understandable that the division collapsed under the masses of German troops. For the rest of the war, many of the British somewhat unfairly considered the Portuguese soldiers to be timid.

The German troops were quick to take advantage of the opening. By the end of the day, they had advanced 10 km (6 miles) beyond their starting positions, crossing the river Lys. But there was a success for the British as well. The 55th division had taken advantage of the winter months to build a formidable set of trenches near the town of Givenchy. Here, the German assault was beaten back with heavy losses. And without being able to widen the breach in the British lines, the Germans would not be able to bring in supplies and fresh troops in the numbers they needed.

[rico21]

9 April 1918
Hundreds of people flocked Monday morning to the Richebourg Military Cemetery (Pas-de-Calais) to commemorate the centenary of the Battle of the Lily, the "Portuguese Verdun".
ceremony where will be unveiled a commemorative plaque, before a tribute to the dead. Other events are being organized in the region for the centenary of this little-known battle.
Several regiments from different army corps, as well as dozens of onlookers, were waiting in the foggy morning in front of the small cemetery where 1,831 Lusitanian soldiers rest, the only one of its kind in France.
When, on April 9, 1918, four German divisions attacked the Portuguese Expeditionary Force of 55,000 men, nearly 7,400 Portuguese were killed, wounded or taken prisoner.
"I came because my grandfather fought here two years, he was 20 when he arrived, he who lived under the sun of Portugal fought by -20 degrees, it was absolute horror, a real butchery, "says Antonio Duarte, 38, a Franco-Portuguese entrepreneur.
"It was necessary to make this homage because less than 1% of the French know that there was a Portuguese expeditionary force during the First World War.I am very happy that the president is there," he continues.
"It is a place that touches the whole history of Portugal",. "This is a moment of memory very important for our two countries, because there are 1.3 million French of Portuguese origin".
As early as 1914, Portuguese soldiers were engaged in the colonies of Angola and Mozambique, coveted by Germany.
But it was not until March 1916 that Germany and Portugal, so far neutral, declared war, especially after the arrest of German ships in Portuguese ports.

[Capt. Harlock]

10 April 1918

Now the German Fourth Army threw four divisions against a single British Second Army division north of Armentières. The Second Army reserves had been sent south to where it was mistakenly believed they were needed more. As Churchill dryly reported later, "The assault was successful". It gained up to 3 km (1.9 mi) of ground. Bois Grenier fell, Armentières was evacuated, and German troops went across the Lys river, seizing the towns of Estaires, Steenwerck, and Ploegstreet. This forced a neighboring division, now flanked on two sides, to fall back roughly 4 km (2.5 mi) as well.

The next objective was the Messines ridge, which had been the scene of the most tremendous mine explosions in history in June 1917. Taking it would widen the breach in the Allied lines to the north, since the Germans still could not break the 55th Division in the south. Once that was done, the key prize was Hazebrouck, a vital railroad hub, and if that fell, the British would have to fall all the way back to the ports on the English Channel to get supplies.

The Allied gains of the Battle of Ypres, which had come at horrific cost, were being lost. There was great anxiety that the Germans would capture Calais and other Channel ports, and establish submarine bases there. It was supposed that they might even move the Paris Gun to Calais and use it to bombard London. (Exactly why this would have been worse than the Zeppelin and bomber raids already occurring is hard to understand.)


[font="Times New Roman"]Fear entered once more into the English mind, and fear produced its invariable results, until precedents for what was done in the twentieth century had to be sought in the worst days of the Star Chamber, Titus Oates, and Judge Jeffreys. Once more, when the panic reached its height during the spring of 1918, British subjects were deprived of liberty without due process of law and by arbitrary tribunals sitting behind closed doors; once more we reverted to the old maxim of Roman law and the everlasting plea of despots, salus populi suprema lex*, and learnt to practise ourselves the precepts we scorned in others.

[center]--A. F. Pollard, ”A Short History of the Great War”[/center][/font]

*"The safety of the people should be the supreme law.”

(On the subject of liberty, be it admitted that the United States was no better. Congress had passed the Espionage and Sedition Acts, which absolutely trampled on freedom of speech.)

Desperate for more men in the ranks, Parliament now passed the Third Military Service Act, which in hindsight looks worse than useless. The age of service was raised to fifty-one, which therefore covered a number of skilled and experienced workmen who were doing much greater service in the factories than they could do in the trenches. Worse still, Ireland was made subject to the draft, which infuriated the Irish people.

It was one thing for poverty or trouble with the law to push men into volunteering, and many an Irishman had joined in the burst of enthusiasm in 1914. But after the awful slaughter of Passchendaele, forced conscription to replace the losses was not to be tolerated. Irish independence had probably been inevitable after the Easter 1916 uprising, but the outrage the proposed draft caused made it a matter of only a few years. (And may well have contributed to Ireland's later refusal to declare war on Nazi Germany.) It was quickly realized that there would be rioting if conscription of Irishmen were actually carried out, so that part of the bill was never put into effect. Instead, troops actually had to be diverted there to make sure there was no further large-scale unrest in the discontented Emerald Isle.

[Capt. Harlock]

11 April 1918

The German advance now captured the towns of Armentières and Estaires. At this rate, Hazebrouck would fall in a few days. Sir Douglas Haig considered the situation desperate, and that evening, he wrote out his famous "backs to the wall" order:


[font="Times New Roman"][center]SPECIAL ORDER OF THE DAY

By FIELD-MARSHAL SIR DOUGLAS HAIG
K.T., G.C.B., G.C.V.O., K.C.I.E.
Commander-in-Chief, British Armies in France[/center]

To ALL RANKS OF THE BRITISH ARMY IN FRANCE AND FLANDERS

Three weeks ago to-day the enemy began his terrific attacks against us on a fifty-mile front. His objects are to separate us from the French, to take the Channel Ports and destroy the British Army.
In spite of throwing already 106 Divisions into the battle and enduring the most reckless sacrifice of human life, he has as yet made little progress towards his goals.
We owe this to the determined fighting and self-sacrifice of our troops. Words fail me to express the admiration which I feel for the splendid resistance offered by all ranks of our Army under the most trying circumstances.
Many amongst us now are tired. To those I would say that Victory will belong to the side which holds out the longest. The French Army is moving rapidly and in great force to our support.
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 must fight on to the end. The safety of our homes and the Freedom of mankind alike depend upon the conduct of each one of us at this critical moment.

(Signed) D. Haig F.M.
Commander-in-Chief
British Armies in France
General Headquarters
Tuesday, April 11th, 1918[/font]

[Capt. Harlock]

12 April 1918

The reception of the "backs to the wall" order was mixed. Some were cheered, but many others considered it essentially a waste of time, for they had no intention of giving up:

[font="Times New Roman"] Recalling those days, my feeling is that it had no purpose except to let everyone know that times were grim. Never, as I think back, can I remember hearing anyone even so much as suggesting that we might be defeated. At various times, during the retreat, we met men of many regiments and units, from all parts of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and from overseas. They were infantrymen, engineers, artillerymen and other branches of the army. I cannot recall anyone uttering words of despair. They complained of fatigue, of hunger, of inconvenience: they would utter “Roll on, Blighty”, which being translated meant “I shall be glad when all this is over and we can go home”. But despair or defeat seemed not to have been contemplated.

[center]--Gunner Maurice Burton, later natural history writer and zoologist, Dr Maurice Burton[/center][/font]

Especially, the part of Haig's order stating that positions must be held to the last man was mostly ignored by high and low. On this date, General Herbert Plumer (below), commander of the British Second Army, began a major withdrawal from the northern flank. Plumer and his men were generally left alone, for the Germans were putting their efforts into the center and south. In the center they made progress, but in the south, the British 55th Division, the West Lancashires, continued to defy all efforts to capture Givenchy. This meant that Bethune and the valuable coal deposits nearby also remained in Allied hands.


Sir Douglas Haig was by now making daily pleas for reinforcements to Ferdinand Foch, but the French Generalissimo was reluctant to send help. He still believed that the Germans would strike at the French positions, and eventually, he would be right. However, Foch decided he could spare a few divisions, though Haig's statement of "moving rapidly and in great force" was less than fully accurate.


Across the Channel, the Germans tried another Zeppelin raid on England. They avoided London and its defenses, but that meant going over less familiar terrain and their navigation was poor due to altitude and weather. Towns in the Midlands were hit, though the majority of the bombs fell on open countryside. Figures for the results inflicted are remarkably precise: 7 people killed, 20 injured, and £11,673 damage. This would be the last Zeppelin attack on English soil to inflict casualties.

[Capt. Harlock]

13 April 1918

The Germans’ main objective for the day was now a line of hills that included the towns of Bailleul and Neuve Eglise. But the tide was turning. The weather had cleared, allowing British artillery to hammer the advancing German formations. More, although French reinforcements had not yet reached the scene, the 1st Australian Division had arrived. This was one of the most seasoned units the British had, having served at Gallipoli, the Somme, and other actions. They had recuperated over the winter, and now had the numbers as well as the experience. The German assault was stopped outside of Bailleul after gaining only a few hundred meters.



In the Finnish civil war, however, the German forces were making good progress against the Reds. On this date was the climax of the battle for the capital, the city of Helsinki. German soldiers methodically seized the Market Square, the Smolna, and the Presidential Palace. They were soon joined by Finnish White soldiers who had been hiding in the city while it was under the control of the Reds. German artillery then wrecked the Workers' Hall, the remain Red strongpoint. The eastern parts of Helsinki surrendered in the early afternoon with a white flag from the tower of Kallio Church.

[Capt. Harlock]

14 April 1918

In the Lys River sector, the Germans continued to inch closer to the town of Bailleul, but at an ever-increasing cost to the British defense.


Discussions had been going on behind the scenes over just how much authority General Ferdinand Foch would have. On this date, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Allied Armies in France, and given the title of Généralissime ("Supreme General"). But his actual power was somewhat less: for instance, the Belgian forces were not under his authority. (After all, Foch did not outrank King Albert I (below), who was leading his forces in the field.)

[Capt. Harlock]

15 April 1918

An extraordinary thing about the genocide of the Armenians was that it was known to the world almost from the beginning. The New York Times ran a series of articles detailing atrocities, and a number of people, including former President Theodore Roosevelt and Pope Benedict XV, spoke out against the slaughter. The Turkish government had previously turned a deaf ear to the complaints and denunciations, because only the Russians had been in position to do anything about it, and Russia was now retreating from the area. Apparently, the Turks now decided to mollify the rest of the world.


Although the official head of the Ottoman Empire was Sultan Mehmed V, the real rulers were a trio of “Young Turks”. These were Talaat Pasha, Djemal Pasha, and most importantly, Minister of War Enver Pasha. (“Pasha” was the honorary title given to Ottoman officers of Major General rank or higher.) On this date it was announced that when Taalat Pasha returned from the Peace Conference at Brest-Litovsk, he would grant amnesty to the Armenians in Turkey.
But in practical terms, it was an empty gesture for the benefit of the Western Europeans and Americans. Most surviving Armenians were living outside of Turkey proper, and those few left in Turkey were being systematically eliminated.


In northern France, the Germans finally captured the town of Bailleul. However, it gave them no particular advantage, and their troops were now exhausted. In the meantime, the British Second Army completed its withdrawal from Passchendaele ridge to more defensible positions along the Yser Canal. To the north, the Belgian Army also retreated to maintain the line.

[Capt. Harlock]

17 April 1918

To the Allies' great relief, Operation Georgette was now failing. Givenchy and Bethune to the south still held out, and so did Hazebrouck in the center. This meant the Channel ports were entirely out of danger. The Germans occupied Passchendaele ridge and some new territory to the north, but it gave them no advantage. And at last, French reinforcements had arrived in the Lys sector. There was, however, one objective which might still be useful. A line of hills, of which Mont Kemmel or Kemmelberg was the highest, would allow whoever occupied it to command the countryside for a good distance beyond with artillery.


On this date, the Germans launched their first assault to take the hill. But high ground has always given advantages to the defenders, and the attack had not had the planning and preparation of the start of Operation Georgette. At the end of the day, the British still held Mont Kemmel.


Although the fighting of Operation Georgette was still going on, Ludendorff had not completely abandoned his hopes of seizing the city of Amiens and its rail links. To do that, he needed to take the village of Villers-Bretonneux. Although the attempt had failed in March, Ludendorff guessed that the British defenses had been thinned to get troops to the Lys sector. Perhaps they could be thinned a little more: as night fell, German artillery began a bombardment of the positions held by three Australian brigades with mustard gas shells.