ORIGINAL: IronDuke
ORIGINAL: FrankHunter
I believe the 1918 Spring offensives were not going to win the war for Germany regardless of US involvement. That's a personal opinion of course, pretty hard to quantify that morale bonus. But there was no plan to win the war. Ludendorff just somehow hoped he would break through somewhere and the German army would somehow force the Allies to surrender. It was after the offensives had been stopped and the US army was formed and began to join in Foch's "Everyone into the battle" that I think US forces made a real contribution.
A good point. For all its advances, you don't see too much (until towards the end) in the way of a grand strategic plan. It was the most surprising thing about the entire offensive. I'm more familiar with WWII, but you look at the offensive plans there and there are objectives, aims, some idea of an "exit" strategy for the attack if you like. This offensive is designed to do precisely this....etc.
I'm not completely sure what the strategic objectives (precise objectives as opposed to the generic "win the war") actually were.
Regards,
IronDuke
Ludendorff could have looked at prior German successes in the Franco-Prussian and Six Weeks wars to see what had won in the past. The former was the age-old "I capture your capital I win", the latter was the "your army is no match for mine". The Spring Offensive didn't seem designed to concentrate entirely on one or the other, although both options were certainly available. Paris was close and new infiltrating tactics were available. How much Ludendorff personally relied on the new tactics to achieve success is something that I've never really seen written about. Probably, he looked at the general offensive pressure that eventually made Russia collapse (ignoring all the internal factors) and thought that that would win it. Whether or not it was realistic to believe that Germany could win by that stage is another issue.
Your right about the lack of an objective. It does seem odd that products of a general staff system universally acknowledged as the finest of the time, overlooked something as basic as stating what the objectives of an offensive were. Maybe they are actually written into some operational orders in some archive somewhere. It would be interesting to read. Odder still that someone as maligned as Falkenhayn may have a clearer strategic vision, no matter how flawed in execution, than some as praised as Ludendorff.
