![]() The Allies had taken 17,000 prisoners and 339 guns. By the end of the day, a gap 15 mi (24 km) wide had been created in the German line south of the Somme. : 20, 95 The attack, led by the British Fourth Army, broke through the German lines, and tanks attacked German rear positions, sowing panic and confusion. : 497 Through careful preparation, the Allies achieved surprise. The Battle of Amiens (with the French attack on the southern flank called the Battle of Montdidier) opened on 8 August, with an attack by more than 10 Allied divisions-Australian, Canadian, British and French forces-with more than 500 tanks. The Picardy terrain provided a good surface for tanks, unlike in Flanders, and the defences of the German 2nd Army under General Georg von der Marwitz were relatively weak, having been subjected to continual raiding by the Australians in a process termed peaceful penetration.īattles Advance in Picardy Battle of Amiens ![]() : 472 The Somme was chosen because it remained the boundary between the BEF and the French armies, along the Amiens–Roye road, allowing the two armies to cooperate. Foch agreed to a proposal by Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, commander-in-chief of the BEF, to strike on the River Somme, east of Amiens and south-west of the site of the 1916 Battle of the Somme, to force the Germans away from the vital Amiens– Paris railway. ![]() The military planners considered a number of proposals. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) had been reinforced by large numbers of troops returned from the Sinai and Palestine campaign and from the Italian front, and by replacements previously held back in Britain by Prime Minister David Lloyd George. : 472 Pershing was keen to use his army as an independent force. Pershing had arrived in France in large numbers and had invigorated the Allied armies with its extensive resources. The American Expeditionary Force (AEF) under United States General John J. For this victory, Foch was granted the title Marshal of France.Īfter the Germans had lost their forward momentum, Foch considered the time had arrived for the Allies to return to the offensive. The Germans, recognizing their untenable position, withdrew from the Marne to the north. When the German Operation Marne-Rheims ended in July, the Allied supreme commander, Ferdinand Foch, ordered a counter-offensive, which became known as the Second Battle of the Marne. The Germans had advanced to the River Marne, but failed to achieve their aim of a victory that would decide the war. The German spring offensive of the German Army on the Western Front had begun on 21 March 1918 with Operation Michael and had petered out by July. The term "Hundred Days Offensive" does not refer to a battle or strategy, but rather the rapid series of Allied victories. The offensive, together with a revolution breaking out in Germany, led to the Armistice of 11 November 1918 which ended the war with an Allied victory. The Germans retreated to the Hindenburg Line, but the Allies broke through the line with a series of victories, starting with the Battle of St Quentin Canal on 29 September. Beginning with the Battle of Amiens (8–12 August) on the Western Front, the Allies pushed the Imperial German Army back, undoing its gains from the German spring offensive. The Hundred Days Offensive (8 August to 11 November 1918) was a series of massive Allied offensives that ended the First World War.
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