1918 German Assault on the Western Front

On March 21, 1918 the German army launched its massive offensive against the British and French.  With 500,000 troops from the Russian front, freed by the treaty with the new Bolshevik government, Germany intended to land a knockout punch against France, capture Paris, and win World War I.

German artillery fired a million shells against the front in just the first 3 hours.  German troops advanced rapidly and the German commander was able to get his enormous field guns close enough to begin shelling Paris itself.

But French resistance stiffened, and held once again at the Marne River.  German troops outran their supply lines and were so hungry that they stopped advancing to ransack the huge food supplies in the town of Albert.  The attack planned by the Germans to take the important city of Amiens was stalled.  And, much to the German commander Ludendorf's dismay, 250,000 American troops had arrived to replenish the French and British forces exhausted by nearly 4 years of bloodletting.

At Belleau Wood, the Americans withstood a furious German assault and saved a key point in the allied line from being overrun.  And at the Marne, the American 3rd Infantry division stood alongside the French and stopped the main German offensive in its tracks.  Today, if you visit Fort Stewart you will see the nickname given by French commanders to the unit, "Rock of the Marne".

After the failure of the German offensive, the allies launched their own offensive and drove Germans back consistently until on the 11th day of the 11th month, 1918, the guns fell silent.