the hundred days offensive

The Hundred Days Offensive This battle happenend in 18 July – 11 November 1918, and was the final Allied offensive of the First World War on the Western Front . This battle essentialy to pushed Germans out of French teritory .On the spring and summer of 1918 the Great German offensive had pushed the allies back up to forty miles and created a lot of salients in allied line . German intended to separate British and French but failed and it had drained the strength of Germany army . There are 3 stages of this battle .
Stage 1 is Salients Clearing
On 15-18th of July German attacked the allied in the Marne River but only made a very little progress because of their exhaustion .
Michael Foch as the commander in chief of the allied seen this opportunity and had planned the counterattack offensive by attacking the army from the west called Aisne-Marne offensive on 18 July – 5 August . This would be the turning point of Western Front War by the allies and led into the armstice .
The Salients clearing divided into 3 The Battle of amiens , (8 August ) . A surprise tank attack by the British Fourth Army . This action broke the German lines and six divisions were destroyed also it forced German back 9 miles in one day . This is called the “Black Day of the German Army )
Battle of Bapaume seen Germans were back to the line of the Somme, this battle made the army continue moving backward to the Hindenburg Line or their starting point . The most highlights of this battle is to see all of German units Collapse for the first time in the war.
St. Mihiel (12-13 September ) in South Verdun . This is the first major battle for the American army since they arrived inn France . The Germans army were evacuating the salients and they captured them . After the fights, Americans got 13,000 of German prisoners and cut of the salients
Stage 2 – Triple offensive
Marshal Foch great success didn’t stop there , because it is encouraging him to do more counterattacks to the German. In Hindenburg ine , the Germans start on defending themselves by constructed the defensive zones until 25 miles behind the Somme’s front line . Foch decided to launch the attacks on 3 different area of the Germans Line
North , King Albert of Belgium supported by British , French and Belgian troops through Flanders
Centre , three British and one French army in an attack on the heart of the Hindenburg Line between Cambrai and and St. quentin .
South , The French and Americans would attack on the front between Reims and Verdun
This final phase of the fighting was the most second costly war . The British suffered 350,000(August – the end of war ) 160,000 casualties at Cambria – St quentin. But it was a total success
Stage 3- The Germans Collapse
28 September , Ludendorf the German military chief told Hindenburg to seek an armistice as he realised there is no possibility to win the war . The spring and summer offensive was intended to be fully successful before the American armies and troops cameand defeated them by numbers .
29 September , Kaiser being told by this condition and on the same day , Bulgarians began armistice negotiations
3 October , Kaiser appointed Prince Max of Baden as Chanchellor of Germany to transform the country into democracy .
27 October,Ludendorff was ordered to resign .
29 October,Kaiser left Berlin and moved to the military headquarters and began to plan to use the army to restore the order in Germany while the British are preparing for the attack on the Sambre
30 October , Turkey surrendered . Germany left alone on the ally because Austro-Hungarian Empire was in the prosses of dissolving .
10 November , Kaiser Wilhelm II went into exile in Holland
11 November at 11 am the fighting stopped on the Western Front

The Hundred Days offensive was a spectacular succes for the allies . The Allies a total 1,069,636 casualties . The German lost 785,733 casualties and the great loss was the collapse of the German Empire .
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