WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.419 Welcome. I am so thrilled you're joining us today. 00:00:03.500 --> 00:00:05.620 We are taking you right to the front lines of, 00:00:05.879 --> 00:00:08.580 well, one of the most staggering historical events 00:00:08.580 --> 00:00:11.220 of the 20th century. For this deep dive, we're 00:00:11.220 --> 00:00:13.859 unpacking a phenomenally detailed set of notes 00:00:13.859 --> 00:00:16.460 and historical records from a massive Wikipedia 00:00:16.460 --> 00:00:19.519 article all about Operation Michael. It really 00:00:19.519 --> 00:00:22.539 is a defining moment. We're looking at a masterclass 00:00:22.539 --> 00:00:25.899 in the stark difference between, you know, a 00:00:25.899 --> 00:00:28.460 tactical success on the battlefield and a strategic 00:00:28.460 --> 00:00:31.500 victory that actually wins a war. Right. So to 00:00:31.500 --> 00:00:33.100 put you right in the middle of it, it is the 00:00:33.100 --> 00:00:36.079 spring of 1918. The Eastern Front has collapsed. 00:00:36.520 --> 00:00:39.420 Russia is officially out of the war via the Treaty 00:00:39.420 --> 00:00:41.679 of Brest -Litovsk. And for the first time in 00:00:41.679 --> 00:00:44.000 years, Germany has a massive numbers advantage 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:46.000 in the West. Yeah, but they also have a ticking 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:48.439 clock. Exactly. The Americans are coming. Our 00:00:48.439 --> 00:00:50.380 mission today is to explore the revolutionary 00:00:50.380 --> 00:00:53.520 tactics the Germans unleashed, the utterly terrifying 00:00:53.520 --> 00:00:56.119 human experience on the ground, and how a military 00:00:56.119 --> 00:00:58.380 operation that successfully captured a massive 00:00:58.380 --> 00:01:01.700 amount of territory ended up being, well, a catastrophic 00:01:01.700 --> 00:01:04.760 failure. The stakes here are almost impossible 00:01:04.760 --> 00:01:08.299 to overstate. We have to look at Operation Michael 00:01:08.299 --> 00:01:11.340 not just as a sequence of battles, but as a desperate 00:01:11.340 --> 00:01:14.299 all -or -nothing gamble. The German high command 00:01:14.299 --> 00:01:17.140 knew they were rolling the dice on the survival 00:01:17.140 --> 00:01:19.819 of their entire empire. Let's untack this. Let's 00:01:19.819 --> 00:01:23.079 look at the geopolitical reality of early 1918. 00:01:23.400 --> 00:01:25.859 The German people on the home front are essentially 00:01:25.859 --> 00:01:29.200 starving due to the protracted war and the Allied 00:01:29.200 --> 00:01:32.459 naval blockade. The pressure is immense. Immense. 00:01:32.459 --> 00:01:35.030 But because Russia has surrendered. The German 00:01:35.030 --> 00:01:37.489 quartermaster general, Erich Ludendorff, suddenly 00:01:37.489 --> 00:01:40.709 has a massive influx of manpower. How significant 00:01:40.709 --> 00:01:42.810 was this shift in numbers? Oh, it was a game 00:01:42.810 --> 00:01:45.170 changer on paper. Ludendorff was able to transfer 00:01:45.170 --> 00:01:47.769 nearly 50 divisions from the Eastern Front over 00:01:47.769 --> 00:01:51.030 to the West. Wow. Yeah. Suddenly, Germany boats 00:01:51.030 --> 00:01:54.150 192 divisions on the Western Front. And out of 00:01:54.150 --> 00:01:56.969 those, 110 are positioned right on the front 00:01:56.969 --> 00:01:59.109 line. For the first time in a long time, they 00:01:59.109 --> 00:02:01.030 significantly outnumbered the Allies in that 00:02:01.030 --> 00:02:03.400 theater. But having the numbers on paper is very 00:02:03.400 --> 00:02:05.260 different from deploying them effectively, right? 00:02:05.359 --> 00:02:06.939 Especially with that ticking clock we mentioned. 00:02:07.180 --> 00:02:09.460 If we connect this to the bigger picture, you 00:02:09.460 --> 00:02:11.460 have to realize just how loud that clock was 00:02:11.460 --> 00:02:15.780 ticking in Ludendorff's ear. He knew that 318 00:02:15.780 --> 00:02:18.860 ,000 fresh American soldiers were expected to 00:02:18.860 --> 00:02:21.919 land in France by May of 1918. And another million 00:02:21.919 --> 00:02:24.400 by August, right? Exactly. A million by August. 00:02:24.819 --> 00:02:27.319 The German high command... knew their window 00:02:27.319 --> 00:02:29.939 to win the war was rapidly closing. Once the 00:02:29.939 --> 00:02:31.919 American Expeditionary Force was fully built 00:02:31.919 --> 00:02:34.560 up and integrated into the lines, Germany simply 00:02:34.560 --> 00:02:37.080 couldn't compete with that level of fresh manpower 00:02:37.080 --> 00:02:39.780 and industrial output. So Ludengroff comes up 00:02:39.780 --> 00:02:42.439 with this wildly ambitious do or die strategy. 00:02:42.979 --> 00:02:45.419 I know the goal was to target the British Expeditionary 00:02:45.419 --> 00:02:48.039 Force, the BEF. But what was the actual mechanical 00:02:48.039 --> 00:02:50.479 plan here? The grand strategy was to hit the 00:02:50.479 --> 00:02:52.300 British incredibly hard at a specific junction 00:02:52.300 --> 00:02:54.219 point, separate them from the French army to 00:02:54.219 --> 00:02:57.560 the south, and then aggressively. Right. The 00:02:57.560 --> 00:03:00.180 ultimate goal was to push the British all the 00:03:00.180 --> 00:03:02.719 way into the sea by cutting off the channel ports. 00:03:03.219 --> 00:03:06.000 Those ports were absolutely vital for British 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:08.699 supplies and reinforcements. Draft them in Flanders, 00:03:08.759 --> 00:03:11.860 force a surrender, and then turn the entire German 00:03:11.860 --> 00:03:14.419 military apparatus on the French before the Americans 00:03:14.419 --> 00:03:17.180 arrive in force. And the British lines were sitting 00:03:17.180 --> 00:03:20.719 ducks for this, particularly General Hubert Goff's 00:03:20.719 --> 00:03:23.180 Fifth Army. Sitting ducks is putting it mildly. 00:03:23.379 --> 00:03:26.979 They were incredibly vulnerable, precisely where 00:03:26.979 --> 00:03:29.460 the Germans planned to strike. Gau's Fifth Army 00:03:29.460 --> 00:03:33.080 had recently taken over a massive 42 -mile stretch 00:03:33.080 --> 00:03:35.620 of the front line from the French. 42 miles is 00:03:35.620 --> 00:03:38.159 huge. It is, and calling it a line is being generous. 00:03:38.379 --> 00:03:41.439 The defenses were dangerously incomplete. They 00:03:41.439 --> 00:03:43.460 lacked the troops to hold it properly, so they 00:03:43.460 --> 00:03:46.520 were relying on isolated outposts, massive gaps, 00:03:46.759 --> 00:03:49.349 and completely unfinished rear zones. Here's 00:03:49.349 --> 00:03:51.590 where it gets really interesting. Because the 00:03:51.590 --> 00:03:53.689 Germans didn't just plan to overwhelm these weak 00:03:53.689 --> 00:03:56.550 points with sheer numbers. They completely changed 00:03:56.550 --> 00:03:58.849 the fundamental way warfare was fought, creating 00:03:58.849 --> 00:04:01.409 these elite infantry units called Stus Truppen, 00:04:01.490 --> 00:04:04.090 or stormtroopers. How did these units operate 00:04:04.090 --> 00:04:06.349 differently from what we typically picture when 00:04:06.349 --> 00:04:08.710 we think of World War I? That is the crucial 00:04:08.710 --> 00:04:11.909 tactical shift right there. For years, the standard 00:04:11.909 --> 00:04:14.389 doctrine involved throwing massive, slow -moving 00:04:14.389 --> 00:04:17.490 waves of men at heavily defended trenches. It 00:04:17.490 --> 00:04:19.689 was just a meat grinder. Right, walking slowly 00:04:19.689 --> 00:04:22.949 across no man's land. Exactly. But these new 00:04:22.949 --> 00:04:25.689 stormtrooper units were trained in infiltration 00:04:25.689 --> 00:04:28.430 tactics. Instead of attacking the strongest points 00:04:28.430 --> 00:04:31.449 head -on, they moved in small, highly trained, 00:04:31.649 --> 00:04:34.620 autonomous groups. Their orders were to completely 00:04:34.620 --> 00:04:37.639 bypass the heavy defenses, slip through the gaps 00:04:37.639 --> 00:04:40.579 in the line, and race forward as fast as possible 00:04:40.579 --> 00:04:43.100 to disrupt communications, attack headquarters, 00:04:43.420 --> 00:04:46.199 and destroy artillery in the rear. It sounds 00:04:46.199 --> 00:04:48.439 like modern special forces tactics being born 00:04:48.439 --> 00:04:50.379 right there in the mud. And to support them, 00:04:50.379 --> 00:04:52.600 they completely overhauled their artillery strategy, 00:04:52.779 --> 00:04:55.560 too. Instead of the classic bombardment that 00:04:55.560 --> 00:04:57.420 would last for a week and basically just warn 00:04:57.420 --> 00:04:59.879 the enemy an attack was coming, they used something 00:04:59.879 --> 00:05:02.420 called a hurricane bombardment. Think of it as 00:05:02.420 --> 00:05:05.779 maximum shock and awe. It was a brief, incredibly 00:05:05.779 --> 00:05:08.660 complex, highly destructive barrage that lasted 00:05:08.660 --> 00:05:11.740 only a few hours. It was meticulously coordinated 00:05:11.740 --> 00:05:14.560 to sever telephone wires, knock out heavy guns, 00:05:14.720 --> 00:05:16.819 and maintain the absolute element of surprise 00:05:16.819 --> 00:05:19.439 right up until the very second the infantry charged 00:05:19.439 --> 00:05:22.060 out of the trenches. Which perfectly exposed 00:05:22.060 --> 00:05:24.399 the fatal flaw in the British defense strategy 00:05:24.399 --> 00:05:27.879 for this specific sector. The British were using 00:05:27.879 --> 00:05:30.240 a defense in -depth strategy in their forward 00:05:30.240 --> 00:05:32.259 zone. They were, and it was specifically designed 00:05:32.259 --> 00:05:35.279 to rely on small, isolated readouts. Essentially 00:05:35.279 --> 00:05:37.600 fortified mini -bunkers that provided overlapping 00:05:37.600 --> 00:05:40.459 machine gun crossfire. If an enemy attacked, 00:05:40.740 --> 00:05:42.660 they would be caught in a deadly web of intersecting 00:05:42.660 --> 00:05:44.560 bullets. Right. But as you'll see, that entire 00:05:44.560 --> 00:05:47.300 strategy relied on one critical factor, the ability 00:05:47.300 --> 00:05:49.519 to actually see the enemy coming. So let's put 00:05:49.519 --> 00:05:51.939 you on the ground on the morning of March 21st, 00:05:51.939 --> 00:05:55.220 1918. It's 440 a .m. The largest artillery barrage 00:05:55.220 --> 00:05:58.279 of the entire war begins. What did that actually 00:05:58.279 --> 00:06:00.560 look and sound like for a soldier waking up to 00:06:00.560 --> 00:06:04.079 this? The sheer scale of it is almost unimaginable 00:06:04.079 --> 00:06:06.639 to modern minds. In just five hours, the Germans 00:06:06.639 --> 00:06:09.769 fired over 3 .5 million shells. Three and a half 00:06:09.769 --> 00:06:13.980 million. In five hours. It's staggering. And 00:06:13.980 --> 00:06:16.279 it wasn't just high explosives. It was a terrifying, 00:06:16.480 --> 00:06:19.139 suffocating mix of mustard gas, chlorine gas, 00:06:19.420 --> 00:06:22.379 tear gas, and smoke canisters, blanketing an 00:06:22.379 --> 00:06:24.939 area of 400 square kilometers. It's horrific. 00:06:25.259 --> 00:06:27.420 Winston Churchill was actually inspecting a division 00:06:27.420 --> 00:06:29.699 near the front that morning, and his description 00:06:29.699 --> 00:06:32.579 is chilling. He said it was exactly as a pianist 00:06:32.579 --> 00:06:34.740 runs his hands across the keyboard from treble 00:06:34.740 --> 00:06:37.759 to bass. He said there rose in less than one 00:06:37.759 --> 00:06:40.120 minute the most tremendous cannonade he would 00:06:40.120 --> 00:06:42.930 ever hear. He noted that the enormous explosions 00:06:42.930 --> 00:06:45.029 upon the trenches seemed almost to touch each 00:06:45.029 --> 00:06:47.509 other, with hardly an interval in space or time. 00:06:47.670 --> 00:06:50.589 Just an apocalyptic wall of fire and poison. 00:06:50.970 --> 00:06:53.930 And then around 9 .40 a .m. the bombardment lifts 00:06:53.930 --> 00:06:57.550 and the German infantry assault begins. But nature 00:06:57.550 --> 00:06:59.970 decides to intervene with a freakishly thick 00:06:59.970 --> 00:07:02.769 morning mist. A literal fog of war. Yeah. It 00:07:02.769 --> 00:07:04.829 was so dense that visibility dropped to barely 00:07:04.829 --> 00:07:07.240 10 yards. So those British readouts we talked 00:07:07.240 --> 00:07:09.060 about in the forward zone, the mini bunkers relying 00:07:09.060 --> 00:07:11.120 on overlapping crossfire to defend the line, 00:07:11.199 --> 00:07:14.699 they were completely blind. Entirely. The German 00:07:14.699 --> 00:07:17.139 stormtroopers, utilizing their new infiltration 00:07:17.139 --> 00:07:19.259 tactics, just slipped right past them in the 00:07:19.259 --> 00:07:22.050 thick fog. completely unseen. The chaos must 00:07:22.050 --> 00:07:24.829 have been absolute. Telephone wires are shredded 00:07:24.829 --> 00:07:27.569 by the hurricane bombardment. Human runners carrying 00:07:27.569 --> 00:07:29.870 messages are getting completely lost in the dense 00:07:29.870 --> 00:07:32.430 fog and the gas clouds. British headquarters 00:07:32.430 --> 00:07:35.269 are totally cut off, meaning generals have zero 00:07:35.269 --> 00:07:38.209 ability to influence the battle. And the troops 00:07:38.209 --> 00:07:40.930 garrisoned in those forward zone redoubts suddenly 00:07:40.930 --> 00:07:43.709 found themselves completely surrounded by Germans 00:07:43.709 --> 00:07:46.050 who had materialized out of the mist behind them. 00:07:46.519 --> 00:07:48.839 Some units, once they ran out of ammunition, 00:07:49.139 --> 00:07:51.500 had no choice but to surrender. Others fought 00:07:51.500 --> 00:07:54.120 to the very last man. Which leads to an agonizing 00:07:54.120 --> 00:07:57.360 period from March 22 to March 25. The British 00:07:57.360 --> 00:07:59.600 are forced into a desperate fighting retreat. 00:07:59.980 --> 00:08:03.240 This raises an important question about how fractured 00:08:03.240 --> 00:08:06.449 leadership operates under extreme duress. In 00:08:06.449 --> 00:08:08.990 the midst of this overwhelming chaos, communication 00:08:08.990 --> 00:08:11.990 broke down from the very top. There was a disastrous 00:08:11.990 --> 00:08:13.949 misunderstanding between the 5th Army Commander, 00:08:14.170 --> 00:08:16.209 General Goh, and his Corps Commander, General 00:08:16.209 --> 00:08:19.029 Ivor Maxis. What? Gulf had ordered a fighting 00:08:19.029 --> 00:08:21.910 retreat, but only if necessary to maintain the 00:08:21.910 --> 00:08:24.949 line. Maxis, dealing with fragmented reports 00:08:24.949 --> 00:08:27.610 and immense pressure, misinterpreted this to 00:08:27.610 --> 00:08:29.689 mean his entire Corps should fall back to the 00:08:29.689 --> 00:08:32.539 Somme River immediately. A single misunderstood 00:08:32.539 --> 00:08:36.299 order cascading into a catastrophe. Because of 00:08:36.299 --> 00:08:38.179 that, the British Eighth Corps retreated way 00:08:38.179 --> 00:08:40.539 further than intended. They abandoned highly 00:08:40.539 --> 00:08:43.700 defensible terrain and moved over 14 kilometers 00:08:43.700 --> 00:08:46.500 back, essentially blowing a massive hole in their 00:08:46.500 --> 00:08:49.159 own lines. But even amid that strategic collapse, 00:08:49.519 --> 00:08:52.779 the micro -level heroism is staggering. You have 00:08:52.779 --> 00:08:54.679 individuals like Lieutenant Colonel Wilfrith 00:08:54.679 --> 00:08:56.759 L. Stove at a readout called Manchester Hill. 00:08:56.919 --> 00:08:59.200 He commanded his garrison to fight off repeated 00:08:59.200 --> 00:09:01.759 assaults from all sides. He personally carried 00:09:01.759 --> 00:09:04.279 ammunition through heavy fire and held out until 00:09:04.279 --> 00:09:05.960 he was killed late in the afternoon of March 00:09:05.960 --> 00:09:09.340 22. They fought and died simply to buy a few 00:09:09.340 --> 00:09:11.419 precious hours for the rest of the army to fall 00:09:11.419 --> 00:09:13.700 back. While the British are frantically retreating, 00:09:13.700 --> 00:09:15.480 the advancing German troops are running into 00:09:15.480 --> 00:09:17.500 something that profoundly alters the momentum 00:09:17.500 --> 00:09:19.740 of the battle. And it wasn't a fortified trench. 00:09:19.980 --> 00:09:22.360 It was the British supply dumps. This is one 00:09:22.360 --> 00:09:24.960 of those deeply human details you only find when 00:09:24.960 --> 00:09:27.620 you dig into the sources. You have to remember 00:09:27.620 --> 00:09:30.460 the context we started with. The German home 00:09:30.460 --> 00:09:33.440 front was starving. The German soldiers were 00:09:33.440 --> 00:09:35.980 constantly fed propaganda stating that their 00:09:35.980 --> 00:09:38.860 U -boat blockades were starving the Allies into 00:09:38.860 --> 00:09:41.679 submission, just like the British naval blockade 00:09:41.679 --> 00:09:43.639 was starving Germany. Right. So these hungry, 00:09:43.779 --> 00:09:46.539 exhausted German stormtroopers overrun the British 00:09:46.539 --> 00:09:49.059 camps, expecting to find an enemy as deprived 00:09:49.059 --> 00:09:52.059 as they are. Instead, they find an absolute abundance 00:09:52.059 --> 00:09:55.179 of high -quality food. The sources mention them 00:09:55.179 --> 00:09:57.519 finding luxuries like chocolate, tinned meats, 00:09:57.659 --> 00:10:00.039 and even champagne. Imagine the psychological 00:10:00.039 --> 00:10:03.409 blow. You are pushed to the absolute brink of 00:10:03.409 --> 00:10:06.129 human endurance, watching your friends die from 00:10:06.129 --> 00:10:08.789 miles of mud, believing the enemy is on the verge 00:10:08.789 --> 00:10:11.110 of collapse. Then you capture their trenches 00:10:11.110 --> 00:10:13.990 and realize you've been lied to. The Allies aren't 00:10:13.990 --> 00:10:16.110 starving. They are incredibly well supplied. 00:10:16.330 --> 00:10:18.149 It must have been devastating. It was. Instead 00:10:18.149 --> 00:10:20.289 of being thrilled by the plunder, many German 00:10:20.289 --> 00:10:23.230 units were profoundly demoralized. Some units 00:10:23.230 --> 00:10:25.690 even stopped their advance entirely just to gorge 00:10:25.690 --> 00:10:27.809 themselves on the captured rations, completely 00:10:27.809 --> 00:10:30.769 losing their tactical momentum. that is fascinating 00:10:30.769 --> 00:10:33.370 to really understand what that exhaustion looked 00:10:33.370 --> 00:10:37.070 like the war diaries from the individual british 00:10:37.070 --> 00:10:39.850 units are incredibly revealing i was looking 00:10:39.850 --> 00:10:41.870 at the accounts of the 11th hertfordshire regiment 00:10:41.870 --> 00:10:45.070 and the 54th brigade those diaries ground you 00:10:45.070 --> 00:10:47.149 entirely in the perspective of the individual 00:10:47.149 --> 00:10:50.940 soldier It strips away the grand strategy and 00:10:50.940 --> 00:10:53.139 leaves you with the brutal reality of survival. 00:10:53.480 --> 00:10:55.799 Exactly. Reading those accounts, it's just a 00:10:55.799 --> 00:10:57.899 relentless nightmare sequence. Falling back, 00:10:58.159 --> 00:11:00.299 digging hasty trenches in the dark, realizing 00:11:00.299 --> 00:11:02.759 you're being outflanked, losing commanding officers 00:11:02.759 --> 00:11:05.879 to sniper fire, and retreating again. They were 00:11:05.879 --> 00:11:07.940 marching continuously through the night, getting 00:11:07.940 --> 00:11:10.039 maybe two or three hours of sleep over a span 00:11:10.039 --> 00:11:13.039 of five days. And yet, amidst that total physical 00:11:13.039 --> 00:11:15.500 and mental depletion, you have this incredible 00:11:15.500 --> 00:11:19.740 anomaly on March 25. The 54th Brigade is essentially 00:11:19.740 --> 00:11:22.720 a shadow of its former self. They've been fighting 00:11:22.720 --> 00:11:25.580 and marching for four punishing days. Suddenly 00:11:26.059 --> 00:11:28.639 A writer arrives with surprise orders countermanding 00:11:28.639 --> 00:11:30.799 their retreat. Oh, wow. Yeah, they are told to 00:11:30.799 --> 00:11:33.139 turn around, form up, and launch a counterattack 00:11:33.139 --> 00:11:35.620 against a village called Babuwef. And against 00:11:35.620 --> 00:11:38.620 all physical logic, these exhausted men do it. 00:11:38.659 --> 00:11:40.820 They literally turn around, surprise the advancing 00:11:40.820 --> 00:11:43.240 Germans, who fully believe they were only chasing 00:11:43.240 --> 00:11:46.919 ragged fleeing units, and engage in brutal hand 00:11:46.919 --> 00:11:49.740 -to -hand combat for 20 minutes among the cornfields. 00:11:49.740 --> 00:11:52.240 The British completely retake the village. They 00:11:52.240 --> 00:11:55.919 capture 230 German prisoners and see— these 10 00:11:55.919 --> 00:11:58.460 heavy machine guns in that single action. The 00:11:58.460 --> 00:12:00.659 sources even note they were finally able to bring 00:12:00.659 --> 00:12:02.960 up their cooking limbers after securing the village 00:12:02.960 --> 00:12:05.720 to have their first hot meal in days. Which were 00:12:05.720 --> 00:12:08.559 essentially mobile, horse -drawn field kitchens. 00:12:08.820 --> 00:12:11.679 It's a surreal image. enjoying a hot meal in 00:12:11.679 --> 00:12:13.659 a freshly recaptured village surrounded by the 00:12:13.659 --> 00:12:16.460 chaos of a collapsing front. It stands as an 00:12:16.460 --> 00:12:18.860 unbelievable testament to the resilience of those 00:12:18.860 --> 00:12:21.519 specific soldiers. It really does. And it seems 00:12:21.519 --> 00:12:24.000 like these fierce local stands, like the 54th 00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:26.779 Brigade at Bab Wuf, finally started to physically 00:12:26.779 --> 00:12:30.179 stall the German momentum. Did this buy the Allies 00:12:30.179 --> 00:12:32.419 the breathing room they needed to fix their fractured 00:12:32.419 --> 00:12:34.799 command structure? It bought them just enough 00:12:34.799 --> 00:12:38.320 time to avert total disaster, yes. The sheer 00:12:38.320 --> 00:12:40.580 scale of the German advance was threatening to 00:12:40.580 --> 00:12:42.899 permanently split the British and French armies, 00:12:43.039 --> 00:12:45.940 which would have ended the war. This existential 00:12:45.940 --> 00:12:49.220 crisis forced the Allied leadership to do something 00:12:49.220 --> 00:12:52.100 they had been fiercely resisting for years due 00:12:52.100 --> 00:12:54.799 to national pride and differing strategic goals. 00:12:55.019 --> 00:12:58.200 They had to unify their command structure. Because 00:12:58.200 --> 00:13:00.629 up until this point... The British reported to 00:13:00.629 --> 00:13:02.750 British command, and the French reported to French 00:13:02.750 --> 00:13:04.870 command, and they were often working at cross 00:13:04.870 --> 00:13:07.830 purposes. Precisely. General Haig was worried 00:13:07.830 --> 00:13:10.129 about protecting the Channel ports, while General 00:13:10.129 --> 00:13:12.830 Pétain was worried about protecting Paris. But 00:13:12.830 --> 00:13:15.769 at the Doulins Conference on March 26, the Allied 00:13:15.769 --> 00:13:18.129 leaders finally met and appointed French General 00:13:18.129 --> 00:13:20.610 Ferdinand Focke as the Supreme Allied Commander 00:13:20.610 --> 00:13:23.820 of the Generalissimo. Finally, The British and 00:13:23.820 --> 00:13:26.200 French forces were coordinating under one central, 00:13:26.340 --> 00:13:29.179 cohesive strategy. Meanwhile, the massive German 00:13:29.179 --> 00:13:31.120 offensive is starting to crack under its own 00:13:31.120 --> 00:13:33.399 weight. The logistics are completely failing. 00:13:33.580 --> 00:13:35.840 But it wasn't just a matter of supply lines being 00:13:35.840 --> 00:13:37.440 too long, right? It was what they were trying 00:13:37.440 --> 00:13:39.919 to cross. You have to picture the physical reality 00:13:39.919 --> 00:13:43.179 of the terrain. The Germans were advancing over 00:13:43.179 --> 00:13:46.740 the old 1916 -some battlefield. This wasn't open 00:13:46.740 --> 00:13:49.440 countryside. It was a lunar landscape. Oh, right. 00:13:49.620 --> 00:13:52.120 The craters. It was a wasteland of overlapping 00:13:52.120 --> 00:13:55.799 artillery craters, poisoned wells, rotting corpses 00:13:55.799 --> 00:13:59.279 from two years prior, and shattered roads. Trying 00:13:59.279 --> 00:14:01.559 to drag heavy artillery pieces and horse -drawn 00:14:01.559 --> 00:14:04.100 supply wagons through that nightmare while under 00:14:04.100 --> 00:14:06.860 aerial harassment was nearly impossible. The 00:14:06.860 --> 00:14:09.179 infantry simply outran their own ability to be 00:14:09.179 --> 00:14:11.500 fed or rearmed. And Ludendorff himself. makes 00:14:11.500 --> 00:14:14.179 a massive unforced error here. Instead of keeping 00:14:14.179 --> 00:14:17.340 his eyes on the prize, the channel ports He gets 00:14:17.340 --> 00:14:20.019 distracted. It's a classic case of military hubris. 00:14:20.399 --> 00:14:23.019 Lugendorf became intoxicated by his early tactical 00:14:23.019 --> 00:14:25.679 successes. Instead of concentrating all his elite 00:14:25.679 --> 00:14:28.259 forces on one decisive breakthrough toward the 00:14:28.259 --> 00:14:31.320 sea, he started chasing local victories. He spread 00:14:31.320 --> 00:14:33.559 his forces out. He launched a secondary offensive 00:14:33.559 --> 00:14:35.820 called Operation Myers against the heavily defended 00:14:35.820 --> 00:14:38.440 British Third Army up at Arras, abandoning his 00:14:38.440 --> 00:14:40.360 strategic discipline. And how did that go? It 00:14:40.360 --> 00:14:42.039 was a complete failure. The Germans hit a brick 00:14:42.039 --> 00:14:44.120 wall. And to make matters worse for the Germans, 00:14:44.299 --> 00:14:46.340 the Allies started deploying new technology. 00:14:46.350 --> 00:14:49.169 technologies to hit back. Near a place called 00:14:49.169 --> 00:14:51.610 Collin Camps, the British debuted their brand 00:14:51.610 --> 00:14:54.669 new whippet tanks. These were a significant departure 00:14:54.669 --> 00:14:57.629 from the older lumbering Mark IV tanks that moved 00:14:57.629 --> 00:15:00.509 at a walking pace. The whippets were much lighter, 00:15:00.610 --> 00:15:03.330 faster, and designed specifically to exploit 00:15:03.330 --> 00:15:06.370 gaps in the enemy line. The accounts say just 00:15:06.370 --> 00:15:08.710 12 of these whippets suddenly appeared on the 00:15:08.710 --> 00:15:10.929 battlefield and charged into the German lines, 00:15:11.110 --> 00:15:14.789 completely scattering 300 highly trained stormtroopers 00:15:14.789 --> 00:15:17.730 who fled in absolute panic. It must have felt 00:15:17.730 --> 00:15:19.669 like the technological tide was turning against 00:15:19.669 --> 00:15:22.590 them in real time. And it was. The whole offensive 00:15:22.590 --> 00:15:25.669 finally fizzled out in early April. The critical, 00:15:25.750 --> 00:15:28.090 culminating moment was the fighting around Villa 00:15:28.090 --> 00:15:31.330 Bertone on April 4th and 5th. Ludendorff made 00:15:31.330 --> 00:15:33.889 one final, desperate push to capture the high 00:15:33.889 --> 00:15:36.470 ground overlooking the vital railway city of 00:15:36.470 --> 00:15:39.509 Amiens. If Amiens fell, the Allied rail network 00:15:39.509 --> 00:15:42.610 would be paralyzed. They didn't get it. No. A 00:15:42.610 --> 00:15:45.289 hastily organized night counterattack by Australian 00:15:45.289 --> 00:15:47.730 forces and British units, including the very 00:15:47.730 --> 00:15:50.029 same exhausted men of the 54th Brigade we talked 00:15:50.029 --> 00:15:52.409 about earlier, halted the German advance dead 00:15:52.409 --> 00:15:54.769 in its tracks. The Germans simply could go no 00:15:54.769 --> 00:15:56.769 further. So what does this all mean? When you 00:15:56.769 --> 00:15:59.330 look at the raw data, the sheer scale of Operation 00:15:59.330 --> 00:16:02.529 Michael is just unbelievable. The Germans advanced 00:16:02.529 --> 00:16:05.750 up to 40 miles into Allied territory. They captured 00:16:05.750 --> 00:16:08.929 3 ,100 square kilometers of France. They took 00:16:08.929 --> 00:16:12.840 over 75 ,000 British soldiers. prisoner and captured 00:16:12.840 --> 00:16:16.600 1 ,300 artillery pieces and 200 tanks. If you 00:16:16.600 --> 00:16:18.299 just look at a map, it looks like a massive, 00:16:18.379 --> 00:16:20.700 undeniable victory. But the crucial analysis 00:16:20.700 --> 00:16:23.100 here is that despite those terrifying metrics, 00:16:23.399 --> 00:16:25.620 it was a catastrophic strategic failure for the 00:16:25.620 --> 00:16:28.000 German Empire. Consider what they actually captured. 00:16:28.340 --> 00:16:31.039 Useless, shell -torn wilderness from the 1916 00:16:31.039 --> 00:16:33.419 battles. They completely failed to capture the 00:16:33.419 --> 00:16:36.379 vital rail hubs of Emian or Eris, and they never 00:16:36.379 --> 00:16:38.220 reached the channel ports. And the human cost 00:16:38.220 --> 00:16:40.220 was staggering. The Germans suffered roughly 00:16:40.220 --> 00:16:42.899 250 ,000 casualties. The Allies suffered roughly 00:16:42.899 --> 00:16:46.279 255 ,000 casualties. And here is the vital difference 00:16:46.279 --> 00:16:49.259 in those casualty numbers. The Allies could replace 00:16:49.259 --> 00:16:51.759 their losses. The Americans were pouring into 00:16:51.759 --> 00:16:53.960 France by the hundreds of thousands, and British 00:16:53.960 --> 00:16:56.340 factories were turning out 10 ,000 machine guns 00:16:56.340 --> 00:16:59.440 and 100 tanks every single month. But the 250 00:16:59.440 --> 00:17:03.120 ,000 men the Germans lost, those were their absolute 00:17:03.120 --> 00:17:06.400 best, highly trained, irreplaceable elite troops. 00:17:06.759 --> 00:17:10.579 Precisely. Ludendorff bled his army dry for ground 00:17:10.579 --> 00:17:13.019 he couldn't even defend. tactical brilliance 00:17:13.019 --> 00:17:16.119 without strategic discipline loses wars. Well, 00:17:16.160 --> 00:17:18.119 thank you so much for joining us on this intense 00:17:18.119 --> 00:17:21.039 historical journey today. Operation Michael truly 00:17:21.039 --> 00:17:23.759 changed the tactical face of war forever with 00:17:23.759 --> 00:17:25.700 the introduction of infiltration tactics and 00:17:25.700 --> 00:17:28.039 hurricane bombardments. But as we've seen, it 00:17:28.039 --> 00:17:29.940 ultimately marked the beginning of the end for 00:17:29.940 --> 00:17:32.220 the German Empire in World War I. I want to leave 00:17:32.220 --> 00:17:34.440 you with a final thought to mull over, specifically 00:17:34.440 --> 00:17:36.799 regarding the core of the German tactical shift, 00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:40.509 the creation of the Stoßtruppen. The German military 00:17:40.509 --> 00:17:43.789 explicitly skimmed the absolute best, fittest, 00:17:43.789 --> 00:17:46.769 and most experienced soldiers from every regular 00:17:46.769 --> 00:17:49.549 unit across their entire army to create these 00:17:49.549 --> 00:17:53.269 elite shock troops. This pooling of talent ensured 00:17:53.269 --> 00:17:55.309 that their initial attacks on March 21st would 00:17:55.309 --> 00:17:58.289 be devastatingly effective, but it also mathematically 00:17:58.289 --> 00:18:00.769 guaranteed that their highest casualties in the 00:18:00.769 --> 00:18:03.170 vanguard of the assault would be their most irreplaceable 00:18:03.170 --> 00:18:06.000 men. When those elite troops fell, Germany was 00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:08.660 left with severely degraded, lower quality, exhausted 00:18:08.660 --> 00:18:11.339 troops in reserve. Did the very military innovation 00:18:11.339 --> 00:18:13.480 that made their attack so brilliantly effective 00:18:13.480 --> 00:18:16.200 initially actually seal their ultimate doom? 00:18:16.400 --> 00:18:19.039 That is a fascinating question to chew on, the 00:18:19.039 --> 00:18:21.920 paradox of the elite vanguard. Keep questioning 00:18:21.920 --> 00:18:24.359 history and always look for those hidden connections 00:18:24.359 --> 00:18:26.920 in the stories we think we know. Until next time, 00:18:26.940 --> 00:18:28.480 take care and keep diving deep.