When Ludendorff decided to change his main line of attack to the sector south of the Somme, he diverted reserves thither. But meantime he. ordered the 18th Army to mark time for two days. When the attack was renewed in force on March 3o it made little progress in face of a resistance that had been afforded time to harden, helped by the cement of French reserves which were now being poured into the breach. A further effort on April 4 had still less success and Ludendorff, rather than be drawn into an attrition struggle, suspended the attack towards Amiens. With a large part of his reserves holding the vast bulge south of the Somme, Ludendorff turned, if without much confidence and merely as a diversion, to release, on April 9, his "St. George I." attack. (See LYS, BATTLE OF THE, 1918.) Its astonishing early success against a weakened front led him to convert it bit by bit into a major effort. The British were desperately close to the sea, but their resistance stopped the German tide after a 10 m. invasion just short of the important railway junction of Hazebrouck, and an attempt to widen the front towards Ypres was nullified by Haig's swinging his line back just before and by the gradual arrival of French reinforcements. Haig com plained strongly that Foch was too slow in sending French re serves northward, but the event justified Foch's reluctance to commit himself thither and his seeming excess of optimism in declaring that the danger was past. Ludendorff had doled out reserves sparingly, usually too late and too few for real success; so apprehensive that his new bulge would become another sack, that after the capture of Kenmel Hill, when opportunity opened its arms, he stopped the exploitation for fear of a counter-stroke.
Thus Ludendorff had fallen short of strategic results; on the other hand he could claim huge tactical successes--the British casualties were over 300,000. The British lion had been badly mauled, and although fresh drafts to the number of 140,000 were hurried out from England and divisions brought back from Italy, Salonika and Palestine, months must elapse before it could recover its offensive power. Ten British t divisions had to be broken up temporarily, while the German strength had now mounted to 208, of which 8o were still in reserve. A restoration of the balance, however, was now in sight. A dozen American divisions had arrived in France and, responding to the call, great efforts were being made to swell the stream. Further, Pershing, the American commander, had placed his troops at Foch's dis posal for use wherever required. For Germany the sands were running out, and, realizing this, Ludendorff launched his "Bliicher" attack between Soissons and Reims, on May 27. Fall ing by surprise with 15 divisions against seven, it swept over the Aisne and reached the Marne on May 3o, where its impetus died away. (See CHEMIN-DES-DAMES, BATTLE OF THE, 1918.) This time the German superiority of force had not been so pro nounced as before nor aided by nature's atmospheric cloak. It would seem that the extent of the opening success was due in part to the strategic surprise—the greater unexpectedness of the time and place of the blow—and in part to the folly of the local army command in insisting on the long-exploded and obsolete method of massing the defenders in the forward positions—there to be compressed cannon-fodder for the German bombardment.
Petain's recent instructions for a deep and elastic system of defence had been disregarded. This indeed was an additional form of surprise, for the object of all surprise is the disloca tion of the opponent's moral and mind and the effect is the same whether he be caught napping by deception or allows himself to be trapped with his eyes open. Further, the Germans' success on May 27, 1918, deserves study in comparison with their other offensives whose success was almost in mathematical ratio to their degree of surprise. This final year, indeed, read in the light of previous years, affords fresh proof that surprise--or, more scientifically, the dislocation of the enemy's balance—is essen tial to true success in every operation of war. At the bar of universal history, any commander who risks lives without seeking his preliminary guarantee stands condemned.
But once again Ludendorff had obtained a measure of suc cess for which he was neither prepared nor desirous. The sur priser was himself surprised. The attack had been conceived merely as a diversion, to attract the Allied reserves thither preparatory to a final and decisive blow at the British front in Flanders. But its opening success attracted thither too large, yet not large enough, a proportion of their own reserves. Blocked frontally by the river, an attempt was made to push west, but it failed in face of Allied resistance—notable for the appearance of American divisions at Chateau-Thierry, where they gallantly counter attacked.
Ludendorff had now created two huge bulges, and another smaller one, in the Allied front. His next attempt was to pinch out the Compiegne "tongue" which lay between the Amiens and Marne bulges. But this time there was no surprise, and the blow on the west side of the "tongue," June 9, was too late to coincide with the pressure on the east. A month's pause followed. Ludendorff was anxious to strike his long-cherihed decisive blow against the British in Belgium, but he considered that their re serves here were still too strong, and so again decided to take the line of least tactical resistance, hoping that a heavy blow in the south would draw off the British reserves. He had failed to pinch out the Compiegne "tongue" on the west of his Marne salient ; he was now about to attempt the same method on the east, by attacking on either side of Reims. But he needed an interval for rest and preparation, and the delay was fatal, giving the British and French time to recuperate, and the Americans to gather strength. The British divisions previously broken up had now been reconstituted, and as a result of an urgent appeal made to President Wilson in the crisis of March, and the provi sion of extra shipping, American troops had been arriving at the rate of 300,00o a month since the end of April. The tactical success of his own blows had been Ludendorff's undoing; yield ing to their influence, he had pressed each too far and too long, so using up his own reserves and causing an undue interval be tween each blow. He had driven in three great wedges, but none had penetrated far enough to sever a vital artery, and this stra tegic failure left the Germans with an indented front which invited flanking counter-strokes.