Black Day of the German Army
As Black Day of the German Army General is for a statement Erich Ludendorff referred August 8, 1918, the start of the final offensive of the Entente in World War I ( Offensive of the hundred days or Hundred Days Offensive ) of 8 August to 11 November.
"August 8th is the black day of the German army in the history of this war."
Allied troops broke into the Western Front on August 8, 1918 in the Battle of Amiens . They forced the German troops to retreat across the board. Just a day later, however, the situation was stabilized again and the advance of the Allied troops slowed down. On August 14, 1918, the Supreme Army Command in the Grand Headquarters in the Hotel Britannique in Spa , Belgium , in the presence of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Austrian Emperor Karl I, declared the continuation of the war to be "hopeless" for the first time. The decisive factor for this assessment was the massive superiority of the Allies since the USA entered the warwas created in the spring of 1917. The US Expeditionary Force grew stronger every month in 1918. One goal of the failed German spring offensive in 1918 was to prevent this factor from taking effect in the first place. Then there were the high losses that could no longer be compensated, and finally the poor supply situation.
Further development
With the victory over the German troops on the front line in front of Amiens , the turning point in World War I was finally sealed and the defeat of Germany was only a matter of time. It was not a strategic breakthrough by the Allies - it was generally difficult to achieve in trench warfare given the state of military technology of 1918. Rather, it was the “moral defeat” of August 8th. In one day the Germans lost about 30,000 men, half of them were taken prisoner of war , which made an impression on the Supreme Army Command (OHL) . The staff officers asked Erich Ludendorff for permission to withdraw , but initially he insisted on a defense at all costs. The originally arranged by him rigid defense would have the tanks of the Allies (10 battalions with 360 heavy British tanks of the type Mark IV , 2 battalions with 96 Cavalry tanks Type Mark A and two battalions with 90 French Renault FT even allow) an even greater success; Ludendorff finally agreed to withdraw the front.
On August 14th there was a conference in Spa , at which a negotiated peace was sought, although the army was apparently still intact and there were over 2.5 million soldiers on the western front. But the German positions were already very thinly manned - a "spider web" was held by defenders. In view of the Allied superiority, there was a shortage of soldiers fit for the front on the German side, the troops were poorly supplied, exhausted and were nearing the end of their strengths. The fact that negotiations had started later formed the argumentative background for the stab -in- the-back legend of German national and right-wing circles. However, the Supreme Army Command had recognized the hopelessness of the situation, especially since there were no more personnel reserves available. On September 29, 1918, she demanded that the Reich government immediately commence armistice negotiations, stating that the front could collapse any day. As a result, the army slowly withdrew, and on October 4 the German government asked Woodrow Wilson , the President of the United States , to negotiate a ceasefire. Its fourteen-point proposal for an international post-war order seemed the most likely to offer a perspective.