Victor Davis Hanson // National Review
Germany lost World War I in a matter of months after near victory. The lessons from that defeat are still valuable today.
One hundred years ago this month, all hell broke loose in France. On March 21, 1918, the German army on the Western Front unleashed a series of massive attacks on the exhausted British and French armies.
German general Erich Ludendorff thought he could win World War I with one final blow. He planned to punch holes between the French and British armies. Then he would drive through their trenches to the English Channel, isolating and destroying the British army.
The Germans thought they had no choice but to gamble.
The British naval blockade of Germany after three years had reduced Germany to near famine. More than 200,000 American reinforcement troops were arriving each month in France. (Nearly 2 million would land altogether.) American farms and factories were sending over huge shipments of food and munitions to the Allies.
Yet for a brief moment, the war had suddenly swung in Germany’s favor by March 1918. The German army had just knocked Russia and its new Bolshevik government out of the war. The victory on the Eastern Front freed up nearly 1 million German and Austrian soldiers, who were transferred west.
Germany had refined new rolling artillery barrages. Its dreaded “Stormtroopers” had mastered dispersed advances. The result was a brief window of advantage before the American juggernaut changed the war’s arithmetic.
The Spring Offensive almost worked. Within days, the British army had suffered some 50,000 casualties. Altogether, about a half million French, British, and American troops were killed or wounded during the entire offensive.
But within a month, the Germans were sputtering. They could get neither supplies nor reinforcements to the English Channel. Germany had greedily left 1 million soldiers behind in the east to occupy and annex huge sections of conquered Eastern Europe and western Russia.
The British and French had learned new ways of strategic retreat. By the summer of 1918, the Germans were exhausted. In August, the Allies began their own (even bigger) offensive and finally crushed the retreating Germans, ending the war in November 1918.
What were the lessons of the failed German offensive?
The fortunes of war can change in days. In late March 1918, the Germans thought the war was won. Three months later, they knew it was lost. Often, the worst moments of war come right before the end, as the last-gasp battles of Waterloo, the Bulge, and Okinawa remind us.
In 2016, an ascendant Islamic State bragged that it had formed a vast new Islamic caliphate. By the end of 2017, ISIS had been bombed to smithereens and routed.
Long-term strategy matters. Without a strategic vision, short-term tactical success means nothing. The advancing Germans had no real idea of what to do next — even if they reached the English Channel. There was never any chance that the British would quit. The British had survived worse at the earlier battles of the Somme and Passchendaele.
In our time, America has never quite determined its strategic aims in the nearly 17-year-old Afghan war. Is it to crush the Taliban? To build a democracy in Afghanistan? To rid the country of terrorist havens? To stop the opium trade? To make Afghanistan economically and militarily self-sufficient? To simply not lose? All these and more have been mentioned as American goals.
Alliances are critical. What did it matter that Germany had finally defeated Russia if at nearly the same time it had provoked an even stronger new enemy in America? The key to denuclearizing North Korea is creating a frontline partnership of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the U.S. — and to flip either China or Russia to our side to ensure that sanctions strangle Pyongyang.
War is decided as much by economics as by soldiers. Germany unleashed a lethal army against the Allies, but its soldiers did not even have enough food or munitions to sustain the offensive after a few weeks. Germany had neither the food nor the factory capacity to conduct war against the combined might of Britain, France, and the United States. In many ways, 1918 Germany was like today’s Russia — formidable on the battlefield, but only for a short duration and without the economic ability to finish what it starts.
Leaders usually ignore history. A little more than 20 years after the Spring Offensive, Hitler’s Third Reich fought America, Britain, France, and Russia; unleashed its armies in a two-front war in Europe; was blockaded; and lost another world war.
The final battles of World War I will have their 100th anniversaries this year. But the lessons of how Germany almost won and then suddenly lost are ageless.
Discussion (13)
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There is still a sense of self-identity in Bavaria - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bavaria . How would Germany and Europe have evolved if the Allies had made Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, and the Hanseatic cities independent at the end of the War in Europe?
I’ve known H.R. since he was a colonel at the Hoover. A good soldier and a first-class mind. his ‘Dereliction of Duty’ is a sobering read for those of who served in Vietnam. Trump is fortunate to have him; I hope he continues in his role there.
VDH, Didn’t your grandfather serve in World War I admits the mustard gas? I enjoyed your column but enjoy it even more when your family history is included. I hope a family oral history like Ripples of Battle are on the horizon. Noticed a ladder close to your Citrus tree at the historic Selma Ranch. I hope your Citrus turned out well this year.
WHY DID YOU LET THEM PUB. YOUR BOOK IN G R E Y INK?????????????????
Professor... I was disappointed that your superb history lesson passed over the Siege of Khesanh as a “spring offensive” gone very bad. This is the fiftieth anniversary of that history lesson and those of us who participated in that historic battle could and would appreciate your opinion and analysis of “the agony of Khesanh.” Respectfully, Jeremy Taylor, Rear Admiral, USN, retired, Ogden, Utah
Once again, the importance of education is critical, but paramount is what is actually taught. Our culture amazingly and painfully ignores lessons learned, particularly that one or few moments of ecstasy in success does not guarantee the ultimate outcome. Thankfully, some in our military get it as do precious few in political leadership.
Germany may have lost the war (WWII) on the battlefield but allegedly won the peace, since it has nevertheless succeeded in dominating Europe economically and politically via its supremacy in the EU, pretty much dictating policy to the other member countries. In a somewhat similar way, Islam, once the aggressive conqueror of a huge swathe of the MIddle East and Europe, but now enfeebled militarily, seeks to achieve an even greater conquest via demography, as prophesied by Gaddafi and Boumedienne -- and seems to be receiving the tacit but incomprehensible encouragement of some Western leaders. Is it possible that this trend can be reversed?
Excellent encapsulation of the reasons the Spring Offensive came a cropper.As the best large-scale logistician,perhaps of the entire War, one expected a more thoughtful campaign from Here Ludendorf.I wish I could have audited some of your classes. A 71 year-old,retired college prof,Army Colonel,and Circuit Court Judge admirer.
Excellent encapsulation of the reasons the Spring Offensive came a cropped. As the best large-scale logistician,perhaps of the entire War, one expected a more thoughtful campaign. I wish I could have audited some of your classes. A 71 year-old,retired college prof,Army Colonel,and Circuit Court Judge admirer.
Thank you so much for writing your essays. Our whole family awaits each new one. And you are always right in your analysis.
Yeah the British would never quit. Perhaps its because their media wasn't like our media. Remember TET? A crushing defeat portrayed as a massive Communist victory. What matters isn't strategy so much as perceptions of victory. All strategy boils down to one thing, how to get your enemy to give up. How you get there is tactics. Everyone knew what they were doing in WWI, their tactics were badly flawed. The Germans were exhausted by four years of fighting. The French had suffered massive mutinies and the British massive desertions. But the Allies could count on millions of Americans, fighting for what? A League of Nations?
See above
Dear Dr. Hanson, Thanks for your learned articles. I have been a dedicated reader for many years. I am a retired systems engineer not a learned historian as you are. Throughout my long life, including my military experience during the Korean War, I have often why the education we received before, during and after the wars that occurred during my lifetime was always more tactical than strategic beyond the military leaders conducting these wars. Today, history is apparently repeating itself. For example, we don’t have a Secretary of History for Economics, Politics, World Affairs, etc. Are we constrained by the time requirements of politicians, the economics of our environments or a seeming tendency to ignore history? If I were called upon to develop a system of national leadership for our country, I would include people like yourself who possess the broad knowledge required to avoid previous failures and to assist in the development of new policies and objectives. I once had a chemistry professor advise me to become a politician. I said, “Never”. He asked why I felt this way and I said I did not want to spend the rest of my life compromising over complex issues. I have always wanted to solve problems by developing inclusive strategic systems that produce desired results. For example, I developed strategic planning systems for corporations that transcended the tendency for large organizations who had the propensity to assign older, less useful executives to develop corporate plans which no one followed. One president admitted to me that he had hired an external firm to develop their strategic corporate plan. He admitted that no one had ever read or used the formidable document which cost his company over three hundred thousand dollars to produce. I asked him why not and he said it was the consultant’s plan not ours. My planning system was to have the acting corporate executives develop their own plans to which they were committed. I would like to see our national leaders use historical knowledge in the development of our strategic plans and stop ignoring the lessons learned in history. This might help avoidance of embarrassing exposures like Ms. Pelosi’s admission that we should read the health plan so ‘we will know what is in it’. By the way, I was married for sixty four years to my beloved wife, Joyce Hanson O’Brien. She passed away last May 1, 2017. I have great respect and admiration for the name Hanson. I look forward to your upcoming articles. Joe O’Brien Retired IBM Executive