Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review<\/p>\n
Germany lost World War I in a matter of months after near victory. The lessons from that defeat are still valuable today.<\/span><\/p>\n O<\/span>ne 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The Germans thought they had no choice but to gamble.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Yet for a brief moment, the war had suddenly swung in Germany\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Germany had refined new rolling artillery barrages. Its dreaded \u201cStormtroopers\u201d had mastered dispersed advances. The result was a brief window of advantage before the American juggernaut changed the war\u2019s arithmetic.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n What were the lessons of the failed German offensive?<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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 \u2014 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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. \u2014 and to flip either China or Russia to our side to ensure that sanctions strangle Pyongyang.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s Russia \u2014 formidable on the battlefield, but only for a short duration and without the economic ability to finish what it starts.<\/p>\n Leaders usually ignore history. A little more than 20 years after the Spring Offensive, Hitler\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1172,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2Sr","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10436,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/miracle-at-dunkirk\/","url_meta":{"origin":11063,"position":0},"title":"Miracle At Dunkirk","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 3, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Defining Ideas Wednesday, August 2, 2017 A quarter-million troops of the British Expeditionary Force, together with about 140,000 French and Belgian soldiers, were safely evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk, France between May 26 and June 4, 1940, in one of the largest successful maritime\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "UK"","block_context":{"text":"UK","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/uk\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8473,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/could-world-war-ii-have-ended-sooner-than-it-did\/","url_meta":{"origin":11063,"position":1},"title":"Could World War II Have Ended Sooner than It Did?","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 11, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\u00a0\/\/ National Review Online Seventy-one years ago, the British, Canadians, and Americans landed on the Normandy beaches to open a second ground front against Nazi Germany. Operation Overlord \u2014 the Allied invasion of Western Europe \u2014 proved the largest amphibious operation in military history, dwarfing even Xerxes\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "History"","block_context":{"text":"History","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/history\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"George S. Patton (Library of Congress)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/pic_giant_072413_George-Patton-500x291.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11507,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-11th-hour-of-the-11th-day-of-the-11th-month-100-years-ago\/","url_meta":{"origin":11063,"position":2},"title":"The 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month\u2014100 Years Ago","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 8, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness The First World War ended 100 years ago this month on November 11, 1918, at 11 a.m. Nearly 20 million people had perished since the war began on July 28, 1914. In early 1918, it looked as if the Central Powers\u2014Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "World War I"","block_context":{"text":"World War I","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/world-war-i\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10724,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-year-that-changed-history\/","url_meta":{"origin":11063,"position":3},"title":"The Year That Changed History","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 9, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Defining Ideas Sometimes, just a few months can change the course of civilization. That\u2019s what happened in 1942 when a series of decisive events changed the trajectory of World War II. Before that turning point, Germany seemed destined for victory. In 1939 and 1940, Hitler\u2019s army\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Military"","block_context":{"text":"Military","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/war\/military\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11913,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-lessons-of-the-versailles-treaty\/","url_meta":{"origin":11063,"position":4},"title":"The Lessons of the Versailles Treaty","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 26, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness The Treaty of Versailles was signed in Versailles, France, on June 28, 1919. Neither the winners nor the losers of World War I were happy with the formal conclusion to the bloodbath. The traditional criticism of the treaty is that the victorious French and\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10671,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-axis-was-outmatched-from-the-start\/","url_meta":{"origin":11063,"position":5},"title":"The Axis Was Outmatched from the Start","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 17, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review \u00a0 Hitler and his Axis cohorts couldn\u2019t match their enemies\u2019 resources to begin with. That they learned all the wrong lessons from military history while the Allies learned all the right ones doomed them. \u00a0 Editor\u2019s Note: The following is the second in a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "War"","block_context":{"text":"War","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/war\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11063"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11063"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11064,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11063\/revisions\/11064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}