Last Hundred Days Campaign (WWI) Facts & Worksheets

Let’s find out more about the Last Hundred Days Campaign (WWI)!

The Hundred Days Campaign was a series of significant battles fought on the Western Front between August 1918 and November 1918 at the end of World War I (WWI). The British, Belgian, French, and American soldiers launched a number of offensive actions, driving the German army from their significant springtime gains and compelling the German leadership to seek peace. The Hundred Days, actually just a total of 95 days, was the final, climactic battle of WWI which began at the Battle of Amiens on 8 August until the Armistice on 11 November.

BACKGROUND

• The German spring attack on the Western Front, Operation Michael, began on 21 March 1918 and ended in July. The German Army had reached the River Marne, but they were unable to secure the decisive victory they sought. The Second Battle of the Marne, which began in July after the German Operation Marne-Rheims came to a close, was ordered by Ferdinand Foch, the supreme commander of the Allies. The Germans left the northern Marne after seeing their precarious position. Foch was given the title of Marshal of France in recognition of this triumph.
• Foch believed the time had come for the Allies to go back on the offensive after the Germans lost their impetus. 
• With its abundant resources, the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), led by American General John Pershing, had energised the Allied armies upon their arrival in France. 
• Pershing was eager to employ his army as a stand-alone force. 
• The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) had been reinforced by a significant number of soldiers who had returned from the Sinai and Palestine rivalries, the Italian front, and by replacements who had previously been kept in Britain by Prime Minister David Lloyd George.
• The military planners gave several ideas some thought. Foch accepted Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig's proposal to attack the River Somme, east of Amiens and south-west of the location of the 1916 Battle of the Somme, in order to drive the Germans from the crucial Amiens-Paris railway. The Somme was chosen because it remained as the border between the BEF and the French armies, along the Amiens-Roye road, allowing the two armies to work together. Unlike in Flanders, the terrain of Picardy was favourable for tanks, and the German 2nd Army under General Georg von der Marwitz had relatively weak defences as a result of constant raiding by the Australians, a tactic known as pacific penetration.

THE LAST BATTLES

• The Battle of Amiens began on 8 August with a surprise offensive by more than 10 Allied divisions, comprising Australian, Canadian, British, and French forces, supported by almost 500 tanks. The Allies blasted the gap through the German defences, led by the British Fourth Army, south of the Somme. Despite difficulties with supplies and artillery assistance, the Allies continued their quick advance for three more days. This caused the Germans to start falling back towards the Hindenburg Line from the salient they had occupied during Operation Michael in March. The Battle of Amiens was a pivotal event, earning it the title, "the Black Day of the German Army", given by Erich Ludendorff.

  

• On the 15th of August, Foch insisted that Haig continue the Amiens attack despite the fact that the troops had run out of supplies, artillery was being brought into the area, and German reserves were being moved. In response, Haig planned to launch a new Third Army offensive at Albert, known as the Battle of Albert, which began on 21 August. The attack was successful since Albert was seized on 22 August. 
• The French Tenth Army launched the Second Battle of Noyon on 17 August and took control of the town on 29 August to expand the attack to the south. The First Army broadened the attack on 26 August with the Second Battle of Arras in 1918, which took place to the north of the initial assault. During the Second Battle of Bapaume, on 29 August, Bapaume was seized.
• After the success at Amiens, the Allies fought a number of fights to drive the German forces back toward the Hindenburg Line. With the assistance of the Australian Corps, the British Fourth Army advanced farther east of Amiens, crossing the Somme River on 31 August and severing the German defences in the Battle of Mont Saint-Quentin. 
• With the Second Battle of Arras, which included the Battle of the Scarpe and the Battle of Drocourt-Queant Line on 26 August and 2 September, the First Army to the north expanded the attack. On 2 September, the Germans had been forced back close to the Hindenburg Line, the starting point of their attack in the spring. During the Battles of Savy-Dallon and Vauxaillon on 10 and 14 September, respectively, the French First Army and Tenth Army also came close to the Hindenburg Line. 
• Foch came up with the Grand Offensive, a concentric sequence of assaults meant to cut off the German defences' lateral communications and advance the front line as a whole. 
• The Hindenburg Line, which ran from Cerny to Arras, served as the foundation for the primary German defences. 
• German salients to the west and east of the line were routed before the major attack at Havrincourt, St. Mihiel, Épehy, and the Canal du Nord. 
• The Meuse-Argonne Offensive, headed by the French and American Expeditionary Force, kicked off the Grand Offensive on 26 September. 
• On 28 September, the Army Group commanded by Albert I of Belgium launched an attack near Ypres. 
• Both attacks made some headway at first but ran into problems with supplies and challenging terrain. 
• After much work, the Hindenburg Line was finally broken on 17 October.
• The German Supreme Command was cut off from the escalating situation and unable to react to the unrelenting Allied attacks. Erich von Ludendorff gave up on his intentions for Operation Hagen, his last offensive in Flanders, in late August. The German Army was instructed to withdraw on September 7th to the Hindenburg Line in the hopes that this defensive posture would hold and allow for the chance of a negotiated peace. However, the cumulative effects of Foch's concentric attacks in late September significantly undermined German morale. 
• German reserves were put under stress due to the heavy fighting on the Western Front, which also presented a threat of the front's total collapse. In a meeting with Paul von Hindenburg on 28 September, Ludendorff emphasised the need for Germany to pursue peace.
• The British Fourth Army, along with British, Australian, and American forces, launched the Battle of St. Quentin Canal on 29 September, while the French First Army attacked defences outside of St. Quentin, marking the start of the central attack on the Hindenburg Line. 
• The whole depth of the Hindenburg defences had been breached by the Allies by 5 October. General Rawlinson conceded that if the Germans had maintained their prior strength, storming the Hindenburg Line would have been practically impossible. 
• The German High Command came to the conclusion that the war had to be over after the First and Third British Armies further broke the Hindenburg Line at the Second Battle of Cambrai on 8 October. 
• Many Allied commanders and political figures were persuaded by this, along with evidence of waning German morale, to believe that the war may be over in 1918, diverting the emphasis away from preparations for a decisive onslaught in 1919.
• On 3 October, the first letter was addressed to Woodrow Wilson, the president of the United States, adopting his "Fourteen Points" as the starting point for negotiations. The German delegation would later sign an Armistice in the early hours of 11 November 1918, as a consequence of a tense series of notes and negotiations.

CONCLUSION

• Fighting was intense and ongoing during the Hundred Days, and Allied victories—particularly those of the British and French—were predicated on a developing tactical and operational structure. Hard-fought triumphs, such as those at Amiens and the Hindenburg Line, came about as a result of well-practised logistical support, artillery superiority, air superiority, the use of tanks, with varying degrees of effectiveness, and more efficient infantry tactics. 
• Despite these advancements, there were still significant deaths throughout, demonstrating how the movements and manoeuvres fights were frequently deadlier than the trench warfare campaigns that have come to represent World War I in popular culture.

  

• There are no exact numbers during the Hundred Days, although the total number of Allied deaths was probably near 700,000. 
• While U.S. losses were much lower (about 130,000), British casualties between August and November 1918 were in the range of 300,000, more than the approximate of 279,000 for the French army. 
• A growing issue of desertion, mutiny, and unrest undermined the cohesion and solidity of the army and was one of the main reasons Wilhelm II, German Emperor, decided to abdicate from the imperial throne on 9 November 1918. 
• German casualties were estimated to be 760,000, although they may have been higher given the lack of records.