Total German losses were estimated to be 30,000 on 8 August, while the Allies had suffered about 6,500 killed, wounded and missing. The Allies had taken 17,000 prisoners and captured 330 guns. By the end of the day, a gap 15 mi (24 km) long had been created in the German line south of the Somme. The attack, spearheaded by the British Fourth Army, broke through the German lines, and tanks attacked German rear positions, sowing panic and confusion. Through careful preparations, the Allies achieved complete surprise. The Battle of Amiens (with the French attack on the southern flank called the Battle of Montdidier opened on 8 August 1918, with an attack by more than 10 Allied divisions-Australian, Canadian, British and French forces-with more than 500 tanks. Finally, the German defenses, manned by the German Second Army of General Georg von der Marwitz, were relatively weak, having been subjected to continual raiding by the Australians in a process termed peaceful penetration. Also the Picardy countryside provided a good surface for tanks, which was not the case in Flanders. As in 1916, it marked the boundary between the BEF and the French armies, in this case defined by the Amiens-Roye road, allowing the two armies to cooperate. The British Army had also been reinforced by large numbers of troops returned from campaigns in Palestine and Italy, and large numbers of replacements previously held back in Britain by Prime Minister David Lloyd George.Ī number of proposals were considered, and finally Foch agreed on a proposal by Field Marshal Douglas Haig, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), to strike on the Somme, east of Amiens and southwest of the 1916 battlefield of the Battle of the Somme, with the intention of forcing the Germans away from the vital Amiens-Paris railway.The Somme was chosen as a suitable site for the offensive for several reasons.
Pershing, was keen to use his army in an independent role. The American Expeditionary Force was now present in France in large numbers, and their presence invigorated the Allied armies.Their commander, General John J. For this victory, Foch was granted the title Marshal of France.įoch considered the time had arrived for the Allies to return to the offensive. The Germans, recognising their untenable position, withdrew from the Marne towards the north. When Operation Marne-Rheims ended in July, the Allied supreme commander, the French Ferdinand Foch, ordered a counter-offensive which became the Second Battle of the Marne. The Germans had advanced to the Marne River but failed to achieve a decisive breakthrough. The German Spring Offensives on the Western Front, which began on 21 March 1918 with Operation Michael, had petered out by July. Dateīritish forces took 188,700 prisoners and captured 2,840 gunsįrench forces took 139,000 prisoners and captured 1,880 gunsĪmerican forces took 44,142 prisoners and captured 1,481 gunsīelgian forces took 14,500 prisoners and captured 414 guns
#The hundred days offensive series#
The term "Hundred Days Offensive" does not refer to a specific battle or unified strategy, but rather the rapid series of Allied victories starting with the Battle of Amiens. The offensive essentially pushed the Germans out of France, forcing them to retreat beyond the Hindenburg Line, and was followed by an armistice.
The Hundred Days Offensive was the final period of the First World War, during which the Allies launched a series of offensives against the Central Powers on the Western Front from 8 August to 11 November 1918, beginning with the Battle of Amiens.
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