| The
Kaiser's Offensive was the Germans' last throw of
the dice. Following a five hour bombardment by over
6,000 guns, on 21 March 1918 one million German soldiers
attacked along a front of nearly fifty miles opposite
the British Third and Fifth Armies.
Gough's
Fifth Army, between Amiens and St Quentin, gave way
and when the offensive was finally halted, in fighting
that involved the world's first tank versus tank battle
near Villers Bretonneux, Ludendorff had penetrated
forty miles into the Allied lines, taken over 1,000
guns and inflicted more than 200,000 casualties. Though
they came in plain sight of Amiens the Germans never
got there. Their casualties were also nearly 200,000.
General Gough was made the scapegoat for the near
defeat of the Fifth Army and replaced.
The
battlefield tour takes five and a half hours beginning
in St Quentin and visits the remains of some German
jump-off trenches, crosses the river Somme and covers
the ground of the first tank battle - and a great
deal more. There is an in-text map and detailed information
about memorials, cemeteries, actions and travel directions |
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