by Lloyd, Nick
25See Grotelueschen, The AEF Way of War, p. 111n.
26US Department for the Army, Historical Division, Histories of Two Hundred and Fifty-One Divisions of the German Army Which Participated in the War (1914–1918) (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1920), pp. 119, 161, 183, 235, 398, 533, 568, 622, 635 and 745.
27Ludendorff to Group of Armies von Gallwitz, 10 September 1918, in USAWW, VIII, p. 294.
28Pershing, My Experiences in the World War, II, p. 267.
29Corporal E. B. Searcy cited in J. H. Hallas (ed.), Doughboy War. The American Expeditionary Force in World War I (London and Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2000), p. 227.
30J. J. Pershing, Final Report of Gen. John J. Pershing (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1919), p. 42.
31Sergeant W. Brown cited in Hallas, Doughboy War, p. 229.
32D. MacArthur, Reminiscences (London: Heinemann, 1964), p. 63.
33Viereck (ed.), As They Saw Us, pp. 196–201.
34Pershing, Final Report, p. 43.
35Hindenburg to Group of Armies von Gallwitz, 17 September 1918, in USAWW, VIII, p. 312. For a discussion of the German view of Saint-Mihiel see Grotelueschen, The AEF Way of War, p. 120n.
36Group of Armies von Gallwitz to Composite Army C, 20 September 1918, in USAWW, VIII, p. 320.
37Gallwitz cited in J. Toland, No Man’s Land. 1918. The Last Year of the Great War (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980), p. 424.
8. ‘A country of horror and desolation’
1W. Owen, The Poems of Wilfred Owen, ed. J. Stallworthy (London: Chatto and Windus, 1990), p. 196.
2IWM: 84/11/2, Memoirs of Major H. J. C. Marshall (6 vols.), VI, pp. 1–2.
3IWM: 06/30/1, Account of T. H. Holmes.
4Wilfred Owen to Susan Owen, 28 March 1917, in W. Owen, Selected Letters, ed. J. Bell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 499.
5C. Stone, From Vimy Ridge to the Rhine, eds. G. D. Sheffield and G. Inglis (Marlborough: Crowood Press, 1989), p. 133.
6P. Maze, A Frenchman in Khaki (Kingswood: William Heinemann, 1934), p. 348.
7Wilfred Owen to Siegfried Sassoon, 22 September 1918, in Owen, Selected Letters, p. 349.
8Sir J. Edmonds (ed.), Military Operations France and Belgium 1918, IV, 8th August–26th September. The Franco-British Offensive (London: HMSO, 1947), p. 453.
9TNA: WO 95/1557, 15/Royal Warwickshire Regiment War Diary, September 1918.
10For conflicting views on whether Saint-Mihiel could have been more successful (had it been conducted according to its original design) see Douglas MacArthur’s damning criticism in Reminiscences (London: Heinemann, 1964), p. 64. For a more sober appreciation see H. Liggett, AEF. Ten Years Ago in France (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1928), p. 159.
11J. J. Pershing, My Experiences in the World War (2 vols., New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1931), II, p. 244.
12Pershing to Foch, 31 August 1918, and ‘Decision Concerning Allied Attacks at St Mihiel and West of the Meuse’, 2 September 1918, in US Department for the Army, Historical Division, United States Army in the World War, 1917–1919 (17 vols., Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1948 [hereafter USAWW]), VIII, pp. 43–4 and 47.
13F. Foch, The Memoirs of Marshal Foch, trans. T. Bentley Mott (London: William Heinemann, 1931), p. 462.
14Field Marshal Sir D. Haig, diary, 21 September 1918, in D. Haig, War Diaries and Letters 1914–1918, eds. G. Sheffield and J. Bourne (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005), p. 463. Original emphasis.
15Edmonds (ed.), Military Operations France and Belgium 1918, IV, Appendix V, p. 534.
16R. A. Doughty, Pyrrhic Victory. French Strategy and Operations in the Great War (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008; first publ. 2005), pp. 486–7.
17Pershing, My Experiences in the World War, II, p. 279.
18W. Foerster, Der Feldherr Ludendorff im Unglück (Wiesbaden: Limes Verlag, 1952), pp. 76–8. Original emphasis.
19Crown Prince Rupprecht, Mein Kriegstagebuch (3 vols., Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1929), II, p. 435.
20E. von Ludendorff, Concise Ludendorff Memoirs 1914–1918 (London: Hutchinson, 1933), pp. 307–9. Original emphasis. See also P. von Hindenburg, Out of My Life, trans. F. A. Holt (London: Cassell & Company, 1920), p. 399.
21Ludendorff, Memoirs, p. 311.
22Frankfurter Zeitung, 22 September 1918.
23G. C. Wynne, ‘The Hindenburg Line’, Army Quarterly, Vol. XXXVII (October 1938/January 1939), pp. 205–8. To avoid confusion, it should be noted that there were a number of other names for sections of the Hindenburg Line, including Freya Stellung (an unfinished reserve line behind the Hermann Line), Alberich Stellung (at the southern end of the Siegfried Line) and Kriemhilde Stellung (among others) in the Argonne.
24Sir J. Monash, The Australian Victories in France in 1918 (London: Hutchinson, 1920), pp. 217 and 218.
25They were commanded by Duke Albrecht of Württemberg (from the Swiss border to Metz), Max von Gallwitz (from the Meuse to Rheims), Crown Prince Wilhelm (between Rheims and La Fère), General von Boehn (from La Fère to Douai), and Crown Prince Rupprecht (from Lens to the North Sea).
26Sir J. Edmonds and R. Maxwell-Hyslop (eds.), Military Operations France and Belgium 1918, V, 26th September–11th November. The Advance to Victory (London: HMSO, 1947), pp. 10–11.
27D. von Kuhl, Entstehung, Durchführung und Zusammenbruch der Offensive von 1918 (Berlin: Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft für Politik und Geschichte, 1927), p. 210.
28Bundesarchiv, Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918, XIV, Die Kriegführung an der Westfront im Jahre 1918 (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1944), p. 621.
29TNA: WO 157/199, Fourth Army Summary of Information, 1 October 1918.
30TNA: WO 95/94, Tank Corps Summary of Information, 10 September 1918.
31TNA: WO 95/94, Tank Corps Summary of Information, 18 and 27 September 1918.
32Rupprecht, Mein Kriegstagebuch, II, p. 439.
33G. von der Marwitz, Weltkriegsbriefe, ed. E. von Tschischwitz (Berlin: Steiniger-Verlage, 1940), p. 308.
34R. Binding, A Fatalist at War, trans. I. F. D. Morrow (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1929), pp. 237 and 242.
35Marwitz, Weltkriegsbriefe, pp. 317–18.
9. Return to the Wilderness
1H. Liggett, AEF. Ten Years Ago in France (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1928), pp. 208–9.
2Gallwitz cited in G. S. Viereck (ed.), As They Saw Us. Foch, Ludendorff and Other Leaders Write Our War History (Cranbury, NJ: Scholar’s Bookshelf, 2005; first publ. 1929), pp. 234–7. Pershing had mounted an extensive deception programme to convince the enemy that a future American attack would go into Lorraine. General von der Marwitz also believed the American artillery fire on 25–26 September was probably just a large demonstration. G. von der Marwitz, Weltkriegsbriefe, ed. E. von Tschischwitz (Berlin: Steiniger-Verlage, 1940), p. 322.
3Gallwitz cited in Viereck (ed.), As They Saw Us, pp. 231 and 236–7.
4Fifth Army Order, 1 October 1918, in US Department for the Army, Historical Division, United States Army in the World War, 1917–1919 (17 vols., Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1948 [hereafter USAWW]), IX, p. 531; J. J. Pershing, Final Report of Gen. John J. Pershing (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1919), p. 44.
5MHI: WWI 8188 (Folder 8), ‘A Private Saw It. My Memoirs of the First Division World War I’, by H. L. McHenry, p. 46.
6First Army Field Orders No. 20, 20 September 1918, in USAWW, IX, p. 82.
7G. C. Marshall, Memoirs of My Services in the World War 1917–1918 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976), p. 137.
8Ibid., p. 149.
9R. Slotkin, Lost Battalions. The Great War and the Crisis of American Nationality (New York: Henry Holt, 2005), pp. 263–4.
10Chief of Staff, First Army to Commanding General I Corps, 22 September 1918, in USAWW, IX, p. 119.
11Liggett, AEF, p. 171.
12A. Williams, Experiences of the Great War (Roanoake, Va: Stone, 1919), p. 127.
&nbs
p; 13Liggett, AEF, pp. 174–5.
14R. A. Doughty, Pyrrhic Victory. French Strategy and Operations in the Great War (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008; first publ. 2005), pp. 489–90.
15MHI: WWI 2450 (Folder 1), ‘Memoirs of Clair Groover of Service in the US Army’, pp. 18–22 and 28.
16MHI: WWI 380, ‘My Diary’ by Sergeant J. E. Meehan, pp. 7–8.
17IWM: 06/62/1, Captain T. F. Grady, diary, 26–30 September 1918.
18IWM: 81/1/1, Account of Miss C. W. Clarke, pp. 19, 20, 30 and 55.
19M. Blumenson, The Patton Papers, 1885–1940 (New York: Da Capo Press, 1998; first publ. 1972), pp. 616–17 and 622.
20Chief of Staff First Army to Commanding General, I, III, IV and V Corps, 27 September 1918, in USAWW, IX, pp. 138–40.
21J. J. Cooke, Pershing and His Generals. Command and Staff in the AEF (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1997), p. 132.
22Viereck (ed.), As They Saw Us, pp. 239–41.
23BA-MA: BIV21, P. Ludwig, letter, 13 October 1918.
24M. von Gallwitz, Erleben im Westen 1916–1918 (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1932), p. 405.
25E. Otto, The Battle at Blanc Mont (October 2 to October 10, 1918), trans. M. Lichtenberg (Annapolis, Md: United States Naval Institute, 1930), p. 19.
26Crown Prince Wilhelm, The Memoirs of the Crown Prince of Germany (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1922), pp. 205–6.
27Marwitz, Weltkriegsbriefe, p. 324.
28Pershing, Final Report, p. 46.
29MHI: WWI 2450 (Folder 1), ‘Memoirs of Clair Groover of Service in the US Army’, p. 25.
30G. Mead, Doughboys. America and the First World War (London: Penguin Books, 2001), p. 307.
31Liggett, AEF, p. 178.
32MHI: WWI 6801, ‘My Life in the Army of World War I’ by Sergeant H. Anderson, p. 16.
33Mead, Doughboys, p. 309.
10. ‘Just one panorama of hell’
1F. E. Noakes, The Distant Drum. A Memoir of a Guardsman in the Great War (Barnsley: Frontline Books, 2010), p. 171.
2Crown Prince Wilhelm, The Memoirs of the Crown Prince of Germany (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1922), p. 204.
3LAC: MG30 E100, Sir Arthur Currie Papers, Vol. 43, File 1914, diary, 4 September 1918.
4Byng cited in S. B. Schreiber, Shock Army of the British Empire. The Canadian Corps in the Last 100 Days of the Great War (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1997), p. 98.
5LAC: MG30 E430, ‘An Autobiography of World War I’, by W. Green, p. 11.
6LAC: RG41, Vol. 7, Testimony of G. Mills.
7LAC: RG41, Vol. 7, Testimony of Lieutenant-Colonel J. W. H. Joliffe.
8T. Cook, Shock Troops. Canadians Fighting the Great War 1917–1918 (Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2008), p. 513.
9TNA: WO 95/180, ‘Report on First Army Operations: 26th August–11 November, 1918’, p. 31.
10Sir J. Edmonds and R. Maxwell-Hyslop (eds.), Military Operations France and Belgium 1918, V, 26th September–11th November. The Advance to Victory (London: HMSO, 1947), p. 33.
11G. Gliddon, VCs of the First World War. The Final Days: 1918 (Stroud: Sutton, 2000), p. 1.
12TNA: WO 95/1516, ‘5th Division: Report on Operations from 13th September to 1st October 1918’, p. 2.
13TNA: WO 95/1551, 13 Brigade War Diary, ‘Operations – 27 September 1918’.
14Ibid.
15Edmonds and Maxwell-Hyslop (eds.), Military Operations France and Belgium 1918, V, pp. 36–7.
16TNA: WO 95/1516, ‘5th Division. Report on Operations from 13th September to 1st October 1918’, pp. 9–11.
17C. T. Atkinson, The Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment, 1914–1919 (London: Simkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., 1924), p. 431.
18Captain A. Impey, diary, 27 September 1918, in http://www.fylde.demon.co.uk/tucker/tuckerbiography.htm.
19TNA: WO 95/1557, 15/Royal Warwickshire Regiment War Diary, 27 September 1918.
20C. A. Bill, The 15th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment (and Birmingham Battalion) in the Great War (Birmingham: Cornish Brothers, 1932), p. 146.
21MHI: WWI 2832, ‘Morgen Rot’, by E. Kielmayer, diary, 30 September and 1 October 1918.
22‘Estimate of the Situation’, 27 September 1918, in US Department for the Army, Historical Division, United States Army in the World War, 1917–1919 (17 vols., Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1948 [hereafter USAWW]), VII, pp. 835–6.
23‘Army Order’, Second Army, 27 September 1918, in USAWW, VII, p. 837.
24Edmonds and Maxwell-Hyslop (eds.), Military Operations France and Belgium 1918, V, p. 64.
25JMO: 26 N 18/6, Groupe d’Armées des Flandres, ‘Journal des marches et opérations du 1 septembre au 19 novembre 1918’.
26C. Degelow, Germany’s Last Knight in the Air. The Memoirs of Major Carl Degelow, trans. and ed. P. Kilduff (London: William Kimber, 1979), pp. 166–7.
27W. Görlitz (ed.), The Kaiser and His Court. The Diaries, Note Books and Letters of Admiral Georg Alexander von Müller, Chief of the Naval Cabinet, 1914–1918 (London: Macdonald & Co., 1961; first publ. 1959), p. 400.
28P. von Hindenburg, Out of My Life, trans. F. A. Holt (London: Cassell & Company, 1920), pp. 428–9.
29E. von Ludendorff, Concise Ludendorff Memoirs 1914–1918 (London: Hutchinson, 1933), p. 311. It may have been a gradual realization that defeat was inevitable. Five days earlier, on 23 September, he had cancelled a series of long-awaited incendiary raids by German bombers on London because of fears of reprisals. See N. Hanson, First Blitz. The Secret German Plan to Raze London to the Ground in 1918 (London: Doubleday, 2008), pp. 330–31.
30W. Foerster, Der Feldherr Ludendorff im Unglück (Wiesbaden: Limes Verlag, 1952), p. 79.
31Ludendorff, Memoirs, pp. 312–13.
32Hindenburg, Out of My Life, p. 429.
33Görlitz (ed.), The Kaiser and His Court, p. 397.
11. The Tomb of the German World Empire
1Crown Prince Rupprecht, Mein Kriegstagebuch (3 vols., Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1929), II, p. 453.
2See the postscript to C. Messenger, The Day We Won the War. Turning Point at Amiens 8th August 1918 (London: Phoenix, 2009; first publ. 2008), pp. 234–9. Some confusion still exists as to which headquarters the documents were stored in as no German corps had its headquarters at Framerville.
3Sir A. Montgomery, The Story of Fourth Army in the Battles of the Hundred Days, August 8th to November 11th, 1918 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1920), p. 147n.
4‘Evening Report’, Bavarian I Army Corps, 28 September 1918, in US Department for the Army, Historical Division, United States Army in the World War, 1917–1919 (17 vols., Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1948 [hereafter USAWW]), VII, p. 842.
5MHI: WWI 2305, Mechanic L. M. Beyer, Army Service Experiences Questionnaire.
6The traditional explanation for this failure is that the Americans did not properly consolidate their gains. Rawlinson believed that the failure to ‘mop up’ the deep dug-outs in the German line allowed the enemy to infiltrate back and prevent reinforcements from pushing on. See TNA: WO 95/438, ‘Report on 2nd American Division during the Operations of 29th September 1918’, 30 September 1918. This interpretation has been contested by D. Blair, The Battle of Bellicourt Tunnel. Tommies, Diggers and Doughboys on the Hindenburg Line, 1918 (Barnsley: Frontline Books, 2011).
7MHI: WWI 1827, ‘Reminiscences and Diary of a Private in World War I’, by W. J. Strauss, pp. 54, 56 and 57.
8P. Maze, A Frenchman in Khaki (Kingswood: William Heinemann, 1934), pp. 349–50.
9IWM: 84/11/2, Memoirs of Major H. J. C. Marshall (6 vols.), VI, pp. 2 and 4.
10IWM: 84/11/2, Memoirs of Major Marshall, VI, pp. 7 and 8.
11Account of Private G. Waters (personal collection).
12Sir J. Edmonds and R. Maxwell-Hyslop (eds.), Military Operations France and Belgium 1918, V, 26th September–11th November. The Advance to Victory (London: HMSO, 1947), p. 106.
13BA-MA: PH8II/83, ‘Gefechtsbericht über
den 29.9 u. 30.9.18’.
14IWM: 84/11/2, Memoirs of Major Marshall, VI, pp. 5 and 11.
15These included Hulluch on 13 October 1915, where the division had sustained over 3,500 casualties in a matter of hours, and 1 July 1916, when it had left most of its personnel lying dead or wounded on the open fields of Gommecourt north of the Somme.
16IWM: 84/11/2, Memoirs of Major Marshall, VI, pp. 10–11.
17LAC: MG30 E100, Sir Arthur Currie Papers, Vol. 43, File 1914, diary, 1 October 1918.
18D. Hibberd, Wilfred Owen. A New Biography (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002), pp. 344–53.
19Wilfred Owen to Susan Owen, 4 or 5 and 8 October 1918, in W. Owen, Selected Letters, ed. J. Bell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 351 and 352.
20C. A. Bill, The 15th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment (and Birmingham Battalion) in the Great War (Birmingham: Cornish Brothers, 1932), pp. 147–9. British divisions in France had been reduced from twelve to nine battalions in early 1918, but because 5th Division had been in Italy, it had been spared this change.
21JMO: 26 N 20/1, ‘Journal de Marche de la 1ère Armée à partir du 1er janvier 1918 au 31 octobre 1918’, p. 514.
22Foch cited in R. A. Doughty, Pyrrhic Victory. French Strategy and Operations in the Great War (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008; first publ. 2005), p. 490.
23BA-MA: MSG2/5792, ‘Alfred’, letter, 29 September 1918.
24TNA: WO 157/199, Fourth Army Summary of Information, 6 and 7 October 1918.
25TNA: WO 157/166, Third Army Summary of Information, 6 and 7 October 1918.
26Rupprecht, Mein Kriegstagebuch, II, p. 453.
27Operations Section to Group of Armies German Crown Prince, 30 September 1918, in USAWW, VI, p. 272.
28General von Hutier to Group of Armies Boehn, 2 October 1918, in USAWW, VII, pp. 863–4.
29Second Army to Group of Armies Boehn, 3 October 1918, in USAWW, VII, pp. 864–5.
30Rupprecht, Mein Kriegstagebuch , II, p. 453, 455.
31MHI: WWI 2832, ‘Morgen Rot’, by E. Kielmayer, diary, 1 October 1918.
32BA-MA: MSG2/10347, Leutnant K. Urmacher, letter, 5 October 1918.