MAPS OF HISTORY · ON THIS DAY · March 21 · 1918
ON THIS DAY · 21 MARCH 1918
Operation Michael
21 Mar 1918 — After a five-hour hurricane bombardment, 76 divisions of stormtroops break the British Fifth Army and advance 65 km in a week — farther than anyone since 1914. Then the guns, the supplies and the plan all fail to keep up.
THE MOMENT IN CONTEXT
Operation Michael opened on 21 March with a short, intense bombardment. The stormtroopers moved around the strongpoints and broke the front of the British Fifth Army, and Germany advanced farther than it had since 1914. The advance then outran its artillery, food and ammunition, and the later offensives repeated the same pattern. They won large salients on the map but never split the Allies apart or captured an objective that would decide the war.
From Chapter 10 — The Spring Offensives and the Hundred Days of The Great War, 1914–1918 (AUG 1918).
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TEACH THIS IN 5 MINUTES
- Why it happened — Why the trench finally broke. By 1918 both sides had solved break-in: predicted artillery fire (no registration, no warning), infiltration or armor to cross the zone, air…
- The turn — Amiens, 8 August 1918. Not the deepest advance of 1918 — but the day the German army stopped believing. Units yelled “strikebreaker!” at reinforcements; 15,000 men…
- What it changed — Five weeks, three armistices. Bulgaria (29 September), the Ottomans (30 October), Austria-Hungary (3 November — its emperor’s peoples already declaring independence behind it):…
Then ask the room: Germany’s spring offensives are often called tactically brilliant and strategically bankrupt. Could any German strategy have won in 1918 — or was the only winning move not to play? The argued answer is on the chapter page →
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