The First Nazi by Will Brownell

Author:Will Brownell
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781619027589
Publisher: Counterpoint
Published: 2016-06-10T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

Ludendorff Attacks in the West to Win Before the Americans Arrive

NOW THAT LUDENDORFF had his treaty signed, he made plans to move his troops from the eastern front in Russia to the western front in Europe. In the spring of 1918, he planned a series of attacks on the western front that would make the deepest advances since 1914. These attacks were called the Ludendorff Offensives.

The size was unprecedented. Ludendorff planned to hit his enemy with 6,000 pieces of artillery, 3,000 mortars, and new squadrons of storm troopers, his best men, who would cut deep into enemy territory. These men would pass around the better-defended points on the front line and wreak havoc in the rear. They would use the German-invented flamethrower, plus clouds of the best new poison gas. They would send barrages of artillery that would creep forward just ahead of the troops. When exhausted, the troops on the front line would lie low while other German soldiers would leapfrog over them, maintaining the terror, all so quickly that the enemy could not react in time.

The plan was not original—it was an idea copied from the 1916 offensive of General Aleksei Brusilov of Russia—but it was incredibly solid, and it promised spectacular results. There was one difference, however. In 1916, Brusilov did not have to contend with British tanks, which could have stopped him cold. Ludendorff had too quickly discounted this fancy British invention, which the Allies were finally bringing to the field in great numbers. He believed that tanks were slow lumbering beasts that could be destroyed by artillery fire and were therefore worthless. He saw them as a gadget that the world would forget. He did not understand that the newest model of British tanks was smaller, faster, tougher, and more maneuverable. They would surprise him.

Finally, Ludendorff did not accept the information offered by Count Heinrich von Bernstorff, the last German ambassador to the United States, who told anyone who would listen that American men were tough and that American reserves were “inexhaustible.” Ludendorff did find the coming of the Americans to be problematic for his propaganda machine, so he ordered a blackout. German soldiers on leave were surprised to find that people back home had no idea that Yanks were fighting on the western front, nor that at least 100,000 of them were arriving every month.

Now, with the German troops released from the East, Ludendorff believed this new offensive would achieve his breakthrough and that such a breakthrough would automatically win the war—two very separate assumptions. If there had been a German politician like Churchill or Roosevelt, he would have asked Ludendorff withering questions, like: Are you trying to destroy the French Army? The British Army? Are you trying to take Paris? Or are you trying to drive the British into the sea?

Ludendorff seemed to be entertaining all of these options at the same time. At any moment one of these options dominated, and at other moments another seemed at the fore. And which

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