The First World War, Volume 3 by Peter Simkins

Author:Peter Simkins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The First World War (3): The Western Front 1917–1918
ISBN: 9781472809780
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

‘With our backs to the wall’

Ludendorff’s order for the Flanders offensive to go ahead was given even before Michael was terminated. This second offensive, however, was scaled down from the original plan, this being symbolised by the revision of its code-name to Georgette. The modified plan called for the Sixth Army, under General von Quast, to strike between Givenchy and Armentières and drive north-west across the Lys valley in the direction of the important rail centre at Hazebrouck, which lay behind the junction of the British First and Second Armies. The following day, General Sixt von Arnim’s Fouth Army was to attack further north towards Messines. While British defences on this front were better than those in Picardy on 21 March, the BEF’s reserves were now dangerously thin. The Germans too were showing distinct signs of strain from the March fighting and the majority of their assault formations for Georgette were ‘trench divisions’ rather than ‘attack divisions’.

After another classic Bruchmüller artillery bombardment, the Germans made early progress on 9 April, easily overcoming the feeble resistance of the dispirited 2nd Portuguese Division near Neuve Chapelle and advancing approximately three-and-a-half miles at relatively small cost. On 10 April, when von Arnim’s Fourth Army added its weight to the offensive, Messines village fell and part of the Messines-Wytschaete Ridge was yielded to the Germans. The British also withdrew from Armentières, which was situated between the converging German thrusts. Despite the Doullens agreement, Haig’s pleas to Foch for assistance seemed initially to go unheeded, though even Foch was finding it difficult to force a gloomy and grudging Pétain to release the necessary reserves. As the Germans pushed on to within five miles of Hazebrouck, Haig knew that he again faced a crisis. On 11 April he issued a special Order of the Day, which stated:

There is no other course open to us but to fight it out. Every position must be held to the last man: there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause each one of us must fight on to the end.

In the course of the next few days, the arrival in Flanders of the British 5th and 33rd Divisions and the 1st Australian Division eased the crisis on the Lys, and on 14 April Foch was named General-in-Chief of the Allied Armies, an additional step towards genuine unity of command. Now that he had greater control over the handling of Allied reserves, Foch rapidly introduced a rotation system permitting British divisions to move to quiet French sectors and release French formations to buttress threatened parts of the Allied line. In the British Second Army’s zone of operations, the French had relieved British units along nine miles of front by 19 April. Unfortunately for Plumer, who had returned from Italy to resume command of the Second Army, this French assistance came slightly too late. With the Germans consolidating their hold on Messines Ridge, Plumer was obliged to make the agonising but

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