The Kaiserschlach Fails

The results

While it would theoretically go on to August 7, it was really this day in 1918 on which the Kaiserschlacht came to an end.

The Kaiserschlacht was a remarkable series of offensives that took place over six months, an amazing achievement for an Army facing the challenges that the Germans were in 1918.  This is all the more remarkable if it is considered that the Germans had just concluded a massive offensive, against much less daunting odds, in the East, prior to Russia quitting the war.  The German spring 1918 offensive destroyed the Portuguese commitment to the Allied cause and rocked back the British gains in the war completely.  The Germans nearly took Parish as part of a diversion. Everywhere the Allies lost significant amounts of ground and every German action took ground, including the famous battlefields that had been gained by the Allies in 1916 and 1917.  

And yet it failed, an in a way that the Germans could not recover from.

The offensive reduced the fighting strength of the German Army by 1,000,000 men.  By the end of the offensive German losses meant that the Germans had 207 division to the Allied 203, a near match but one which was evaporating in terms of parity as American troops came on line.  Many of those men lost by the Germans were elite German Storm troops who could not be replaced.  The German offensive itself ground down in large part through sheer exhausting of the German soldier who had to make up for the complete lack of German cavalry through extreme physical exertion on foot.

American combat units deployed in a major way for the first time, sending them to fill the gap that the French appeared unable to wholly fill. The Germans were defeated by the British fighting man's remarkable resolve, the commitment of French and American troops to a gap, the unexpectedly stout resistance of French troops, but most particularly by the horse.  The horse the that the Germans lacked.  Franklin's proverb proved true, although not quite because of the nail.

For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse the rider was lost,
For the want of a rider the battle was lost,
For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.

It was for the want of the horse that the German Empire was lost.