WEBVTT - SYMHC Classics: Battle of Amiens 0:00:02.360 --> 0:00:06.640 Happy Saturday. The Battle of Amya started on August eighth, 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:09.480 nineteen eighteen, or one hundred and eight years ago today. 0:00:10.080 --> 0:00:13.360 Our episode on that battle came out eight years ago 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:17.400 on August eighth, twenty eighteen. For its one hundredth anniversary, 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:20.920 we are bringing it out today as a Saturday Classic. 0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:27.159 Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:37.640 production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:41.360 Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. We are coming 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:44.919 up on the hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Amion, 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:47.720 which started what came to be known as one hundred 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:51.000 Days Offensive. That was the ally's final push to win 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:54.760 World War One, and this particular battle and the one 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:58.160 hundred Days Offensive aren't really talked about as frequently as 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:01.080 some of the other big moments in World War All 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:04.319 of our other World War One related episodes are from 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:06.959 much earlier in the war a lot of the time 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:10.360 because it was the hundredth anniversary of that thing. So 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:12.520 we're gonna set the stage a little bit in this 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:15.679 episode before we get to the battle itself, especially with 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:18.880 how events that played out in nineteen seventeen led to 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:22.560 all of this and how the Battle of Ambian ultimately 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:26.000 led to the end of the war. Also, World War 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:29.720 One was massive. There was a lot going on in 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:32.160 other parts of the world during the time period that 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:35.399 we're talking about, So we are really just focused on 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:39.640 Europe here, particularly the Western Front, with the key players 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:43.000 being the British Empire, France, the United States, and Germany. 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:47.280 It is much too large to also talk about all 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:49.320 of the other battles going on in all of the 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:52.680 other places, with all of the other countries in nineteen 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:56.040 seventeen and nineteen eighteen. So World War One started, of 0:01:56.080 --> 0:02:00.440 course in nineteen fourteen. Although international tensions had been in 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:03.800 Europe for years before this point, things shifted with the 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:08.000 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. They 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:10.679 were shot to death in Sarajevo on June twenty eighth, 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:15.720 nineteen fourteen, by Serbian nationalists Gavrilo Prinzip. The arch Duke 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:17.560 had been the heir to the throne of the Austro 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:21.760 Hungarian Empire. The Empire suspected that the Serbian government was 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:26.880 involved in the assassination, so Austria Hungary declared war on Serbia, 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:30.520 and soon much of Europe was involved in this conflict. 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:34.960 Within two weeks, the Allies of Russia, Belgium, France, and 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:39.240 Great Britain had all sided with Serbia. Germany had sided 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:42.200 with the Austro Hungarian Empire as part of what would 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:46.000 be called the Central Powers, and more declarations of war 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:49.520 followed from there. This quickly became a war of attrition, 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:52.880 with the war on land in Europe being fought primarily 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:57.000 along the Eastern and Western fronts. Battles went on for months, 0:02:57.040 --> 0:03:01.119 with millions of casualties and catastrophic effects for the civilian population, 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:05.720 including famines and food shortages all over Europe. For most 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.400 of it, the situation between the Allies and the Central 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:12.600 Powers was essentially a stalemate. This was especially true along 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:16.120 the Western Front, which ran from the English Channel to Switzerland, 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:20.360 primarily through France. Something started to shift at the end 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:24.760 of nineteen seventeen, though Russian involvement in the war had 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:28.440 never been popular there and the war had compounded ongoing 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:33.720 economic problems and food shortages in Russia. The February Revolution 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:37.120 started on March eighth of nineteen seventeen. It's called the 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:40.560 February Revolution because Russia was still on the Julian calendar, 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:43.240 so from the Russian point of view, that was February. 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:47.360 The February Revolution started with strikes and riots, and it 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:50.960 led to the abdication of Sir Nicholas. The Second Unrest 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:55.680 continued after the February Revolution. The Bolshevik Revolution followed in 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:58.800 November of nineteen seventeen, and that was followed by the 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:02.400 Russian Civil War. With all of this going on, Russian 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:06.040 involvement in World War I effectively ended, and Russia signed 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:10.160 an armistice with the Central Powers in December of nineteen seventeen. 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:13.640 A lot of the fighting along the Eastern Front at 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:16.760 this point had been between Russia and Germany, so with 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:20.360 Russia out of the picture, German forces were freed up 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:24.120 to move to the Western Front instead. More than forty 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:28.240 divisions of German troops prepared to do exactly that. After 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:31.360 Russia withdrew from the war. The United States had also 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:35.599 declared war on Germany in April of nineteen seventeen. Although 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:38.360 the US had avoided becoming directly involved in the war 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:41.760 until that point, it had been providing supplies and other 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:45.440 aid to the Allies for quite some time, so at first, 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:48.440 the United States declaration of war didn't do much to 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:51.960 shift the balance of power, but the US committed troops 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:54.599 to the war effort as well, and those troops started 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:59.160 arriving in June of nineteen seventeen and entered combat that October. 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.560 Terms of actual troops, the American presence in the war 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:06.160 was pretty small in nineteen seventeen. That first arrival of 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:11.479 troops was only fourteen thousand men. By July of nineteen eighteen, though, 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:14.159 there would be more than a million American troops in 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:18.159 France alone, and unlike their counterparts who were already there, 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:22.520 these American troops weren't necessarily experienced, but they were fresh. 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:25.479 Most of the Allied troops who were already in Europe 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:29.359 were exhausted after months or years of fighting. So in 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:32.240 late nineteen seventeen, with Russia out of the war and 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:36.000 the United States ramping up to join it, Germany recognized 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:39.920 that it had a limited window of opportunity. The German 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:43.719 military was running out of everything, including people, but with 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:46.640 a quick decisive action, it might be able to force 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:50.720 the Allies to negotiate for peace before so many American 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:55.120 reinforcements arrived, or failing that, Germany might be able to 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:58.040 level the playing field, putting it on more equal footing 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:02.000 with the Allies during negotiations later on, rather than being 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:06.880 at a clear disadvantage. The Allies also recognized that Germany 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:10.240 had this one last opportunity to try to break out 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:12.800 of the stalemate. So at the start of nineteen eighteen, 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:16.400 Allied leaders were confident that a major German attack was 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:19.320 on the way and soon, but they weren't really sure 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:22.800 exactly when or where it came. On the first day 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:27.080 of Spring, that was March twenty first, nineteen eighteen, German 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:29.960 forces attacked a stretch of the Western Front south of 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:33.120 the French city of Arras. This was at a point 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:36.119 where French and British forces met on the Western Front, 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:39.479 and it was the weakest point along that line. Part 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:42.200 of the German objective was to cut these two forces 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:45.200 off from one another and then at least in theory, 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:49.560 Germany could fight French and British forces separately, overcoming both 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:53.600 of them. The German attack incorporated air strikes, a massive 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:58.479 artillery of bombardment and gas, including tear gas, chlorine and phosterene, 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.640 and this attempt to break through the Allied line and 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:05.800 they were immediately successful. The morning they attacked was foggy 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:09.159 and the Allies were caught by surprise. The British third 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:11.880 and fifth Armies were forced to retreat, and on March 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:15.800 twenty first alone, the British military saw thirty eight thousand, 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:20.920 five hundred casualties that included twenty one thousand soldiers taken prisoner. 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:25.000 Germany was able to advance about four miles or six 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:29.000 and a half kilometers, reclaiming in one day all the 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:32.360 ground that they had lost over the previous two years. 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:35.200 This March twenty first assault was the start of what 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:37.400 came to be known as the Spring Offensive or the 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:42.000 Ludendorf Offensive, that was named after Quartermaster General Eric Ludendorf, 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:44.960 who was leading the German military with Field Marshal Paul 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:49.840 von Hindenberg. In Germany, it was called Kaiserschlacht or Kaiser's Battle, 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:53.800 and the first phase was codenamed Operation Michael because it 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:56.040 covered some of the same territory as the Battle of 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:59.600 the Somme in nineteen sixteen. Sometimes it is also called 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:03.400 the Set and Battle of the Somme. Operation Michael ended 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:06.120 on April fifth, and by that point the German army 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:09.920 had captured about twelve thousand square miles of territory It's 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:13.360 about thirty one thousand square kilometers. This had come at 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:16.360 a great cost, though, with about two hundred and forty 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:19.680 thousand casualties that the German Army just had no good 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:23.680 way to replace. Together, French and British forces, including those 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:26.640 from Canada, Australia and other parts of the British Empire, 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:30.440 had suffered nearly two hundred and fifty thousand casualties. Just 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:34.679 to be clear, casualty numbers include everyone killed, wounded, or captured. 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:38.439 That initial goal of splitting the British and French troops 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:42.680 didn't ultimately work out because Germany didn't have the manpower 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:47.080 to really divide and fight against both armies. The Allies 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:51.000 also quickly realized the threat and united the Allied troops 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:54.360 under the command of French General Ferdinand Foche to better 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:57.800 coordinate their efforts. So, rather than facing an army that 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:01.520 was divided and left in chaos, Germany instead faced a 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:05.640 force that was united under one command. The overall Spring 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:09.120 Offensive ended on July fifteenth, nineteen eighteen, with the Second 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:12.600 Battle of the Marne. General Ludendorff tried to capture the 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:15.680 city of Rem, hoping to divide the French forces and 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:19.120 set a stage for an assault on Flanders. But unlike 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:23.160 on March twenty first, General Fouche anticipated this attack. He 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:26.840 and the Allies mounted a counter attack, and by July eighteenth, 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:31.640 German forces were retreating. Germany could not afford this loss, 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:35.280 especially since American troops were now arriving in France at 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:38.560 a rate of about three hundred thousand per month. The 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:42.240 nineteen eighteen flu pandemic was also sweeping across the globe 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:45.400 at this point, including through all of the armies involved 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:48.160 in the war. But the war was not over yet, 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:51.440 which brings us to Ammia, and we're first gonna pause 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:53.520 and have a sponsor break before we dig into that. 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:05.880 The Spring Offensive and the Allied counter attacks at the 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:08.520 Second Battle of the Marn were a shift in how 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:11.720 the war was being fought on the Western Front for 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:15.560 years that had been defined by the trenches. Trenches had 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:18.840 been used during battles in one way or another for centuries, 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:21.439 and they continued to be a part of warfare after 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:24.440 this point, but in World War One they were a 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:29.320 side effect of evolving military technologies, specifically machine guns and 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:34.040 artillery trenches were away for troops to gain some measure 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:37.560 of protection from these devastating weapons, even though it meant 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:40.000 that they couldn't really move once they were dug in. 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:43.800 During those years of stalemate, an attack on the enemy's 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:47.600 trench had usually combined a preliminary bombardment called a creeping 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:51.800 barrage with an advancing infantry. The barrage was supposed to 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:55.360 lay down artillery just ahead of the soldier's advance, providing 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:58.960 cover and clearing out the opposition, but a lot of 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:02.760 the time this did work. Barrages got too far ahead 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:05.800 of the troops, effectively serving as an advance warning for 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:09.360 the opposite side, or they tore up the terrain so 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:12.120 much that the soldiers had trouble crossing to get to 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:16.760 the enemy. Or barrages might move too slowly or fall short, 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:21.440 and the advancing infantry were killed as a result. Regardless, though, 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:25.760 armies wound up facing huge casualties in exchange for a 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:29.400 few yards of territory or none at all. By the 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:32.800 spring and summer of nineteen eighteen, though World War Ones, 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:35.719 opposing armies were starting to make better use of all 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:40.200 the available military technology to effectively assault the other side's trenches, 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:43.840 and the ally's first truly effective use of all that 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:47.160 technology was at the Battle of Homel, led by Australian 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:52.280 Core commander Lieutenant General John Monash. Monash planned the early 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:56.480 morning attack in absolute secrecy. He added smoke shells to 0:11:56.520 --> 0:12:00.640 the creeping barrage to obscure the battlefield. He also used tanks, 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:03.960 which had been introduced in nineteen sixteen, to plow through 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:08.320 the Germans barbed wire and fortifications and to deliver supplies 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:13.000 from behind the infantry advance. Eighteen aircraft were involved as well, 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:17.000 including some older ones specifically chosen because their engines were 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:19.080 loud enough to cover up the sound of the tanks. 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:23.480 The planes dropped bombs and flares, providing covering fire, and 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:27.680 reported back with information about the Germans positions. The plan 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:31.880 also included faking troop movements in using dummy installations to 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:35.280 further disguise what they were doing, and sending messages back 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:39.199 and forth by pigeon. This battle was an enormous success 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:43.680 for the Allies. The Allied troops, including American and Australian forces, 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:47.880 attacked early in the morning on July fourth. Within two hours, 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:51.360 they had obtained all of their objectives. This was really 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:55.000 the first time that all of the available military technology 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:57.960 had been put into use at once in such a 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:01.920 coordinated way. It was so effective that all of the 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:05.240 commanders of the British Expeditionary Force got a report about 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:08.360 it detailing what had gone so well after the battle 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:11.680 was over. The Battle of Amia built off these same 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:15.040 strategies that Monash had put into place at Homel. The 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:19.280 city of Amia was a major junction for railroads and communications, 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:22.320 and Germany had repeatedly tried to take it during the 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:26.520 Spring offensive. Germany had not succeeded, but it had stretched 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:29.560 out its line in the attempt, creating a bulge that 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:33.400 it didn't have the manpower to thoroughly defend. The Allies 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:38.800 attack on the salient was as before planned in total secrecy. 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:43.280 Before it started, they used fake radio transmissions and phony 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:46.880 troop movements to disguise their activity during the day, while 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:50.080 putting the men into their real positions at night. The 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:54.520 assault combined air support, artillery, tanks, and infantry. In terms 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:58.120 of numbers, the Allies had seventy five thousand men, more 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:01.199 than five hundred tanks, and nearly two two thousand aircraft 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:06.480 that troops included British, Canadian, Australian and French infantry, tank brigades, 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:10.720 British cavalry divisions, the Royal Air Force and American troops 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:14.600 that were held in reserve. Australian and Canadian troops formed 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:18.439 the spearhead of the infantry attack at Amia. By this point, 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:22.000 Australia's military had distinguished itself as part of the Australian 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:26.000 and New Zealand Army Corps that's ANZAC in the Gallipoli Campaign, 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:29.160 and the Canadian units had developed a reputation as the 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:34.880 British Empire's shock troops. Germany was out everything in this battle. 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:38.480 Exact numbers are in dispute. It is difficult to track 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:41.720 down precise numbers in a conflict like this, but they 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:44.680 had a much smaller fighting force, with only about five 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:48.000 hundred thirty guns and three hundred and seventy aircraft. They 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:51.160 had three lines of trenches, but these trenches weren't well 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:54.800 fortified and the communication networks among them were really spotty. 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:57.880 When the attack started at four twenty in the morning 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:01.160 on August eighth, nineteen eighteen, it came as a total surprise. 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:04.760 Fighting at the Battle of Amia went on for three days. 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:08.280 By that point, the Allies had advanced eight miles it's 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:11.920 about thirteen kilometers. They had liberated more than one hundred 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:15.920 towns and villages from the Germans. They'd also captured a 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:18.960 two hundred and eighty millimeter or eleven inch Krupp naval 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:21.680 gun that had been used to shell Amia from about 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:25.800 twenty five kilometers or that's sixteen miles away. This gun 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:28.640 had been mounted on a railway carriage, and the Australian 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:32.640 thirty first Battalion, fifth Division captured it by commandeering the 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:36.680 carriage and driving it back into Allied territory. They're very 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:40.440 proud of capturing this gun. I mean, it's not surprising 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:43.840 that they were, but it comes up a lot in 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:48.320 accounts of this day. After this hugely effective first day, 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:52.360 the Allied advance slowed over August ninth through eleventh. The 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:55.960 German forces started to regroup and offer a stronger resistance, 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:59.280 and on the eleventh, Sir Arthur Curry of the Canadian 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:02.720 Corps con General Sir Henley Rowlinson of the British Fourth 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:06.160 Army that they should consolidate their gains instead of continuing 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:10.200 to try to push ahead against increasingly tougher resistance. But 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:14.240 before that decision, the battle had devastated the German army. 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:18.240 Ludendorf called August eighth the black day of the German 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:21.240 Army in the history of the war. He also said 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:23.840 that it quote put the decline of that fighting power 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:27.480 beyond all doubt, and in such a situation as regards reserves, 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:31.160 I had no hope of finding a strategic expedient whereby 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:35.280 to turn the situation to our advantage. This wasn't just 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:38.480 because of the tens of thousands of casualties that the 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:41.840 German army saw that day. It was also that it 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:46.360 revealed the terrifically terrible morale among the German troops. At 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:49.640 least twelve thousand of them were taken prisoner, with huge 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:53.880 numbers of soldiers surrendering at once. There were even stories 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:57.880 of whole groups of Germans surrendering to a single Allied soldier, 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:01.200 or surrendering even when they they had the Allies in 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:06.320 that particular spot vastly outnumbered. Altogether, this was the worst 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:09.920 German defeat since the start of the war. Until this point, 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.480 Allied leaders had thought the war would last at least 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:15.840 until nineteen nineteen but this was the start of the 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:19.080 final one hundred days offensive that finally ended it, and 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:21.320 we're going to talk more about that after we pause 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:32.880 for a little sponsor break. After the Battle of Amion, 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:36.280 both General Eric Ludendorf and Kaiser Wilhelm the Second, the 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:39.080 Emperor of Germany, agreed that there was no way for 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:43.040 the German army to recover. Their goal became to avoid 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:46.720 an outright surrender, and the German army continued to fight 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:50.400 even as it fell back toward Germany. The Allied forces 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:53.240 continued to press ahead in this final push to bring 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:56.560 the war to an end. The last major objective to 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:59.760 this end was the Hindenburg Line, which was Germany's last 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:04.199 large scale fortification. The Hindenburg Line was a set of 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:08.440 three well defended trenches that had been established in nineteen seventeen. 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:11.919 The Allies planned their assault on the Hindenburg Line for 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:16.040 a full month before actually attacking its forward outposts near Fe, 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:21.240 France on September eighteenth, nineteen eighteen. The Allied forces finally 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:24.600 breached the Hendenburg Line on September twenty ninth, after four 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:29.400 days of heavy fighting, including firing nearly a million artillery 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:32.800 shells and At that point, Paul von Hendenberg and Eric 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:37.359 Ludendorf told Kaiservilhelm that the war was lost. On October first, 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:40.159 at a meeting of representatives of all the major German 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:44.119 political parties, Ludendorf and Hendenberg told the assembled group the 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:47.440 reality of the situation. A lot of them were shocked 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:50.400 to learn that things were going so badly for Germany. 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:56.760 Germany requested peace negotiations on October third. Ludendorf revised his 0:18:56.880 --> 0:19:00.480 opinion a little later in October, as Allied attack slowed 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:02.720 down to allow the supply lines to catch up to 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:06.560 the troops advance. But by that point word of the 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:09.919 dire condition of the German military had spread through its 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:13.879 civilian population. Like much of the rest of Europe, German 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:18.160 civilians had faced extreme hardship during the war, including near 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:22.600 starvation conditions thanks to an Allied blockade. In the face 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:26.160 of such grim news, the war just no longer had 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:30.080 the support of the German people, especially once he heard 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:34.280 the terms of the armistice, which involved making Germany completely 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:38.680 unable to renew hostilities. Ludendorff wanted to renew the fight, 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:42.160 but on October twenty sixth he was forced to resign. 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:46.120 By this point, there were rampant desertions going on all 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:50.440 over the German military. A massive mutiny also swept through 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:54.280 the Navy in late October and early November over orders 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:56.440 that they stayed an attack on the Royal Navy in 0:19:56.440 --> 0:20:00.560 an attempt to derail the armistice negotiations. The art Armistice 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:04.639 was finally signed on November eleventh, nineteen eighteen, at five am, 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:07.640 and the war ended at eleven am that same day. 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:11.640 The Canadian Corps also liberated the city of malt France 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:14.000 that day, which was where the last shot of the 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:16.719 war was fired. It was also the site of one 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:19.360 of the war's earliest battles, and there's actually an episode 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:23.320 about that battle in our archive. By this point, Kaiservillhelm 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:25.760 the Second had been forced to abdicate and had gone 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:29.720 into exile, and German Chancellor Friedrich Ebert had started to 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:33.879 form a provisional government. During the last hundred days of 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:38.840 the war, French forces saw five hundred and thirty thousand casualties. 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:41.840 There were more than four hundred thousand casualties among the 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:44.240 British troops, including the troops from the rest of the 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:49.040 British Empire. That's not just from the UK. American forces 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:52.640 saw one hundred and twenty seven thousand casualties, and there 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:56.479 were seven hundred and eighty five thousand casualties just among 0:20:56.560 --> 0:20:59.800 the Germans, with three hundred and sixty eight thousand taken prisoner. 0:21:00.440 --> 0:21:04.879 The German army was also very clearly defeated after that 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:07.439 initial rally in the Spring Offensive, the tide of the 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:10.919 war had turned hard against it, and with millions of 0:21:10.960 --> 0:21:14.320 American troops on the ground in Europe dramatically increasing the 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:17.360 ALLIS numbers, there was just no way that Germany could 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:21.560 have turned that around. But the false idea spread through 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:25.679 the German military that Germany had not been defeated. Instead, 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:28.800 this idea took route, didn't take root, as though it 0:21:28.840 --> 0:21:32.359 came out of nowhere, like it was intentionally spread that 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:34.760 the German Army had been stabbed in the back by 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:38.760 civilian leaders who negotiated and signed the Armisis. According to 0:21:38.800 --> 0:21:42.080 this mindset, which was spread by Ludendorf and other high 0:21:42.160 --> 0:21:47.159 ranking officers intentionally, the officials who signed the armistice were traders. 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:51.840 Adolf Hitler would later brand them the November criminals. This 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:55.280 led to a whole conspiracy theory about a betrayal of 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:58.280 the German military at the hands of Jews, which became 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:01.960 part of Nazi propaganda the years after the war. The 0:22:02.080 --> 0:22:04.560 terms of the armistice and the Treaty of Versailles that 0:22:04.680 --> 0:22:07.560 ended the war also contributed to the run up to 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:11.440 World War II. Under that armistice, Germany had to surrender 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:20.440 territory and war materials, including thousands of pieces of artillery, guns, trains, aircraft, battleships, submarines, destroyers, 0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:24.240 and other naval vessels. Germany was also to surrender its 0:22:24.280 --> 0:22:28.040 prisoners of war immediately, but there were no reciprocal terms 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:31.919 for the other nations to return German prisoners. Under the 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:35.400 Treaty of Versailles, Germany was prohibited from joining the League 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:39.040 of Nations until nineteen twenty six. The treaty also drew 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:43.760 new borders that gave territory to Germany's neighbors, stripped Germany 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:47.600 of its colonies, and required Germany to pay reparations that 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:52.640 were economically disastrous. All of this ultimately contributed to Hitler's 0:22:52.760 --> 0:22:55.879 rise of power, which we talk about in our episode 0:22:55.960 --> 0:22:58.720 On the Night of the Long Knives is a really 0:22:58.800 --> 0:23:03.120 bummer place to end an episode so if you were 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:05.320 listening to this and you were like, this reminds me 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:17.960 of Wonder Woman. Yes, obviously, Ludendorf in Wonder Woman is 0:23:18.000 --> 0:23:22.399 a fictionalized version of this guy who we talked about 0:23:22.400 --> 0:23:30.400 in this show. Thanks so much for joining us on 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:32.880 this Saturday. If you'd like to send us a note, 0:23:32.920 --> 0:23:37.679 our email addresses History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com, and 0:23:37.880 --> 0:23:40.440 you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app, 0:23:40.560 --> 0:23:43.840 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.