Also the Picardy countryside provided a good surface for tanks, which was not the case in Flanders. As in 1916, it marked the boundary between the BEF and the French armies, in this case defined by the Amiens-Roye road, allowing the two armies to cooperate. :472 The Somme was chosen as a suitable site for the offensive for several reasons. :155Ī number of proposals were considered, and finally Foch agreed on a proposal by Field Marshal Douglas Haig, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), to strike on the Somme, east of Amiens and southwest of the 1916 battlefield of the Battle of the Somme, with the intention of forcing the Germans away from the vital Amiens-Paris railway. The British Army had also been reinforced by large numbers of troops returned from campaigns in Palestine and Italy, and large numbers of replacements previously held back in Britain by Prime Minister David Lloyd George. ![]() Pershing, was keen to use his army in an independent role. The American Expeditionary Force was now present in France in large numbers, and their presence invigorated the Allied armies. For this victory, Foch was granted the title Marshal of France.įoch considered the time had arrived for the Allies to return to the offensive. The Germans, recognising their untenable position, withdrew from the Marne towards the north. When Operation Marne-Rheims ended in July, the Allied supreme commander, the French Ferdinand Foch, ordered a counter-offensive which became the Second Battle of the Marne. The Germans had advanced to the Marne River but failed to achieve a decisive breakthrough. ![]() The German Spring Offensives on the Western Front, which began on 21 March 1918 with Operation Michael, had petered out by July. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Irelandīritish forces took 188,700 prisoners and captured 2,840 guns įrench forces took 139,000 prisoners and captured 1,880 guns Īmerican forces took 44,142 prisoners and captured 1,481 guns īelgian forces took 14,500 prisoners and captured 414 guns. ![]() Part of the Western Front of the First World War
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