Problematica Primului Război Mondial în „Revista de Istorie Militară” editată de Centrul pentru istorie și științe sociale al Bundeswehr­ului (4)
World War 1 in the “Review of Military History” Published by the Center for Military History and Social Sciences of the Bundeswehr (4)

Summary/Abstract: The paper highlights the efforts of the Supreme German Army Command, which, after a separate peace with Russia, did everything possible to achieve a “victorious peace” in the West in the spring of 1918 before the US Armed Forces joined the Entente, beginning in the summer of that year. In the operation called “Michael” or “Kaiserschlacht”, the German Reich attempted to force the military victory on the western front against the Powers of the Entente in March and April 1918. In total, 73 divisions with one million people were involved in the German Offensive in March, which had as main objective the breaking of the front to the limit between the British and French troops and the pushing of the British expeditionary army to the north. Already on the first day of the campaign, March 21, the opponent’s defence could be pierced and a penetration on a wide front of up to 20 kilometres deep, after only three days. Although, in only two weeks, the German forces, through successive operations, advanced on a front of nearly 80 kilometres wide and up to 60 kilometres deep, and managed, in the attack sector, to temporarily emerge from the deadlock of the positional war and to return to the war of manoeuvre, the strategic situation of the German Army worsened due to the numerous victims and the lack of a reserve to replace them, and due to the lack of adequate concepts and resources sufficient for the operational development of the offensive, it had failed operational at the beginning of the month June. Finally, the situation of the German army deteriorated and had nothing to do with the offensive of the Entente, which began in July.

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