alternatehistory.com

…Entente preparations for the 1919 Spring offensive had begun even before the German Spring offensive of 1918. At this point it was expected that American forces would be used during the late summer and fall to help secure jumping off points for an offensive in the next year. The German Attacks caused this to be abandoned, and the Entente were forced to contend with starting from a far inferior position, with the British and especially the Americans playing a far more prominent role given the enormous losses inflicted on the French.

What remained of the early plans was an emphasis on using the Entente’s ever growing material superiority against the Germans. The Entente had more guns, more ammunition, more gas, more planes, more trucks and especially more tanks. The emphasis on planning was that bullets, not blood would be spent for victory to as great a degree as possible.

This took a number of forms. One highly ambitious plan from the British called for a massed use of tanks and airpower to attack German supply and command nodes. The plans architect, J.F.C. Fuller of the Tank Corps, argued that it would allow the German army to be effectively defeated without paying an enormous cost by going for the head and leaving the body to rot.

Fuller’s plan was considered too ambitious by many on the Imperial general staff and at the Supreme Headquarters. Many plans had promised a quick end to the deadlock without having to fight the mass of the German army and all had ended in failure. No one had any great expectations that Fuller’s would be different.

More importantly Fuller’s plan was physically impossible. Fuller was using production projections from early 1918 to base his arguments on. Even accounting for those optimistic figures the Spring Offensive would have to be delayed a month to have sufficient numbers of the new tanks and ground attack aircraft, a tradeoff Fuller and others in the Tank Corps thought was worth it and few others did. With the disruption caused by the German Spring Offensive and the need to shift priorities, as well as greater than expected use of steel by the Navy and design difficulties with the Mark D Tank and the Sopwith Salamander trench fighter meant that even in the best case the attack would have to be put off until summer. This was blatantly unacceptable and Fuller’s plan was roundly rejected…

…The largest influence Fuller’s plan would have would come postwar. Fuller used his position at the war office to passionately argue in favor of his plan, claiming that last phase of the war would have gone better if his plan was implemented. He published several books supporting that view, alongside his publications on military history and the occult…

…Fuller would prove to be the Brusilov of the West, in that his ideas were taken, improved upon and implemented to their greatest effect by the Germans. Whereas Brusilov’s ideas would take two years to reach their zenith in the Spring Offensive, Fuller’s would take two decades. And where Brusilov’s ideas were copied without his consent, Fuller fully approved of and actively encouraged what the Germans did with his work in the interwar period…

…The final plan of the Entente Spring offensive of 1919 was essentially the German plan from Spring 1918 in reverse. The same Firewall bombardments and stormtrooper infiltrations that the Germans used on the Entente would be turned on them. The Entente forces would have far more artillery, far more air support, make greater use of specialized infantry gear and would have armored support. One new wrinkle would be added to the plans in the use of gas. The Entente were both preparing to use it on a larger scale than ever, but also had a new horror that would be mixed in with the traditional Mustard Gas, something that looked likely to replicate the initial success of gas at Ypres in April 1915…

…German plans for the Entente Spring offensive were based on the same plans they used to bleed the British white at Passchendaele. Two thirds of their divisions would hold the frontline and would be focused on delaying Entente breakthroughs. The remaining third would consist of higher quality Eingrief, or counterattack, divisions that would hit the enemy while they were in the exposed forward positions.

Ludendorff placed a disproportionate number of Eingrief divisions in Flanders to face the British. His postwar memoirs would claim he did this as part of a deliberate strategy to bleed the British and weaken them at the peace table vis a vis the Americans. Other sources claim that he thought the primary weight of the Spring Offensive would come there, believing the British would continue to insist on the Kriegsmarine bases on the Flemish coast as a primary target…

-Excerpt from The Loss of Innocence: America in the Great War, Harper & Brothers, New York 2014





Okay some progression, I hope