At 4.20 a.m. on 8 August 1918, in fog, the British Fourth Army attacked the German lines east of Amiens, with the Australian and Canadian Corps in the center, a British corps on the left and the French First Army on the right. Covered by a creeping barrage, hundreds of tanks and swarms of aircraft, the attackers advanced up to about 13 km in a single day and took prisoners in great numbers. General Erich Ludendorff called it the black day of the German Army. The battle went on until 11 August and opened the Allied Hundred Days Offensive that ended the war.
Planned in secret
By the summer of 1918 the great German spring offensives had stalled, and the Allies were ready to attack. The Canadian Encyclopedia notes that the plan came from the French general Ferdinand Foch; the Australian War Memorial stresses that it was prepared in the strictest secrecy. Troops moved up at night, the Germans were misled about where the blow would fall, and there was no preliminary bombardment to give the attack away.1
The firepower was immense. The Imperial War Museums put it at more than 2,000 guns, over 500 tanks and over 1,900 British and French aircraft; the Canadian Encyclopedia gives more than 600 tanks and 2,000 aircraft. Among the tanks were the new Mark V and 72 fast Whippets.2
The black day
At 4.20 a.m. the guns opened fire and the infantry went forward, hidden by a heavy mist and, in the Canadian sector, by smoke laid from the air. A creeping barrage moved ahead of them, with tanks, machine guns and mortars in close support, while aircraft searched out German targets and kept German planes away. Many Germans, taken entirely by surprise, surrendered at the first chance.3
By the Australian War Memorial's count the Australians advanced 11 km on their front and the Canadians nearly 13 km; the Imperial War Museums give the Fourth Army more than 8 miles, almost 13 km, on its main front and the French about 8 km. Ludendorff, the effective commander of the German army, wrote that 8 August was "the black day of the German Army in the history of this war"; the Imperial War Museums trace his words to the number of prisoners lost and the depth of the advance.4
The Imperial War Museums also point out that the story is usually told almost entirely through the Australians and Canadians, while the part of the French and the British infantry, tank crews, gunners and airmen is often overlooked.5
The beginning of the end
After the first day the advance slowed against wire, old trenches and German reserves, and the battle ended on 11 August. The Canadian Encyclopedia puts Canadian casualties for the whole battle at more than 11,800, including 1,036 killed on 8 August alone, and Allied killed and wounded at more than 19,000. The Australian War Memorial recalls that thousands died in the operation despite its success.6
The victory began the period known as the Hundred Days, which lasted until the armistice of 11 November 1918. The Imperial War Museums write that from this point on the senior German commanders, the Kaiser included, knew the war was lost. The whole campaign is told in our article on the Hundred Days Offensive.7
Also on this day
- 1941: Siege of Odessa. In the first months of the Axis attack on the Soviet Union, Romanian and German troops besieged the Black Sea port of Odessa, held by Soviet forces backed by the Black Sea Fleet.
