Second Battle of the Marne (1918): The Turning of the Tide

The Second Battle of the Marne (15 July – 6 August 1918) was the last great German offensive of the First World War and the moment the war on the Western Front turned decisively in the Allies’ favour. A German attack on both sides of Reims was halted within days, and on 18 July a French-led counter-attack, with strong American support, struck the flank of the German salient and drove the enemy back from the Marne. From then until the Armistice, the initiative belonged to the Allies.

Background

From March 1918 the German commander Erich Ludendorff launched a series of massive blows, the German Spring Offensive, hoping to win the war before American troops arrived in strength. The third of these, on the Aisne in late May, broke through French lines and created a deep salient reaching the Marne at Château-Thierry, only about 90 km from Paris. American troops helped stop it, notably at the Battle of Belleau Wood.

Ludendorff’s real aim was a decisive offensive against the British in Flanders. To draw Allied reserves away from there, he planned another attack in Champagne, on either side of Reims, to widen the salient and capture the city. German troops later called it the Friedensturm, the “peace offensive”, because many hoped it would end the war.

The German attack, 15 July

The French had good warning from deserters, prisoners and aerial reconnaissance, and French artillery opened fire shortly before the German bombardment on the night of 14–15 July. East of Reims, General Henri Gouraud’s Fourth Army used an “elastic defence”: the forward line was held only by small outposts, and the German infantry, having overrun them, met the intact main line beyond the reach of their own guns. The attack there collapsed in a single day.

West of Reims the Germans had more success. They crossed the Marne near Dormans on pontoon bridges and established a bridgehead several kilometres deep, but Allied artillery and aircraft attacked the crossings constantly. The US 3rd Division held firm on the south bank near the Surmelin valley, earning the nickname “Rock of the Marne”. By 17 July the offensive had stalled.

The Allied counter-attack, 18 July

The Allied Supreme Commander, General Ferdinand Foch, had already prepared a counter-stroke. On 18 July, without a long preliminary bombardment, General Charles Mangin’s French Tenth Army attacked out of the forest of Villers-Cotterêts against the western flank of the salient near Soissons, supported by General Jean Degoutte’s Sixth Army further south. Hundreds of light Renault tanks accompanied the infantry, and the US 1st and 2nd Divisions formed part of the spearhead.

The surprise was considerable. Allied guns soon threatened the railway through Soissons that supplied the German salient. Over the following weeks French, American, British and Italian divisions pressed in from several sides, while the Germans conducted a skilful fighting withdrawal. By 6 August they were back behind the Vesle and Aisne rivers, and the salient that had threatened Paris was gone.

By the numbers

Figures are estimates and differ between sources.

Consequences

Ludendorff cancelled the planned Flanders offensive, and Germany never again launched a major attack on the Western Front. Its armies had suffered heavy losses since March, morale was falling, and the influenza pandemic was spreading through the ranks. Foch was made a Marshal of France on 6 August 1918.

Two days later, on 8 August, the British and French opened the Battle of Amiens, beginning the series of Allied advances known as the Hundred Days Offensive that ended with the Armistice of 11 November.

Key people

Ferdinand Foch coordinated the Allied armies as Supreme Commander and insisted on the counter-attack. Philippe Pétain, commander of the French armies, organised the defensive arrangements. Charles Mangin, an aggressive general, led the decisive blow at Soissons, and Henri Gouraud directed the elastic defence east of Reims. On the German side, Erich Ludendorff, First Quartermaster-General, planned the offensive.

Timeline

• 1918, 27 May: German Aisne offensive breaks through and reaches the Marne.
• 1918, 15 July: German attack opens on both sides of Reims.
• 1918, 15–16 July: Gouraud’s defence stops the attack east of Reims; Germans cross the Marne to the west.
• 1918, 18 July: French and American counter-attack near Soissons.
• 1918, 20 July: German troops begin withdrawing back across the Marne.
• 1918, 2 August: French troops re-enter Soissons.
• 1918, 6 August: Germans settle on the Vesle; Foch is named Marshal of France.

Why it matters

The Second Battle of the Marne ended Germany’s last chance of winning the war in the west. It showed the growing weight of American troops, the skill of a coordinated Allied command and the effectiveness of combined infantry, artillery and tank attacks. Within four months of the counter-attack, Germany had asked for an armistice.