battle of Amiens/Montdidier

Amiens/Montdidier, battle of (1918), one of the most significant battles of WW I, its first day what Ludendorff called ‘the black day of the German army in the history of the war’. For the British army, having shouldered the main burden of combat after the French mutinies and the Russian Revolution of November 1917, and before American strength could make itself felt on the battlefield at Saint-Mihiel the following month, Amiens is a distinguished, if poorly remembered, battle honour. And for the Australian and Canadian troops who played a leading part in the battle, Amiens was yet more proof of New World valour on the battlefields of the old (see Anzac, Australian Imperial Force, Canadian Expeditionary Force).

By August 1918 the Allied artillery had established dominance over the German but the Germans still held a salient bulging out towards the main railway from Paris to Amiens. The Allied command planned to clear the salient of Germans along a 20 mile (32 km) front. The British Fourth Army, under Gen Sir Henry Rawlinson, comprising the British III Corps, the Australian Corps, and the Canadian Corps, plus XXXI Corps of the French First Army, concentrated for the attack: a total force of 18 infantry and 3 cavalry divisions, with 3, 532 guns (2, 070 of them British), 534 tanks—the largest number in any battle of the war—and about 1, 000 aircraft of which 800 were British, from the newly formed RAF. The opposition in this area was the German Second Army with 7 weak infantry divisions, 840 guns, and 106 aircraft. On 8 August the British and French attacked without the customary long preliminary bombardment, achieving surprise. For some days the sound-ranging sections and flash-spotting observation posts and the RAF had been engaged in plotting the positions of the German artillery. The moment the assault began, as Maj Gen Sir Archibald Montgomery said, the German artillery was ‘deluged by a hurricane bombardment and neutralised to such an extent that hostile artillery retaliation was almost negligible’. Using tanks in co-ordination with the well-adjusted artillery fire and aircraft the British penetrated 7 miles (11 km) on the first day, killing or capturing 28, 000 Germans and taking 400 guns. On the second day the full strength of the French First Army was brought in to the south, and on 10 August part of the French Third Army was engaged even further to the south. However, heavy losses of Allied tanks slowed the advance, and the Germans fought ferociously and well in the air, downing 45 aircraft and irreparably damaging 52 on the first day—a tenth of the total force engaged and a fifth of the bombers. By the end of 13 August the British and French had penetrated up to 18 km (11 miles) on a 47 mile (75 km) front, killed or wounded 18, 000 Germans, and captured 30, 000.

The operation succeeded, in part because the German defences were too shallow and insufficiently prepared, in part because of surprise and the use of tanks and aircraft en masse. However, the tanks were designed and used only for breakthrough, and were unsuitable for deep exploitation which was still the task of cavalry. After Amiens the strategic initiative now passed irretrievably back to the Allies. And the kind of war they were fighting was looking increasingly like aspects of WW II. In terms of its careful emphasis on surprise, artillery concentration, and methodical planning, Amiens pointed the way ahead to Alamein.

Bibliography

• Blaxland, Gregory, Amiens 1918 (London, 1968).
• Terraine, John, White Heat (London, 1982)

— Christopher Bellamy