Spring Offensive

Yeah.

Uh, so, and th- this, this is what, uh, this is part of what allowed the events of 1918 happen because, uh, the first big battles of 1918 is the, uh, German Hail Mary pass, the spring offensive and whatnot, the whole 100, the, uh ...

I don't know if it's for them, the 100 days, or is it for Allies?

Right.

And at, at the start they were even going like, "Eh, what do you Euros know about this war you have been fighting for four years now? The only thing you need to do is advance to, advance on the enemy with, um, you know, fire in your gut and you will win it." Then it turns out the, the Europeans tried that in '14 and maybe '15, and there's a reason why they're not doing that anymore.

Right.

And this is exactly the system for reenacting the Spring Offensive and also running into trenches bayonets first.

Yeah.

It was 'cause they're just- they just want to surrender, really.

It's 'cause you've had the great Kaiserschlacht, the, the, the king's battle, the k- the emperor's battle, the Kaiser's battle in 1918.

The German massive last offensive to see if they can finally break through to Paris and end the war and win the war on the Western Front, and it had failed.

By the, by the 8th of October or whatever in 1918, that had failed.

And that is not really taking place in the fall of 1918.

On March 22nd of 1918, the Germans had launched what they call the Kaiserschlacht or the Kaiser's Battle.

And It uses a lot of Stoss Taktik, which is looking for weak points, exploiting them, moving forward.

In some ways, it's an incredibly successful offensive.

Rather than following a rigid plan from headquarters, junior officers were encouraged to use their own initiative on the battlefield.

These tactics were used with increasing success, culminating in the 1918 Spring Offensive.

While the German forces made rapid gains, they eventually stalled as they outran their supplies and reinforcements.

Similar tactics had been suggested by French and Russian officers, but were not adopted as official doctrine in those countries.