How Germany nearly won, then suddenly lost twice is instructive

One hundred years ago this month, all hell broke loose in France. On March 21, 1918, the German army on the Western Front unleashed a series of massive attacks on the exhausted British and French armies.

German General Erich Ludendorff thought he could win World War I by punching holes between the French and British armies and driving through their trenches to the English Channel, isolating and destroying the British army.

The British naval blockade of Germany after three years had reduced Germany to near famine. More than 200,000 American reinforcement troops were arriving each month in France. ( Nearly 2 million would land altogether.) American farms and factories were sending over huge shipments of food and munitions to the Allies.

Yet the war had suddenly swung in Germany’s favor by March 1918. The German army had just knocked Russia out of the war. The victory on the Eastern Front freed up nearly 1 million German and Austrian soldiers, who were transferred west.

The Spring Offensive almost worked. Within days the British army suffered some 50,000 casualties. About a half-million French, British and American troops were killed or wounded during the offensive.

But within a month, the Germans were sputtering. They had greedily left a million soldiers behind to occupy and annex huge sections of conquered Eastern Europe and western Russia. By summer of 2018, the Germans were exhausted. In August, the Allies began their own even bigger offensive and crushed the Germans, ending the war in November.

What were the lessons of the failed German offensive?

The fortunes of war can change in days. In late March 1918, the Germans thought the war was won. Three months later, it was lost. Often, the worst moments of war come right before the end, as the last-gasp battles of Waterloo, the Bulge and Okinawa remind us. Long-term strategy matters. Without a strategic vision, shortterm tactical success means nothing. The advancing Germans had no real idea of what to do next — even if they reached the English Channel.

In our time, America has never quite determined its strategic aims in the nearly 17-year- old Afghan war. Is it to crush the Taliban? To build a democracy in Afghanistan? To rid the country of terrorist havens? To stop the opium trade? To make Afghanistan economically and militarily self- sufficient? To simply not lose? All have been mentioned as American goals.

Alliances are critical. What did it matter that Germany defeated Russia if meanwhile it provoked a stronger new enemy in America? The key to denuclearizing North Korea is creating a frontline partnership of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States — and to flip China or Russia to our side so sanctions strangle Pyongyang.

War is decided by economics as well as soldiers. Germany’s soldiers didn’t have enough food or munitions. In many ways, 1918 Germany was like today’s Russia — formidable on the battlefield, but only for a short duration and without the economic ability to finish what it starts.

Leaders usually ignore history. A little more than 20 years after the Spring Offensive, Hitler’s Third Reich fought America, Britain, France and Russia; unleashed its armies in a two-front war in Europe; was blockaded; and lost another world war.

The final battles of World War I will have their 100 anniversaries this year. But the lessons of how Germany almost won and then suddenly lost are ageless.