Allies the German leaders wanted a victory on the battlefield as soon as possible to force the British and French to accept a cease fire The Spring offensive began with a massive artillery bombardment The Germans opened up with 6 500 heavy guns and mortars firing 1 2 million shells at the Allied lines in a span of five hours Germany's Eighteenth Army advanced reaching the outskirts of Amiens and the town of Albert From the front long range German guns could now bombard civilians in the capital of Paris But General Ludendorff had ordered his troops to advance at all possible speed bringing minimal equipment and food This extended the German supply lines preventing crucial resupply of the frontline units When the hungry German infantrymen reached French towns they stopped advancing and began looting This stopped the Spring offensive in its tracks just as the first American troops were arriving in France In July Ludendorff sent 52 divisions against Allied positions around the city of Reims northeast of Paris French and American armies including the US Third Infantry Division stopped the offensive in three days Ludendorff and his aides realized Germany could no longer resupply its army at the same rate it was losing troops ammunition and equipment Through the summer of 1918 Germany's military situation grew even worse British and American units were now forcing the German troops from positions they had been holding for the last four
I a General Erich Ludendorff right studies a map with General Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg left and Kaiser Wilhelm II center With the failure of the Spring offensive and the setbacks of the following summer Ludendorff knew Germany was beaten In late September he informed Kaiser Wilhelm II the German emperor that the army faced a hopeless situation
on the western front Although Germany could probably stop an invasion of its homeland morale was sinking fast German troops were at the point of mutiny Thousands of men were deserting the front lines and risking a firing squad to return home PRESIDENT WILSON AND THE PEACE Elected president of the United States in 1912 Woodrow Wilson had kept his country out of the conflict when it began in 1914 But the American public followed the war closely in newspapers which featured front page reports of German atrocities in Belgium In 1915 a German submarine sank the RMS Lusitania and 128 American civilians died After Wilson's reelection in 1916 American opinion began to turn In April 1917 Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war Congress agreed and American troops began landing in Europe later that year Wilson believed the end of the war when it came should bring a new era of peace based on several important principles He laid out these ideas known as the Fourteen Points in a speech to Congress in January 1918 That fall German leaders saw the Fourteen Points as the basis for an armistice with the Allies The United Kingdom and France had been fighting for more than four years They had expended huge sums on the war and suffered nearly 10 million military casualties Trench warfare and artillery bombardments had devastated the
Rep Woodrow Wilson reads the Fourteen points to Congress plains of Belgium and northern France British and French leaders wanted no less than an unconditional surrender by Germany Wilson insisted the Allies accept Germany's offer Otherwise he promised the United States would negotiate a separate peace with Germany He also insisted that Wilhelm II the emperor of Germany must abdicate or give up power France and the United Kingdom were not prepared to carry on without American help On November 9 Germany announced that Wilhelm had given up his throne Two days later Germany France and the United Kingdom signed the armistice ending the war in western Europe Germany was to retreat immediately
