Order of battle for the Spring Offensive

Main articles: Operation Michael and Spring Offensive

German Spring Offensive, 1918

Part of the Western Front of World War I

German gains in 1918

Date	21 March – 18 July 1918
Location	Northern France; West Flanders, Belgium
Result	Tactical German success Operational/Strategic German failure

Belligerents

German Empire

France British Empire

United States
Italy

Portugal

Commanders and leaders

Erich Ludendorff

Ferdinand Foch
Douglas Haig
Philippe Pétain
John Pershing Alberico Albricci

Tamagnini de Abreu

Western Front

Belgium
- Halen
- Liège
- Dinant
- Namur
Frontiers
- Charleroi
- Mons
Great Retreat
- 1st Marne
1st Aisne
Antwerp
Race to the Sea
- Yser
- 1st Ypres
- Winter operations
1st Artois
1st Champagne
Hartmannswillerkopf
Neuve Chapelle
2nd Ypres
2nd Artois
2nd Champagne
Loos
3rd Artois
Verdun
Somme
Arras
2nd Aisne
3rd Champagne (The Hills)
Messines
3rd Ypres (Passchendaele)
La Malmaison
1st Cambrai
Spring
Hundred Days
- Amiens

Spring Offensive

Operation Michael Lys 3rd Aisne Belleau Wood Montdidier-Noyon Hamel 2nd Marne Order of Battle

This is the order of battle for Operation Michael, part of the German Spring Offensive fought from 21 March to 5 April 1918 as one of the main engagements of the First World War. It was fought between mixed French, British and Dominion forces and the German Empire in the Somme region in northern France.

German forces, Western Front

Army Group Crown Prince Rupprecht

Generalfeldmarschall Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria
- Chief of Staff: General von Kuhl

4th Army (18 divisions)
- General der Infanterie Sixt von Armin
- Chief of Staff: General von Lossberg

6th Army (15 divisions)
- General der Infanterie Ferdinand von Quast
- Chief of Staff: Lieutenant-Colonel Baron von Lenz

17th Army (28 divisions) *
- General der Infanterie Otto von Below
- Chief of Staff: General Krafft von Dellmensingen

2nd Army (21 divisions)
- General der Kavallerie Georg von der Marwitz
- Chief of Staff: Colonel Erich von Tschischwitz

Army Group German Crown Prince

General der Infanterie Wilhelm, Crown Prince of Germany
- Chief of Staff: Colonel Count von der Schulenburg

18th Army (27 divisions)
- General der Infanterie Oskar von Hutier
- Chief of Staff: General von Sauberzweig

7th Army (11 divisions)
- Generaloberst Max von Boehn
- Chief of Staff: Lieutenant-Colonel Reinhardt

1st Army (12 divisions)
- General der Infanterie Fritz von Below
- Chief of Staff: Lieutenant-Colonel von Klüber

3rd Army (11 divisions)
- Generaloberst Karl von Einem
- Chief of Staff: Lieutenant-Colonel von Klewitz

Army Group Gallwitz

General der Artillerie Max von Gallwitz
- Chief of Staff: Lieutenant-Colonel von Pawelsz

5th Army (12 divisions)
- General der Artillerie Max von Gallwitz
- Chief of Staff: Lieutenant-Colonel von Pawelsz

Armee-Abteilung C (12 divisions)
- Generalleutnant Georg Fuchs
- Chief of Staff: Colonel Baron von Ledebur

Army Group Duke Albrecht

Generalfeldmarschall Albrecht, Duke of Württemberg
- Chief of Staff: Colonel Heye

19th Army (10.5 divisions)
- General der Infanterie Felix Graf von Bothmer
- Chief of Staff: Colonel Baron von Hemmer

Armee-Abteilung A (5 infantry, 2 dismounted cavalry divisions)
- General der Infanterie Bruno von Mudra
- Chief of Staff: Lieutenant-Colonel Baron von Esebeck

Armee-Abteilung B (9 infantry, 1 dismounted cavalry division)
- General der Infanterie Erich von Gündell
- Chief of Staff: Lieutenant-Colonel Drechsel^[1]

British Fifth and Third armies

Fifth Army

General Sir Hubert Gough

III Corps (Lieutenant-General Sir R. H. K. Butler)
XVIII Corps (Lieutenant-General Sir I. Maxse)
- 36th (Ulster) Division
- 30th Division
- 61st (2nd South Midland) Division
- 20th (Light) Division (from 21 March)
XIX Corps (Lieutenant-General Sir H. E. Watts)
- 24th Division
- 66th (2nd East Lancashire) Division
- 50th (Northumbrian) Division (from 21 March)
- 8th Division (from 22 March)
VII Corps (Lieutenant-General Sir W. N. Congreve VC)
- 16th (Irish) Division
- 21st Division
- 9th (Scottish) Division
- 39th Division
- 35th Division (from 23 March)
- 12th (Eastern) Division (from 25 March)^[2]

US Army

6th Battalion United States (railway) Engineers (2 companies)^[3]

Third Army

General Hon. Sir Julian Byng

V Corps (Lieutenant-General Sir E. A. Fanshawe)
- 47th (1/2nd London) Division
- 63rd (Royal Naval) Division
- 17th (Northern) Division
- 2nd Division
- 19th (Western) Division
- 12th (Eastern) Division (from 8:30pm on 25 March)
IV Corps (Lieutenant-General Sir G. M. Harper)
- 51st (Highland) Division
- 6th Division
- 25th Division
- 19th (Western) Division (from 21 March)
- 41st Division (from 22 March)
- 42nd (East Lancashire) Division (from 24 March)
- 62nd (2nd West Riding) Division (from 25 March)
- New Zealand Division (from 25/26 March)
- 4th Australian Division (from 25/26 March)
VI Corps (Lieutenant-General Sir J. A. L. Haldane)
- 59th (2nd North Midland) Division
- 34th Division
- 3rd Division
- 40th Division (from 21 March)
- Guards Division (from 22 March)
- 31st Division (from 22 March)
XVII Corps Corps (Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Fergusson, Bt.)
Cavalry Corps (Lieutenant-General Sir C. T. MacM. Kavanagh)

French Group of Armies of Reserve

General Émile Fayolle

Third Army

General Georges Louis Humbert

V Corps (General Pellé)

125th Division (from 22 March)
1st Dismouted Cavalry Division (from 23 March)
9th Division (from 23 March)
10th Division (from 23 March)
55th Division (from 24 March)
1st Division (from 25 March)
35th Division (from 25 March)
53rd Division (part, from 26 March)
77th Division (part, from 26 March)

II Cavalry Corps (General Robillot)^{[Note 1]}

22nd Division (from 24 March)
62nd Division (from 24 March)

First Army

General Marie-Eugène Debeney

56th Division (from 25 March)
II Cavalry Corps^{[Note 2]}
1st Cavalry Division (from 26 March)
5th Cavalry Division (from 26 March)
6th Cavalry Division (from 27 March)^[4]

Notes

↑ Staff only^[4]
↑ Divisions were deployed separately^[4]

Footnotes

↑ Kitchen 2001, pp. 320–321.
1 2 Davies, Edmonds & Maxwell-Hyslop 1935, pp. 545–547.
↑ Davies, Edmonds & Maxwell-Hyslop 1935, p. 507.
1 2 3 Davies, Edmonds & Maxwell-Hyslop 1935, p. 549.

Bibliography

Davies, C. B.; Edmonds, J. E.; Maxwell-Hyslop, R. G. B. (1935). Military Operations France and Belgium, 1918 The German March Offensive and its Preliminaries (IWM & Battery Press 1995 ed.). London: HMSO. ISBN 0-89839-219-5.
Kitchen, Martin (2001). The German Offensives of 1918. Stroud: Tempus. ISBN 0752417991.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to First Battle of the Somme (1918).

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participants
(people)

Entente powers	Armenia Brazil China French Empire Belgium British Empire Greece Italy Japan Montenegro Portugal Romania Russia Russian Empire Russian Republic Serbia Siam United States

Central Powers	Germany Austria-Hungary Ottoman Empire Bulgaria

Timeline

Pre-War conflicts	Scramble for Africa (1880–1914) Russo-Japanese War (1905) First Moroccan (Tangier) Crisis (1905–06) Agadir Crisis (1911) Italo-Turkish War (1911–12) French conquest of Morocco (1911–12) First Balkan War (1912–13) Second Balkan War (1913)

Prelude	Origins Sarajevo assassination Anti-Serb riots in Sarajevo July Crisis

Autumn 1914	Battle of the Frontiers Battle of Cer First Battle of the Marne Siege of Tsingtao Battle of Tannenberg Battle of Galicia Battle of the Masurian Lakes Battle of Kolubara Battle of Sarikamish Race to the Sea First Battle of Ypres

1915	Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes Second Battle of Ypres Battle of Gallipoli Second Battle of Artois Battles of the Isonzo Great Retreat Second Battle of Champagne Kosovo Offensive Siege of Kut Battle of Loos

1916	Erzurum Offensive Battle of Verdun Lake Naroch Offensive Battle of Asiago Battle of Jutland Battle of the Somme Brusilov Offensive Baranovichi Offensive Battle of Romani Monastir Offensive Battle of Transylvania

1917	Capture of Baghdad First Battle of Gaza Second Battle of Arras Kerensky Offensive Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) Battle of Mărășești Battle of Caporetto Southern Palestine Offensive Battle of Cambrai Armistice of Erzincan

1918	Operation Faustschlag Treaty of Brest-Litovsk Spring Offensive Second Battle of the Marne Battle of Baku Hundred Days Offensive Vardar Offensive Battle of Megiddo Third Transjordan attack Meuse-Argonne Offensive Battle of Vittorio Veneto Battle of Aleppo Armistice of Mudros Armistice of Villa Giusti Armistice with Germany

Other conflicts	Mexican Revolution (1910–20) Somaliland Campaign (1910–20) Libyan resistance movement (1911–43) Maritz Rebellion (1914–15) Zaian War (1914–21) Indo-German Conspiracy (1914–19) Senussi Campaign (1915–16) Volta-Bani War (1915–17) Easter Rising (1916) Anglo-Egyptian Darfur Expedition (1916) Kaocen Revolt (1916–17) Russian Revolution (1917) Finnish Civil War (1918)

Post-War conflicts	Russian Civil War (1917–21) Ukrainian–Soviet War (1917–21) Armenian–Azerbaijani War (1918–20) Georgian–Armenian War (1918) German Revolution (1918–19) Revolutions and interventions in Hungary (1918–20) Hungarian–Romanian War (1918–19) Greater Poland Uprising (1918–19) Estonian War of Independence (1918–20) Latvian War of Independence (1918–20) Lithuanian Wars of Independence (1918–20) Third Anglo-Afghan War (1919) Egyptian Revolution (1919) Polish–Ukrainian War (1918–19) Polish–Soviet War (1919–21) Irish War of Independence (1919–21) Turkish War of Independence Greco-Turkish War (1919–23) Turkish–Armenian War (1920) Iraqi revolt (1920) Polish–Lithuanian War (1920) Vlora War (1920) Franco-Syrian War (1920) Soviet–Georgian War (1921) Irish Civil War (1922–23)

Aspects

Opposition	Pacifism Anti-war movement

Deployment	Schlieffen Plan (German) Plan XVII (French)

Warfare	Military engagements Naval warfare Convoy system Air warfare Cryptography Horse use Poison gas Railways Strategic bombing Technology Trench warfare Total war Christmas truce Last surviving veterans

Civilian impact Atrocities Prisoners	Casualties Economic history 1918 flu pandemic Destruction of Kalisz The Rape of Belgium German occupation of Belgium German occupation of Luxembourg German occupation of northeastern France Ober Ost Ottoman people (Armenian Genocide, Assyrian genocide, Pontic Greek genocide) Blockade of Germany Women (Australia) Popular culture German prisoners of war in the United States

Agreements	Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire Sykes–Picot Agreement Agreement of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne French-Armenian Agreement Damascus Protocol Paris Peace Conference Venizelos–Tittoni agreement

Treaties	Treaty of Brest-Litovsk Treaty of Lausanne Treaty of London Treaty of Neuilly Treaty of St. Germain Treaty of Sèvres Treaty of Trianon Treaty of Versailles

Consequences	Aftermath "Fourteen Points" League of Nations World War I memorials Centenary (commemorations)

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