9 - The Allies counter-attack

Summary

Unified command led, of course, to greater intermingling of troops on the battlefield. Troops were used where they were needed, when they were needed. French reserves had been concentrated near the British in March and April, and British troops had been moved to supposedly quiet French fronts in May. Furthermore, the March crisis had led to increased US troop shipments which entailed a greater need for supplies of weapons, ammunition and food rations. The emphasis on dispatching American fighting, not administrative, troops increased the problems.

These two factors – the intermingling of troops and the greater numbers of Americans lacking their own support units – affected supply and transport systems, namely logistics. It was impossible to maintain triplicate and totally separate logistics systems. Some measure of integration had to be achieved, especially as tonnage was still insufficient for all needs. Any savings made in Europe could be of benefit to shipping and so to feeding the civilian populations. The measures that led to coordination of supply and transport form an integral part of the unified mechanism that brought victory at the end of 1918, instead of in 1919 (as most expected even as late as October), with the consequent savings of life.

Thus it was vital to get the logistics right. Paradoxically, the praise normally lavished on the German military effort in 1918 fails to take this into account.