The Last Hundred Days

The German spring offensive of 1918 had brought France closer to defeat than any moment since the Marne. In March, German forces broke through Allied lines, advancing 40 miles in days. Paris came under long-range bombardment from the "Paris Gun," spreading panic. The government prepared evacuation plans. Clemenceau, the "Tiger," growled defiance: "I shall fight before Paris, in Paris, and behind Paris."

French forces, exhausted after four years, seemed near collapse. Units that had endured Verdun and the Chemin des Dames fell back in disorder. Yet at the crucial moment, they held. At Château-Thierry, French colonial troops and newly arrived Americans stopped the German advance. The Second Battle of the Marne in July marked the tide's turn.

The Allied counteroffensive revealed German exhaustion. French forces, reinforced by fresh American divisions and new tanks, advanced steadily. The Battle of Amiens on August 8—Ludendorff's "black day of the German army"—broke German resistance. French soldiers, advancing across territory lost in 1914, discovered the war's true cost. Lieutenant Henri Desagneaux wrote: "We advance through dead villages, past skeleton trees, across earth poisoned by four years of shells and gas. This is not liberation but revelation of apocalypse."

As German resistance crumbled, French advances accelerated. Cities lost since 1914 fell in days—Péronne, Saint-Quentin, Laon. French cavalry, useless for four years, suddenly found opportunities for pursuit. Colonial troops led many advances, their sacrifice in victory matching their suffering in defeat. By November, French forces approached the Belgian frontier, preparing to invade Germany itself when armistice intervened.