'Preparing for German 1918 Offensive Extra defences Ypres Salient 1918'

Photograph, World War One, Western Front (1914-1918), 1918.

Soldiers of 4th Battalion, The Worcester Regiment, prepare their lines for the German attack which was launched on 21 March. Using troops released from the Eastern Front following the Russian Revolution in 1917, the Germans attempted to win the war before the Americans arrived in France and strengthened the Allies. A series of attacks were launched in the Arras region, on the Lys in Flanders and then on the Aisne.

Despite sweeping early gains, the Germans suffered huge casualties and eventually outdistanced their supply lines. They exhausted themselves during the fighting. The final German advances were repulsed at the Marne in mid-June 1918, and the stage was then set for the Allied counter-offensives of the summer.

From an album of photographs compiled by Brigadier Bowcher Campbell Stenhouse Clarke DSO (1882-1986).