michael and georgette had failed to defeat the British or to separate them from the French, and left the Germans with a much greater length of front to defend. This meant that they could not devote to a new attack the same resources that they had used in March and April, despite the return of still more divisions from the east. Nor could they mount another attack quickly. Their aim remained the same but now, in order to defeat the British, they needed first to draw away the French reserves that Foch had gathered in the north in support of the BEF by attacking French lines further to the southeast. Once this had been achieved, then another great blow could be struck against the British, an operation code-named hagen.

Foch’s task was to foil Ludendorff’s intentions by regaining the initiative himself. In order to prepare a counter-offensive to achieve this, he had to maintain Allied manpower levels by continuing his campaign against the politicians that he had started in the forum of the SWC, and to employ with the strictest parsimony those reserves that he already had collected. Meanwhile Ludendorff planned a series of operations, the main components of which were operation blücher along the Chemin des Dames in late May, and its extension, operation gneisenau, towards the Montdidier–Noyon line.