Editing German spring offensive (section)

===Analysis===
The ''Kaiserschlacht'' offensives had yielded large territorial gains for the Germans, in First World War terms. However, victory was not achieved and the German armies were severely depleted, exhausted and in exposed positions. The territorial gains were in the form of salients which greatly increased the length of the line that would have to be defended when Allied reinforcements gave the Allies the initiative. In six months, the strength of the German army had fallen from 5.1 million fighting men to 4.2 million.{{sfn|Edmonds|1939|p=306}} By July, the German superiority of numbers on the Western Front had sunk to 207 divisions to 203 Allied, a negligible lead which would be reversed as more American troops arrived.<ref name=Hart298/> German manpower was exhausted. The German High Command predicted they would need 200,000 men per month to make good the losses suffered. Returning convalescents could supply 70,000–80,000 per month but there were only 300,000 recruits available from the next annual class of eighteen-year-olds.{{sfn|Herwig|2014|p=407}} Even worse, they lost most of their best-trained men: stormtrooper tactics had them leading the attacks. Even so, about a million German soldiers remained tied up [[Eastern Front (World War I)|in the east]] until the end of the war.

The Allies had been badly hurt but not broken. The lack of a unified high command was partly rectified by the appointment of General Foch to the supreme command, and coordination would improve in later Allied operations.<ref>Baldwin 1962, pp. 141–143</ref> American troops were for the first time also used as independent formations.<ref>Marshall 1976, p. 57</ref>

Ironically, the offensive's initial success may have hastened Germany's defeat by undermining morale. German leadership had hitherto told their soldiers that food and other supply shortages were comparable on both sides. By breaking into Allied lines, the German soldiers realized that the Allies were in fact much better fed and supplied than they were, and thus that their leaders had been lying to them.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://acoup.blog/2021/09/17/collections-no-mans-land-part-i-the-trench-stalemate | title=Collections: No Man's Land, Part I: The Trench Stalemate | date=17 September 2021 }}</ref>