Page 317 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

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ActA
and Boulogne and of the local railway junctions Hazebrouck, Aire, Lillers and St Pol.
If the major railway junction Amiens was lost, it would cut the connection between the
northern and southern parts of the front and undermine the Allied defence. Elsewhere
on the Western Front the communications ran away from the front. The key points close
to the front were Verdun and Nancy; behind them were railway junctions and finally
Paris. Paris, Dunkerque, Calais, and Boulogne had to be defended at all cost. Amiens
was added with pencil in the memo margin to that list. Studd concluded that the Ger-
1
mans could only hope to achieve a quick decision in the north. On 18 December 1917
Wilson’s”E-section” under Colonel Hereward Wake became ready with an estimate of
the coming German offensive. It would be possible from late March. An early date was
likely. Wake did not consider it likely that the offensive would seek a decision. It would
only be a limited, holding offensive creating freedom of action for another offensive to
force the Italians out of the war. On 13 January 1918 General Henry Wilson concluded
after consultations with London General Staff intelligence that the Germans would at-
2
tack the French because the British were so effective in defence.
The maritime situation was dominated by a continued effort to contain and defeat the
U-boat threat.
It was to be achieved by convoying, attacks on bases, mining of the German Bight
and by massive mine-fields at the access to the North Sea in the Dover Strait and be-
tween Scotland and Norway, the latter be completed autumn 1918. The Dover Straits
barrier was also necessary because of the failure to capture the German Flanders U-boat
bases by the late summer 1917 offensive. However that barrier was still challenged by
aggressive operations in mid-February 1918 by the surface units of Vice-Admiral Lud-
wig von Schröder’s German Marine Corps in Flanders. At that time the new local British
naval commander of the ”Dover Patrol”, the aggressive Vice-Admiral Roger Keyes was
preparing a raid against the enemy Flanders bases. He had further developed plans from
his previous job as director of the Plans Division of the Admiralty naval staff. Zeebrugge
and Ostend should be stormed and their harbours closed by block ships. His proposed
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plan was sent to the Admiralty for approval on 25 February.
At the same time Keyes’ successor as plans director, Captain Cyril Fuller, had consid-
ered reactions to a possible German land threat to the French Dover Strait ports, and on
10. February he has outlined his conclusions and recommendations in a memorandum.
He saw it as unacceptable that these ports, much larger than Zeebrugge and Ostend, fell
intact into German hands and used as forward U-boat bases. Even if Fuller noted that it
was highly unlikely that the Allies would ever be forced to evacuate, he still considered
it necessary to consider the possibility and prepare steps that would hinder such enemy
use of the ports. He considered Boulogne to be outside the immediate danger area and
Nieuport as too small to be used for U-boats. Therefore preparations should concentrate

1 The National Archives of United Kingdom (TNA), CAB/7 3/CA ”The Line in France and Flanders”.
2 TNA, CAB 25/17 12/D/5 ”Appreciation of General Military Situation from the German Point of View &
Notes on Situation in Germany”.
3 Paul G. Halpern (ed.): The Keyes Papers. Selections from the Private and Official Conference of Admiral of
the Fleet Baron Keyes of Zeebrugge. (London 1972), pp. 460-475.