By March 20th, 1918, all the preparations were in place.

Germany was about to begin its final, final offensive in the West.

Eric Ludendorf had already been asked by one of his commanders, what would happen if it failed?

Ludendorff told him, in that case, Germany must go under.

But on that date, the day before the offensive, Ludendorf was nervous but hopeful. He had taken to

carrying around a little red Moravian prayer book, which he consulted like an oracle,

and today he was reading aloud to everyone tomorrow's prayer text. This is the day of the chosen people. He followed up

the reading with a question, can we fail, therefore, to have confidence. Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

Thank you. The

The Episode 161.

Kaiser Schlacht.

Even before the October Revolution, the German High Command realized that Russia was almost finished,

and at the end was just a matter of time, and had already begun the first redeployments of soldiers

from the Eastern Front to the Western Front. In the end, more than half the German soldiers

on the Eastern Front would be forced to remain there,

garrisoning Germany's enormous territorial gains in the East.

These garrisoned soldiers tended to be older, less fit, middle-aged men.

They also tended to be resentful of their assignments, and given the large swaths of land they were supposed to be

controlling, many of them were left to fend for themselves in small, lonely outposts, where morale was

low and where they were marinating in Bolshevik propaganda. The rest of the Eastern forces,

about three-quarters of a million experienced fighters,

were now available for action on another front.

...