We all know the story of Operation Michael: Germany had one last chance to win on the Western Front, but they had a short window of time to do so, and failed by a narrow margin. It's a juicy story, with all the elements for a good tragedy: the last hope, all or nothing, a race against the clock, failure at the last hurdle ("running aground in sight of the harbour", as we say in Dutch) – and all of European history turning on a single campaign.

Tonight, I want to ask about the historical reality behind the story. Specifically, I'm curious whether Operation Michael really was The Campaign That Could Have Changed Everything – or pretty much doomed from the start.

Here's Sebastian Haffner in Von Bismarck zu Hitler, taking the pessimistic view:

This time, as well, one saw in a very short time what the First World War had always shown: that the technology of the day radically limited strategic possibilities. Even a successful offensive – and this German offensive was more successful than any Allied offensive had been up to that point – could not lead to a real breakthrough, because the defender could plug the gaps, bring in reinforcements and halt the attack faster than the attacker could feed his advancing army, push it forward, and reinforce it with fresh troops.

One must always bear in mind that the First World War – at any rate in the West – was, even in this phase, an infantry war. No army could advance faster than a single soldier could march. The defender, however, had railways in his rear, which he could use to bring in reserves from other fronts. Exactly that happened in this case.

And here's Wolfgang Venohr, writing about Ludendorff in Preußische Profile:

Ludendorff attacked. The 17th Army, in the north, progressed with great difficulty (7 km in three days); the 2nd Army, in the middle, and the 18th Army, in the south, broke through with great speed (20-22 km in the same three days). And now the incomprehensible, the utterly fatal happened: When Ludendorff saw how easily his southern flank had broken through, he changed the direction of operations, the entire strategic point of the matter, by shifting emphasis to the south and ordering a rapid advance towards Compiegne.

Compiegne? That was much closer to Paris, was it not? What in God's name did he want there?

[...]

Ludendorff had chosen tactics over strategy, leading to an operation without a clear objective. During the campaign, he kept striking at isolated tactical objectives, which changed almost daily and in which his commanders could see no strategic end goal.

[...]

Ludendorff, as a strategist on the offensive, lived from one day to the next. He let himself be driven by tactical success, which meant ceding the initiative to the enemy, or at least indirectly letting them force their will upon him. He abandoned his original operational intent – cutting the British off from the French and isolating them – as if he had never had it in the first place. His strategy became amateurish.

In short, Haffner says "the deck was stacked against whomever was on the offensive, and Germany probably couldn't have won anyway"; whereas from Venohr you get the impression that "it could have been a rousing success if Ludendorff hadn't been such an idiot." (Interestingly, Haffner collaborated with Venohr on Preußische Profile, so they can't have been complete opponents.)

So, which is closer to the truth? Was Operation Michael a real shot at victory for Germany, ruined by poor leadership – or the last hurrah of a country that was already doomed to lose the war?

(Both excerpts were translated from German by me; I apologise for any clunky phrasing.)