The challenges were immense, not just for Haig, but for every general of WWI. It was the first war of the internal combustion engine, the first artillery war, the first chemical war, the first machine gun war, the first air war, the first war of mass production. For the British it was the first mass land war. There were a myriad innovations in tactics and technology. Trench mortars, mining (as in tunneling), the light machine gun, infiltration tactics, the tank. Simple logistics and geography meant that the main battle was the western front which soon became a continuous fortification from the North Sea to the Alps. This could be taken only frontal assault, and not easily. Not even in WWII were commanders faced with so much, and then they nearly all had WWI experience to draw on.

It was the armies under Foch’s supreme command, especially, though not exclusively, those commanded by Haig, who found the solution to these problems and utilized them to such formidable effecting in the hundred days of continuous victory that brought WWI to an end. The hundred days would not have been possible, however, without the bitter years of learning and attrition that preceded them.

An aside on machine guns. These were not the most lethal weapon. During WWI 38.98% of British Army casualties were caused by the combined effect of machine guns, rifles and other small arms. A total of 58.51% were caused by artillery and mortars. Machine guns (and other small arms) were a major hazard only during actual offensives. Artillery killed everywhere, when attacking across no-man’s land, in the trenches, on the march, in the rear. As John Terraine wrote “The idea of the machine gun as supreme killer is literary, not historical”.

1/ “An aside on machine guns. These were not the most lethal weapon. During WWI 38.98% of British Army casualties were caused by the combined effect of machines, rifles and other small arms. A total of 58.51% were caused by artillery and mortars.”

Indeed. And, as far as I remember, trench artillery (mortars, minenwerfers, torpedo launchers and the like) were the main killers, with roughly 30% of casualties.
2/”… especially, though not exclusively, those commanded by Haig, who found the solution to these problems”.

Commonwealth forces were, indeed, the most successful in 1918, for several reasons.

a/ Even after the horrendous losses they suffered during the spring offensive, they were “fresher” than their French counterparts. They had far more reserves, having suffered much lower casualties. The size of the population of the Commonwealth meant that they could still raise new troops while the French were reduced to sending to the trenches men in their 50s, wounded veterans that should, because of their wounds, been spared from frontline duties and men that would have been considered unfit for military duty by 1914 standards. Commonwealth forces were therefore more aggressive during the August-November offensives, while the French started to show signs of exhaustion (even though they kept attacking up to the last day, a fact clearly shown by the size of the losses they suffered during the last 5 months of the war -600.000 casualties, including 150.000 killed)

b/ British tanks were more reliable and powerful that their French counterparts. The Whippet was the best and fastest tank of WWI. And the size of Mk IV, coupled with special (however crude) trench-crossing equipment enabled them to cross most German trenches, something the smaller Renault FT17 couldn’t do.

c/ While the latest SPAD were at least as efficient as the Sopwith Camel, the organization and tactics of the air component of British air forces made it a more powerful tool than the Aéronautique militaire.

Yet, the French forces contributions to the 1918 successes are frequently under-rated.

First, while August 8th was, to quote Ludendorff, “the black day of the German army”, the first decisive setback suffered by the latter was the crushing of the 5th German drive (the “Friedensturm”, or “Peace offensive” that was supposed -or so did the German landser believe- to end the war) by the French (supported by American divisions) and the successful Franco-American counterattack that followed (on June 18th) and that almost drove the Germans back to the line they occupied along the Chemin des Dames before their 3rd offensive.

Second, the French contribution to the august 8th offensive is almost always forgotten. True, the French -if successful- did not push the Germans back as far as Commonwealth forces did, but for a very simple reason. They hardly had any tank at their disposal on that day, and thus had to rely on the classic artillery barrage that prevented them from achieving surprise, while the British used a massive force of nearly 400 tanks, advancing -without any preliminary artillery barrage- through a thick fog that hid them from the Germans. The Germans were, therefore, caught completely off-guards and several units panicked and surrendered hardly without a fight.

Third, the French forces kept attacking up to the last day of the war. In fact, the last attack took place on the 10th on November, when a French force successfully crossed the heavily fortified Meuse River a beat off several German counter-attacks on the 10th and during 10th-11th night. Between July and November 1918, French forces suffered more than 600.000 casualties (including 150.000 killed) while on the offensive and captured 135.000 German prisoners.

Fourth, the fact that the French supplied US forces with almost all their tanks (Renault) and field guns (75mm), most of their fighters (SPAD) and medium guns (155mm GPF) and that French tank and artillery units beefed up US forces during many of their assaults is frequently forgotten or down played.

Fifth, the French were not as conservative as is often said. They used masses of tanks several times: 350 were, for instance, engaged on July 18th. Since the daily attrition rate was usually over 20%, their number unfortunately rapidly shrank. Tanks were then used in small packs, to beef-up the depleted ranks of French units that were often (because of the losses they had suffered and the lack of reserves) as under-manned as their German counterparts. And then there was the Air Division, a unit of nearly 400 aircrafts that were employed “en masse” for close air-support and was particularly successful in halting the German crossings of the Marne River. Masses of tanks + close air support, doesn’t it remind you of something? Well, the fact is that German officers such as Guderian or Manstein closely studied -and, of course, bettered- the tactics used by the French in 1918. The French, under the spell of Petain, were, on the other hand, busy forgetting them, even though the father of French tanks, General Etienne, advocated the same strategic revolution as the one backed-up by Fuller in England. And when a colonel De Gaulle (a former aide of Marshall Petain) dared to challenge the official defensive doctrine in a book advocating the constitution of a mechanized corps of 100.000 professionals, he was almost sidelined while his theories were dismissed as unsuited for France and politically dangerous… Unfortunately, the real lessons of 1918 had been forgotten.