“There is no other course open to us but to fight it out. Every position must be held to the last man: there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause each one of us must fight on to the end. The safety of our homes and the freedom of mankind alike depend upon the conduct of each one of us at this critical moment”.

So went Field Marshall Douglas Haig’s special order of the day on 11th April 1918. It was a highly emotive message from the usually taciturn cavalry officer and a direct response to successive German hammer blows - the Ludendorff offensive - along the Western Front, that had finally broken nearly four years of deadlock.

As allied forces fell back, against their half-starved but determined foe, it was clear that the decision point of WW1 had come. The Germans were trying to drive a wedge between the allies and force the British to retire to the channel, the same overarching objective that had been pursued in 1914 and in a later war 1940. Haig and his staff thought to survive this onslaught and the allies increasing numerical superiority against an increasingly exhausted enemy would mean victory, probably in 1919.

The battles of March and April 1918 – as the Germans were halted in the West once again - have a good case to be considered some of the most pivotal times of the twentieth century. Sophie’s Great War Tours have taken many visitors to the sites of these WW1 battles to gain an overview of the events that unfolded and, in many cases, to follow the story of a relative who fought. The chance to see WW1 trenches today and the battlefields of 1918 is a unique one, not to be missed.