478 Part Four: Airpower in the Land Battle the Telegram Referred To
478 Part Four: Airpower in the Land Battle this period our machines came down to as low as 50 and 20 feet, and fired into convoys and bodies of troops. Exceptional targets presented themselves in the closely packed transport, and independent evidence, testifying to the enormous casualties and damage inflicted, is contained in telegram received by Advanced G .H.Q. from Advanced 16th Corps.77 The telegram referred to attributed the ' indescribable confusion' that marked the Bulgar retreat directly to the activities of the RAF. In the narrow defiles through which the mountain roads passed, congestion was unavoidable, and after a few hours of bombing and strafing a brave and resolute enemy, retreating undefeated from a front against which the British had hurled themselves unavailingly for years, had been reduced to a panic-stricken mob. It was a harsh conclusion to the Macedonian campaign. On 30 September hostilities ceased on this front. 16 The Ludendorff Offensives, 1918 Germany's last great effort to win the war, and her last real opportunity, came in the spring of 1918. That such was the case was as evident to the Allies as it was to the German High Command. By the winter of 1917-lS Russia, tom by revolution and internal dissension, was all but out of the war. Germany was in a position to deploy in the West divisions that could be released from the Eastern Front, an access of strength that would give her an advantage over the Allies. This advan tage, however, could only be temporary; once the full weight of American deploy ment was brought to bear, the German opportunity would be gone.
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