Germany knew that it had lost the First World War by 1918, but launched the Ludendorff Offensive as a final gamble. It cost over 300,000 German casualties, compared to 240,000 on the Marne in 1914; 170,000 in Champagne in 1915; and 170,000 on the Somme in 1916. During the Second World War most of the German army’s losses occurred after Stalingrad on the Eastern Front and in the Battle of the Bulge in the West.
