On what date did the German offensive of which the First Battle of Villers-Bretonneux was a part begin?
First Battle of Villers-Bretonneux The First Battle of Villers-Bretonneux (30 March – 5 April 1918), took place during Operation Michael, part of the German Spring Offensive on the Western Front. The offensive began against the British Fifth Army and the Third Army on the Somme and pushed back the British and French reinforcements on the north side of the Somme. The capture of Villers-Bretonneux, close to Amiens, a strategically-important road- and rail-junction, would have brought the Germans within artillery-range. In late March, Australian troops were brought south from Belgium as reinforcements to help shore up the line and in early April the Germans launched an attack to capture Villers-Bretonneux. After a determined defence by British and Australian troops, the attackers were close to success until a counter-attack by the 9th Australian Infantry Brigade and British troops late in the afternoon of 4 April restored the situation and halted the German advance on Amiens.
Battle of Le Transloy The Battle of Le Transloy was the last offensive of the Fourth Army of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in the 1916 Battle of the Somme in France, during the First World War. The battle was fought in conjunction with attacks by the French Tenth and Sixth armies on the southern flank and the Reserve/5th Army on the northern flank, against "Heeresgruppe Rupprecht" (Field Marshal Rupprecht of Bavaria) created on 28 August, from the 1st and 2nd armies of the dissolved "armeegruppe Gallwitz-Somme" and the 6th and 7th armies. General Ferdinand Foch the commander of "groupe des armées du nord" (Northern Army Group) and co-ordinator of the armies on the Somme, was unable to continue the sequential attacks by the Anglo-French armies achieved in September, because persistent rain, mist and fog grounded aircraft, turned the battlefield into a swamp and greatly increased the difficulty of transporting supplies to the front over the few roads in the area and the land that had been devastated since 1 July.