Transferred to Supreme Army Command as Chief of Staff to the Quartermaster General at the end of April 1918, Thaer reported to Hindenburg and Ludendorff on 1 May 1918. He had already resolved that he would report openly on the frontline situation to the two men running the war. By that criterion he failed. The field-marshall hero of Tannenberg was sympathetic: "My dear Mr von Thaer, your nerves have certainly been affected by the last few terrible weeks through which you have come. I think that the good spirits at Supreme Army Command will soon set you right". Thaer encountered a similar, if less avuncular, reaction a little later when he reported to First Quartermaster General Erich Ludendorff: "What's your game? What do you want me to do? Should I now make peace at any price?" Thaer replied: "Excellence, I said nothing about that. It is my duty - and it is a very painful duty - to point out that the condition of our troops is not going to improve, but will continue slowly to deteriorate". Ludendorff persisted: "If the condition of our troops is getting worse, if discipline is deteriorating, then that is your fault and the fault of all those field commanders who do not get it. How else can it be that entire divisions can found too drunk to fight, unable to implement the necessary advances. That is the explanation for the great March offensive, and now Operation Georgette, not progressing further.