10 e armée (France)
The 10 e armée ( German 10th Army ) was a large formation of the French army that was set up in both the First and Second World Wars .
First World War
The 10 e armée was set up on October 5, 1914 during the " Race to the Sea " in the early stages of the First World War. It emerged from the Détachement d'armée de Maud'huy formed four days earlier and was under the command of General Louis Ernest de Maud'huy . At that time, three army corps (X., XXI. And provisional corps d'Urbal ), another infantry division and the I and II cavalry corps were under their command . The Détachement d'armée de Maud'huy was created in the northern extension of the front of the 2nd Army in the First Artois Battle in the Arras to Loos area and was tactically subordinate to the 2nd Army. The army border ran on October 5th at Berles-au-Bois . Together, the two armies formed the provisional northern group of the French army ( Groupe provisoire du Nord ) under the leadership of General Ferdinand Foch . The headquarters of the 10th Army was initially in Doullens , on October 6th it was moved further north to Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise , according to the shift of the fighting to the north.
In the course of the First Battle of Flanders , heavy fighting against the German 6th Army in the La Bassée area broke out on October 22nd . In the winter of 1914/15, local fighting took place, especially in the Souchez area. In May and June 1915, the army, which had previously been reinforced to seven army corps and whose command was taken over by General d'Urbal at the beginning of April, was involved in the Loretto Battle (also known as the Second Artois Battle ) together with the British 1st Army . The land gains of only 16 km² achieved in this way were out of all proportion to the number of victims (approx. 100,000). Taken together, the two Allied armies suffered almost double the losses against the Germans. This did not prevent the allies from making another attempt in autumn 1915 to conquer the strategically important heights west of the Douai plain ( autumn battle at La Bassée and Arras from 25 September to early November). Again the Allied attacks against the German 6th Army failed with heavy losses.
From February to March 1916 the previous section of the front of the 10th Army was taken over by British troops. The greatly reduced army moved to its new headquarters in Noailles south of Beauvais on March 14th . At the beginning of April the 10th Army, now under the command of General Joseph Micheler , took over a section of the front with three army corps facing the German 7th Army between Pernant and Armancourt . Its neighbors were the 6th Army on the left and the 5th Army on the right , the headquarters were in Clermont . At the end of June, 3rd Army was pushed in to her right and headquarters were moved to Breteuil . In August the army was reinforced again to six army corps, from September 4th until November there was fighting as part of the Battle of the Somme . The left army border was extended over time to the Somme .
In January and February 1917, the front lines of the 10th Army were again replaced by British troops. The headquarters, now under the command of Denis Auguste Duchêne , was withdrawn from the front and relocated to Nogent-sur-Seine , where it was preparing for later use in the Nivelle offensive as part of the Groupe d'Armées de Réserve . From April 21 to May 8, the army was deployed with six army corps in the Second Battle of the Aisne, advancing in the center of the front on the Chemin des Dames . The mutinies that broke out in the French army at the end of April and lasted for several months prevented the offensive from continuing.
After the Italian defeat in the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo in October 1917, the High Command of the 10th Army was withdrawn from the front on October 28th to be relocated to Italy by rail with several subordinate divisions. The headquarters were initially in Verona , from mid-November in Brescia and from the beginning of December, after taking over a section of the Piavefront , in Castelfranco Veneto . General Paul Maistre took over command here on December 11th . This was subordinate to the French commander-in-chief in Italy, General Émile Fayolle . After the start of the German spring offensive on March 21, 1918, the French troops were replaced by Italian troops. From March 26th, the army, minus the XII. Army Corps, which remained in Italy, was transferred back to the Western Front, where it was assembled in the Amiens - Doullens area . At that time, from mid-April, it was under the direct command of the Allied High Command under Marshal Ferdinand Foch as a strategic reserve. After the start of the German attack on the Aisne ( Third Aisne Battle ) at the end of May, it was transported by rail to the region south of Compiègne . On June 2, the army took over a section of the front between the 3rd and 6th Army in the Villers-Cotterêts area . Tanks were also used here to repel the German attacks . Until July 1918, local battles with German troops took place in the area where the army now commanded General Charles Mangin .
On July 18, three days after the start of a new attack by the Germans near Reims , the 10th Army, supported by up to 200 tanks, counterattacked from the forest of Villers-Cotterêts ( Second Marne Battle ). She was temporarily subordinate to the American I Corps and a British division. In the course of the fighting that followed, Soissons was liberated on August 2nd . From August 17th the offensive was resumed, this time against the front arch of Noyon . The Vauxaillon - Laffaux corner was indented and moved up to the line Vailly-sur-Aisne - Barisis-aux-Bois . On September 28th, the Germans initiated a retreat here, followed by the 10th Army. Laon was liberated on October 13th . In the second half of October the army was fighting on the Serre northeast of Laon. On October 27th the headquarters was detached from the front and the planned new use was an attack on the Saar area . For this purpose, the headquarters was relocated to Tantonville in Lorraine at the beginning of November . The armistice preceded this planned offensive .
Occupation of the Rhineland
After the armistice, the army was used to occupy the Rhineland until October 1919 . General Mangin's headquarters were in the Deutschhaus in Mainz . On the latter point she was the one in the Palatinate standing 8e armée to Armée française du Rhin united.
Second World War
During the Second World War, during the German campaign in the west on May 31, 1940, another 10 e armée was set up on the lower reaches of the Seine . It was under the command of General Robert Altmayer . After the evacuation of most of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo , the 10th Army operated together with the remaining 2nd BEF (including the 51st (Highland) Division ). The 2nd BEF was evacuated from the French Atlantic ports in June in Operation Ariel . The 10th Army was during the German troops of the B Army Group in the " case Red " in the Normandy , was encircled and smashed pushed back, General Altmayer came on June 19 in Rennes while he planned retreat in a tiny room Breton in Brittany in German prisoner of war.
literature
- Les Armées françaises dans la Grande guerre ( AFGG ) , Tome X / Vol. 1: Ordre de bataille des grandes unités. , Paris 1923, pp. 473-523, digitized on Gallica .
