3 e armée (France)
The 3 e armée ( German 3rd Army ) was an army of the French army that fought in the First and Second World Wars.
history
First World War
The three e armée was in World War one of the five armies in the mobilization after the Plan XVII were set up. At that time it had three active army corps (IV., V. and VI.), A cavalry division (7th) and a reserve corps with three divisions and was commanded by General Pierre Ruffey . The reserve corps was expanded in mid-August to the Armée de Lorraine under Joseph Maunoury , which was supposed to cover the right flank of the advance of the 3rd Army.
The army was after her August 20, an aggressive approach in the general direction of the südbelgische Arlon had been ordered in the Battle of the Ardennes (22 to 26 August 1914 of the Battle of the Frontiers ) of the German 5th Army of the German Crown prince defeated and forced to go back behind the Meuse and to the fortress of Verdun . On August 30th, General Joffre replaced Ruffey with Maurice Sarrail . After the Battle of the Marne , the army held the front in the Argonne west of Verdun until the spring of 1916 . In July 1915, Sarrail was replaced by Georges Louis Humbert , who led the army until the armistice.
During the Battle of the Somme in 1916, the army initially provided the French reserves and intervened in the fighting from September. In the spring of 1917 she carried out diversionary attacks north of Soissons during the Battle of the Aisne . In the winter of 1917/18 the Army was assigned to the Reserve, while the British 5th Army took over its front-line sector. As a result of the German spring offensive in 1918, the army was again used to defend the sector between Noyon and Montdidier north of the Oise . In the course of the Hundred Days Offensive , it advanced north and east of Noyon.
Second World War
During the Second World War, the army was set up in September 1939 to defend the Maginot Line in Luxembourg and the Saar under General Charles-Marie Condé . It was part of the 2nd Army Group under André-Gaston Prételat and had four army corps and several independent divisions and tank battalions . After the armistice it was dissolved.
literature
- Les Armées françaises dans la Grande guerre ( AFGG ) , Tome X / Vol. 1: Ordre de bataille des grandes unités. , Paris 1923, pp. 157-201, digitized on Gallica .
