5 e armée (France)
The 5 e armée ( cinquième armée , German 5th Army ) was an army of the French army , which was used in the First and Second World War .
history
First World War
The 5 e armée was in World War one of the five armies which in August 1914 on mobilization under Plan XVII were set up. At that time it had five army corps (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 10th and 11th) and was therefore one of the strongest French armies. It formed the left wing army of the French army and was initially concentrated in the Rethel area. Between August 13 and 21, it moved north-east , covered by the Sordet Cavalry Corps , in order to establish contact with the Belgian army in the Namur area . After the early surrender of the 2nd Corps (General Augustin Gérard ) to the neighboring 4th Army, the 18th Corps (General Jacques de Mas-Latrie) joined the 5th Army on August 20. From August 21 to 23, she was defeated in the Battle of the Sambre by the German 2nd and 3rd Armies and forced to retreat behind the Oise . During the retreat, the battle of Guise-St. Quentin .
After the Battle of the Marne and the Battle of the Aisne , the army held the front on the Aisne in the Marne and Aisne departments . Due to the race to the sea , its front was widened and finally included the line from Condé-sur-Aisne to the Ferme des Marquises near Prunay in late autumn .
In April and May 1917 the army was one of the main offensive armies during the Battle of the Aisne . Due to the German spring offensive in 1918, the army was withdrawn from the front at the end of March and deployed as a reserve in the Beauvais area . From the end of May she was back at the front on the Aisne and had to retreat with the left wing to the Marne before the third German offensive . Here it was temporarily reinforced by Allied forces (American, British and Italian). In July it counterattacked during the Second Battle of the Marne and pursued the retreating German troops as far as Vesle . In the course of the Hundred Days Offensive , it advanced in September and October 1918 with the 4th Army , neighboring on the right , and reached the Charleville line to the south of Revin until the armistice .
Commander in chief
- from August 2, 1914: Charles Lanrezac
- from September 3, 1914: Louis Félix Marie Franchet d'Espèrey
- from March 31, 1916: Olivier Mazel
- from May 22, 1917: Joseph Micheler
- from June 10, 1918: Edmond Buat
- from July 5, 1918: Henri Berthelot
- from October 7, 1918: Adolphe Guillaumat
Second World War
During the Second World War, the army was set up in September 1939 to defend the Maginot Line in the northeastern Lorraine and Lower Alsace region under General Victor Bourret . It was part of the 2nd Army Group under André-Gaston Prételat and at the beginning of the German campaign in the west had three army corps, a fortress corps, an independent division and two tank brigades. 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. 265–321, digitized on Gallica .
