Charles Lanrezac

General Charles Lanrezac

Charles Louis Marie Lanrezac (born July 31, 1852 in Pointe-a-Pitre , Guadeloupe , † January 18, 1925 in Neuilly-sur-Seine ) was a French general in the First World War . He is regarded as one of the greatest leadership talents in the French military at the beginning of the 20th century and, alongside Joffre , Foch , Castelnau , Nivelle and Mangin, as a prominent representative of the extreme "offensive thinking" that dominated French warfare until 1917.

Career

Lanrezac attended the Saint-Cyr military school for almost a year from 1869 and then fought from August 14, 1870 on in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 as a sous-lieutenant of the infantry. He distinguished himself as an excellent troop leader. On August 14, 1870 he was promoted to Lieutenant , on February 21, 1876 to Capitaine . He graduated from the École de Guerre (War School) in 1879 and received his staff officer license. Then Lanrezac held various staff and command positions, for example he served in the 113e regiment d'infanterie and completed an internship in the staff of a colonial brigade in Tunisia. Furthermore, he taught from 1905 at the École de Guerre at the time when the new French strategy and tactics emerged under the influence of Maillard, Langlois and Bonnal . Lanrezac himself contributed a study of Napoleon's spring campaign of 1813 (“La Manœuvre de Liitzen”) to promote it. His rise and his growing reputation in the French generals, however, he owed more to his personal qualities in commanding the troops than to the recognition of military theoretical treatises he had written. He was promoted to Colonel in 1902 , Général de brigade in 1906 and Général de division in 1911 . In 1912 he received the third general star (Generalleutnant | Général de corps d'armée) and was promoted to commandant of the XI. Corps in Nantes. In April 1914 he succeeded Général Gallieni as a member of the "Great Council of War" (Conseil supérieur de la guerre) and was appointed as the future commander of the 5th Army to be deployed in the event of war . At the age of 61 he was the "junior" of the war council.

Participation in the First World War

Introduction and context

In the position of commander of the 5th Army, Lanrezac, like his predecessor Gallieni, soon came to the conclusion on the eve of the outbreak of the First World War that the 5th Army, on the left wing of the planned French battle line on the heights of Sedan and the Belgian Ardennes would be exposed to the weight of a violent German attack coming through southern Belgium alone (→ Schlieffen Plan ). He therefore favored a more defensive orientation of the armies than the Commander-in-Chief, Général Joffre, and the members of the General Staff. They thought differently and in 1913 took up the offensive strategy “ Plan XVII ” , which was developed under the direction of the later commander-in-chief, Général Foch .

Lanrezac and the "Plan XVII"

According to Plan XVII , the deployment of the French army had to be aimed at offensive actions in the event of war. So the southern wing of the army was to (re) conquer the areas of Alsace and Lorraine, annexed by Germany after the war of 1870-71 , and the northern wing of the army either invade the German Empire via the southern Ardennes or meet the Germans in Luxembourg and Belgium. This corresponded to the more recent teachings of the French strategy and tactical doctrine, which had emerged around 1910 and was advocated by a (then) younger school of general staff. It was based on the idea of ​​the mystical "élan vital", which, naturally inclined, should make the French soldier fight more emphatically than the German. The representatives of this school rejected the new (neo-) Napoleonic theories of the Lanrezac generation. In a military-theoretical evaluation of Napoleon's 1813 and 1814 campaigns, he and his colleagues had come to the conclusion that the intruder did not necessarily have to be forestalled with a general offensive. Rather, this can be countered with local offensive attacks against the individual advancing enemy forces (strategy of the so-called "defensive offensive"). The representatives of the newer school, on the other hand, applied the findings of the Franco-German War of 1870–71 and wanted the fighting to be moved from French to enemy territory if possible. This corresponded to the tendency to almost completely reject the defensive as a war strategy. According to the "Plan XVII" based on it, the salvation of France in a war with Germany should first be sought in an immediate and general offensive in Lorraine and the Ardennes.

Participation in the war

Lanrezac was to be one of the first "pawns" of the initial heavy defeats of the Entente troops in the beginning of the First World War.

Deployment of the 5th Army

When this broke out, the formation of the 5th Army was carried out by the High Command as provided for in Plan XVII and without the changes which Lanrezac believed would have been necessary. He saw that in peacetime it was out of the question even to suggest that France could violate the neutrality of the Kingdom of Belgium on its own initiative in order to oppose a German incursion. Such an operation could therefore only be undertaken with the consent of the Belgian government, even only via their formal telephone call. Furthermore, in his view, it was questionable that the reinforcement of his army in the west was only provided by a force of the allied British. The British government reserved the right to decide on military intervention on the continent only at the last minute. All this would make coordinated preparation and timely alignment of the armies in response to German troop movements impossible. He also considered the standard calculation of a German attack aimed exclusively at Sedan to be too simple and improbable. If the Germans would come across the obstacle of the wooded and mountainous massif of the Ardennes, which they could then avoid in two conceivable ways, namely either directly above the Ardennes towards Sedan or even further north, following the course of the Maas river, operating towards Namur . In “Plan XVII”, however, only the first variant was assumed. He described to Joffre his criticism of the stationing of his army in a letter dated July 31, 1914, i.e. immediately before the outbreak of war, in detail, in several planning maneuvers.

The disregard of these concerns seemed understandable in theory (and in peacetime), as the plan promised to achieve success even without taking into account the Fifth Army, which was isolated on the extreme left wing. Because according to “Plan XVII”, the Fifth Army was the only one to face no direct threat from the German side. In addition, Lanrezac's concerns about the offensive strategy chosen were ignored, as they were attributed to his preference for the "defensive offensive". After all, he had always taught and strongly advocated them.

Namur and Charleroi

The Great Headquarters of the French Army began the campaign in 1914 with prejudices about Lanrezac's attitude. In August Joffre accepted the fact that the 5th Army was in terrible danger of being gripped by the advancing German 1st and 2nd Army. However, by then he had already ordered measures to move them towards Namur and Charleroi . Even then, however, the commander-in-chief did not admit, or Lanrezac did not admit to himself in this matter, that the greater part of the German army wing was already west of the Meuse. The battles of Charleroi and Mons were therefore started under the most hopeless conditions. In addition, Lanrezac's subordinates, caught up in the offensive idea, got involved in a battle on August 22nd in the tangle of suburbs and mining settlements around Charleroi, which is unfavorable for military offensive operations. This happened despite Lanrezac officially instructing them to limit themselves to keeping the open heights south of the Sambre. To make matters worse, the tactical links with the British on the left flank were not the best and the commander of the British Expeditionary Army , Field Marshal Sir John French , harbored personal aversions to Lanrezac and vice versa. Under such circumstances, misunderstandings between the French commanders in command, the distant Grand Headquarters, and the British during the unexpected and arduous retreat of the Allies' left wing could hardly be avoided or quickly resolved. However, Lanrezac, with the support of his chief of staff, Général Hely d'Oissel, managed to return his army in an organized manner and so quickly restore order and morale. That would pay off when he had to take the offensive at the Battle of Guise-St Quentin unassisted .

Guise - St. Quentin

Joffre let Lanrezac know that his 5th would be supported either by the French 4th Army , on his right, or by the British, the 1st Corps , on the left. But there was no help. On the one hand, Sir Douglas Haig , the commander of the British Corps, had promised his support, but then had to withdraw the promise on instructions from French before the battle. The 4th Army itself was involved in heavy fighting with the German 2nd and 3rd Armies. Lanrezac himself had previously vehemently refused to order the renewed attack on the German 1st and 2nd Armies to relieve the left front wing according to Joffre's instructions. His troops were finally led in true forced marches from Belgium to the area of ​​retreat north-northeast of Paris and were accordingly exhausted. On the morning of August 29, 1914, Joffre therefore visited Lanrezac at his headquarters. He toyed with the idea of ​​removing Lanrezac from his post if he refused. Now he personally and categorically gave him the order to attack - Lanrezac followed. The success of Lanrezac's army from the outset only served to gain time to set up another French (the 6th) army west of Paris and could not be exploited in the given situation. So the battle was finally broken off and the retreat towards Reims and Troyes resumed, which amounted to a tactical defeat. This was offset by two things, however: First, the backward movement made the Commander-in-Chief of the German 1st Army, Colonel General von Kluck , careless. His hasty and unauthorized follow-up to include Lanrezac's exposed 5th Army was not only in vain, but also removed him so much from the German 2nd Army east of Reims that his connection with the rest of the German front was finally completely severed. This in turn should strategically enable the Allied counter-attack in the upcoming Battle of the Marne . Second, the German 1st Army closest to Paris was diverted from the struggle for and possible invasion of the French capital.

Success and dismissal

With these strategic successes, Lanrezac and his 5th Army contributed significantly and significantly more than the legendary confiscation of Paris taxis by Général Gallieni to the fact that the German advance in the Battle of the Marne could be stopped.

Regardless, Général Joffre had decided to dismiss a number of generals who had played a role in the border battles in order to strengthen the morale of the troops and the entire nation . One of them was Lanrezac, who was replaced on September 3 by one of his former corps commanders, Général Franchet d'Esperey .

After being relieved of command

Lanrezac served as inspector general for infantry training until the end of the war and resigned after reaching the age limit. He turned down a new command that was offered to him in 1917.

Rehabilitation and review

After the war, Général Lanrezac published a short treatise on the Charleroi campaign and the withdrawal of the 5th Army ("Le Plan de Campagne Français et le Premier Mois de la Guerre"). In addition to his personal justification and a sharp attack on Joffre, it also contains important documentary material for the general history of the 1914 campaign.

His official rehabilitation began with the award of the Grand Officer's Cross of the Légion d'honneur on July 3, 1917. In 1923, he was awarded the Belgian Croix de guerre in express recognition of his achievements in August 1914. On August 29, 1924, Marshal Pétain awarded him the Grand Cross the Legion of Honor.

Charles Louis Lanrezac died on January 18, 1925 in Neuilly-sur-Seine. At his own request, he was buried without military honors.

literature

• Charles Lanrezac: Le Plan de Campagne Francais et le Premier Mois de la Guerre (Paris: 1929)
• Fernand Engerand: Lanrezac (Paris: Bossard, 1926)
• Article: Lanrezac, Charles . In: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2006
• Sebastian Haffner: Generals - Anatomy of the Marne Battle ; TV documentary game

Web links

Commons : Charles Lanrezac  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• http://www.cheminsdememoire.gouv.fr/fr/charles-lanrezac
• Literature by and about Charles Lanrezac in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)