Autumn battle at La Bassée and Arras
Autumn battle at La Bassée and Arras
| date | September 25 to November 4, 1915 |
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| place | Artois , France |
| output | Cessation of the attack after small gains in terrain |
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.svg){kind=small} 9 divisions of the 6th Army
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 11 divisions of 10th Army 8 divisions of 1st Army
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The autumn battle at La Bassée and Arras from September 25 to November 4, 1915 , known in England as the Third Battle of Artois , was one of the fruitless battles in trench warfare on the Western Front typical of the First World War . It was part of the Allied September offensive in Artois and Champagne ( autumn battle in Champagne ), with which the German front should be broken through before winter and the Russian allies on the Eastern Front should be relieved.
Deployment and troops involved
The French 10th Army under Victor d'Urbal attacked with four corps in the area north of Arras, the focal points of the French attack were at Souchez in the north and Neuville St. Vaast in the middle. Following the northern British 1st Army under Douglas Haig , which was attacking simultaneously on Loos , the French XXI. Corps under General Paul Maistre with the 13th and 41st Divisions north of Souchez. The line east of Carency became the XXXIII. Corps under General Émile Fayolle with the 70th, 77th and 55th Divisions set up on Givenchy via Souchez. The III. Corps under General Émile Hache was to advance with the 5th and 6th Divisions near Neuville St. Vaast on the heights of Vimy . The southern attack wedge formed the XII. Corps under General Henri Descoings with the 23rd and 24th Divisions, attacking Thelus. As a reserve served behind the XII. Corps the 58th and 130th Divisions and the 1st Cavalry Corps. The south wing of the Army d'Urbals - the XVII. Corps under General Dumas remained defensive in the eastern apron of the front city of Arras and south of the Scarpe.
The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was supposed to cover the left flank of the French offensive further north in the La Bassée area by carrying out its own major attack at Loos-en-Gohelle (→ Battle of Loos ) . On the British side, two corps of the 1st Army were attacking: the 1st Corps (2nd, 7th, 9th Divisions) under Hubert Gough in the north towards La Bassee and Hulluch , as well as the 4th Corps (1st Corps) to the south ., 15th, and 47th Divisions) under Henry Rawlinson on Loos. Another corps, the XI. (21st, 24th Division) under Richard Haking and the 3rd Cavalry Division, was held in reserve behind.
The main burden of the defensive battles on the German side was carried by the 6th Army under Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria . Opposite the British in the north, as in May 1915, the VII Army Corps had been under the new Commanding General von Francois with the 13th and 14th divisions and the 2nd Guard Reserve Division in the middle. At Loos the IV Army Corps was under General Sixt von Armin with the 7th and 117th Divisions , the 8th and 123rd Divisions were available in the second line .
The attacking north wing of the French 10th Army, whose aim was to break through to the Douai transport hub , was initially between Givenchy and Thelus, the VI. Army corps under General der Infanterie Kurt von Pritzelwitz with the 11th and 12th divisions alone opposite. On the south wing of the 6th Army opposite Arras was the Bavarian I. Reserve Corps under General Fasbender, which was not attacked during the battle .
course
After four days of intense artillery attacks , the French 10th Army attacked the German front on September 25th. One hour after noon nine French divisions went on an 11-kilometer front between Lievin and Ecurie against the German VI. and south wing of IV Corps. On the southern flank, the French XVII. Army Corps launched a diversionary attack against the Bavarian 1st Reserve Division at Roclincourt with its northernmost division , but was unsuccessful. The German front could be torn open to a width of only 6.5 km, north of Souchez the Saxon 123rd Division under General Lucius broke through to 1,800 meters. The 8th Division under General von Hanstein , which quickly intervened from the reserve, stabilized the German defense here. The attempt of the French XII. Corps at Thélus to expand the break-in point was thwarted by a German counter-attack. Despite their threefold superiority, the French had only been able to break in to a width of 6.5 km on the first day of the attack, at the protruding corner of Souchez they had broken 1,800 meters deep into the German front.
At the same time, the British opened their attack in the north at Loos with the use of chlorine gas and were able to take the Hohenzollern Redoute . Thanks to their numerical superiority, the right wing of Haig's army was able to break through the front of the German 7th Division under General Riedel and take Loos on September 25th . The British 7th Division deployed against Hulluch had 5,200 casualties on the first day of the attack, the commander Major General Capper was fatally wounded. General Thesiger , the commander of the Scottish 9th Division, was killed by German artillery fire at Fosse 8 the following day.
On September 26, the joint advancing inner wings of the French XXXIII. and XXI. Take Corps Souchez. The 58th, 154th and 130th Infantry Divisions, coming from the reserve, won only minor successes against Givenchy and La Folie, and Thélus also gained some ground. In the south, however, the III. and XII. Corps completely attacked again against the German positions southeast of Neuville St. Vaast.
From September 27, the right wing of the German VI. Corps shortened, the 11th Division was freed by the Guard Corps coming from the Eastern Front via Belgium between Souchez and Givenchy and strengthened the right wing of the 12th Division, which was fighting further south near Neuville - St. Vaast. The second line of defense of the German 6th Army withstood the attacks of the French and British over the next few days and weeks.
From October 8th, the German troops tried to use incoming reserves to regain lost terrain along the entire length of the section of the front. Another French attack had to be canceled in the evening of the day after heavy losses. Until October 10th, the worn out German VI. Corps was replaced by the Bavarian I. Army Corps under General of the Infantry von Xylander , drawn from the Lille area , and withdrawn from the front. The Bavarian 1st and 2nd Divisions now took over the defense of the western apron of the threatened Vimy position and were able to repel all further attacks at Thelus.
Even the British in the north could not achieve any further successes in the direction of Lens .
consequences
General Foch , the commander in chief of the French Groupe d'Armées du Nord , could not achieve his operational goal, the breakthrough on Douai. The British casualties in the battle alone amounted to about 60,000 men and were one of the reasons why French was replaced by Douglas Haig as commander-in-chief of the BEF in December 1915 . In October 1915, Rupprecht von Bayern received the honorary title of winner of Arras and La Bassée for repulsing strong French and English attacks .
Individual evidence
- ^ Reichsarchiv Volume IX. Mittler and Son, Berlin 1933, location map 4
- ^ Reichsarchiv Volume IX. Mittler and Son, Berlin 1933, sketch 8
literature
- Jean-Pierre Cartier: The First World War. Piper, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-492-02788-1 .
- John Keegan : The First World War - A European Tragedy. Rowohlt , Reinbek 2001, ISBN 3-499-61194-5 .
- Janusz Piekałkiewicz : The First World War. Weltbild, Düsseldorf 1993, ISBN 3-89350-564-4 .
- Christian Zentner : The First World War. Moewig Verlag , Rastatt 2000, ISBN 3-8118-1652-7 .
- Jean-Jacques Becker / Gerd Krumeich : The Great War. Germany and France in the First World War 1914–1918. Klartext Verlag , Essen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8375-0171-1 .
- Reichsarchiv (1931 and 1933). The World War 1914 to 1918: Military Operations on Land. Berlin: Mittler & Sohn. ISBN 978-1-55458-259-4 .
