Winter battle in Champagne
| date | February 16 to March 20, 1915 |
|---|---|
| place | Champagne , France |
| output | Cessation of the attack |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
|
3rd Army 8 infantry divisions |
4th Army 17 infantry divisions 3 cavalry divisions |
| losses | |
|
15,000 dead and wounded |
45,000 dead and wounded |
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The Battle of the Champagne was one of the early frontal breakthrough battles in the First World War . It was the first major attempt by the French Commander-in-Chief Joffre , using barrels and massed infantry rushes, which were very modest in comparison to later battles, to tear open the German front and to achieve an operational breakthrough with the reserves made available. The approach failed because of the defensive strength of the attacked German positions.
Strategic goals
Once on the Western Front , the operations of both sides in the November 1914 trench warfare had bogged down, planned General Joseph Joffre , head of the French High Command , a new large-scale operation. Time played on the Western Front for the Entente : While the Germans had shifted their strategic focus to the Eastern Front at the end of 1914 , where larger operations were planned, the number of Allied soldiers on the Western Front would steadily increase. Between December 17 and 21, 1914, Joffre let his 10th Army attack unsuccessfully in the Arras area in order to assess the strength of the German reserves. At around the same time, the French 4th Army began stronger attacks against the German 3rd Army on December 14 , thus initiating the first phase of the winter battle in Champagne.
New decisions were discussed with British Field Marshal French on December 27, 1914 at Joffres headquarters in Chantilly . For the beginning of 1915 Joffre reckoned with 2,250,000 French, 286,000 British and 110,000 Belgian soldiers compared to 1.7 million Germans. His conclusion was: “At the end of 1914, interest and the task at hand obliged the British and French to immediately go back to the offensive. It was important to prevent the Germans from settling down firmly against us and instead to force them back to war in the open field as soon as possible in order to drive them out of the French and Belgian territories they had occupied. "
On January 9, 1915, a strong attack followed in Champagne against the section of the German 16th Division east of Perthes . On January 8th and 13th, 1915, the French 6th Army began counter-attacks at Soissons , but they failed completely and the German III. Army corps to the north of the city on the Aisne . With the addition of the freed French I. Corps to the 4th Army, the attack in Champagne was intensified. On February 3, the German 15th Reserve Division and the right wing of the 21st Reserve Division began a counterattack north of Massiges , which recaptured lost ground by February 12.
Operation plan
Joffre planned a new breakthrough battle, a simultaneous breakthrough front of the 4th Army in the Champagne and the 10th Army in the Artois should force the armies of the middle German Army Group to retreat to the Belgian border. On February 16, 1915, the offensive was to begin in Champagne. In his general instruction No. 8, Joffre emphasized that his own troops and ammunition stocks were almost completely replenished, but the enemy was beginning to pull out troops and move them to the eastern front . This would have been the time for the offensive, which should start at two points:
- On the one hand, the reinforced 4th Army under General Langle de Cary in the direction of Attigny was to push through the positions of the German 3rd Army between Reims and the western edge of the Argonne , take the heights north of the Massiges -Perthes-Souain line and take the small town Reach Vouziers and the banks of the Meuse at Sedan and Charleville-Mézières .
- At the same time, the French 10th Army under General Maud'huy at Arras and a little later the English under General John French at La Bassée ( Battle of Neuve-Chapelle ) were to break through the positions of the German 6th Army on Douai . After a successful breakthrough, Joffre wanted to encompass the enemy promontory over a large area and cut it off from the north-west and south-east.
The start of the new offensive was set for February 6th, but was postponed due to bad weather.
The commanders
Joseph Joffre , General , the French Commander in Chief
General Langle de Cary, Commander of the 4th Army
Erich von Falkenhayn , Chief of the German Supreme Army Command
Karl von Eine , commander of the German 3rd Army .
Course of battle
The major attack in Champagne
On February 16, 1915, the 4th Army began its new major attack with 17 infantry and 3 cavalry divisions in Champagne. With an enormous concentration of 870 artillery pieces of all caliber, General Langle took the German positions under annihilation fire from 8 a.m. onwards. On the first day of the attack, the weather was cloudy and stormy, which meant that aerial reconnaissance was not possible. The construction of new starting positions and trenches as well as French exploratory advances had indicated the impending attack to the Germans in good time. The French main thrust was with the I. and XVII. Corps was set at 8 km width between the ferme de Beauséjour and the forest area west of Perthes , a side attack east of Souain was carried out by the XII. Corps under General Henri Jean Descoings with the 60th Infantry Division.
The Commander-in-Chief of the German 3rd Army , Colonel General Karl von Eine , had four large formations in the attack area: on the right in the Prunay - Aubérive area was the VI. Army Corps , the XII followed to the east . Reserve Corps under General Hans von Kirchbach , in the middle the VIII. Corps under General Julius Riemann , on the left the VIII. Reserve Corps ( Paul Fleck ), several cavalry regiments were in reserve. The right wing of the 5th Army , the 21st Reserve Division of the XVIII. Reserve Corps ( Kuno von Steuben ) at Cernay, was violently attacked by the French.
The several hours of bombardment shook the positions of the VIII. Corps and VIII. Reserve Corps between Souain and the ferme de Beauséjour . The infantry of the French I. and XVII. Corps, as well as the colonial corps under Henri Gouraud , attacked, they were very confident, because the German positions seemed to be completely crushed by the violent barrage. The combat terrain was difficult, slippery chalk soil, small watercourses and swamps hindered the French infantry, but favored the defenders. Heavy defensive fire struck the attackers, after a few hundred meters the attack halted in front of the trenches of the German 19th and 16th Reserve Divisions .
The XVII. Corps under General Noël Jean-Baptiste Dumas was able to occupy a two-kilometer-long section of the trench near Perthes, the 1st Corps under Henri Victor Deligny was held down by the barrage of heavy artillery and made no progress. The German artillery had fewer tubes, but the rate of fire of the German howitzers was two to three times faster than that of the French.
On February 17th, General Langle continued his attacks with undiminished strength. In the afternoon General One approved the hard-pressed VIII. Army Corps to replace the exhausted 39th Reserve Brigade with the 37th Brigade vacated by the 7th Army . On February 18, the French attacks against the 16th Reserve Division under Major General von Altrock began to weaken, but the situation at the 19th Reserve Division under General von Bahrfeldt remained critical. To the northwest of Tahure, the 37th Reserve Brigade intervened to support the defensive struggle of the VIII Army Corps.
Fight until the end of February
Fighting for days ensued. Some sections of the trench at Beauséjour and Perthes were taken by the French - after that no more deposits were possible. General Langle de Cary therefore decided to change the direction of attack to the north. The weather worsened and the storm troops fought their way forward, conquering a 300 m long section of trench. The battle resulted in fierce individual skirmishes. On February 19, parts of the French IV. Corps intervened in the battle, behind them the unused II. Corps stood ready as a reserve.
On the German side, the 1st Guard Division arrived on February 20 to reinforce the 3rd Army. Beauséjour was fought for days with varying degrees of success, the most violent artillery fire fell on the German positions, but the defenders tenaciously held the second trench line. On February 22nd, a German counterattack recaptured the positions they had struggled to take. The Saxon XII, which was also attacked in the Aubérive position in the afternoon. Reserve Corps was also no longer able to pay possible taxes for the main attack area.
As additional reinforcements, Joffre made the II Corps (General Augustin Gérard ) available to the 4th Army . He had also brought the 7th Division of IV Corps (from the 5th Army) and the 1st Cavalry Corps (General Conneau) to the combat area of the 4th Army and provided General de Langle with the artillery of the 8th Division. The XVI. Brought from Flanders. Corps, reinforced by the 48th Division, was brought into the Épernay region to be able to intervene as a reserve. General von Eine saw that the fighting was coming to an end, and surprisingly new strong attacks against the two left wing corps of his army began on February 23, the French artillery showed an undiminished force of attack. At the end of February, the focus of the attacks against the right wing of the German VIII Reserve Corps was in the area north of Le Mesnil. The situation of the German 16th Reserve Division (Major General von Altrock), against which the strongest pressure was directed, became more and more difficult. The French attack first hit the German Reserve Infantry Regiment 65, which was able to hold its position despite heavy casualties.
Final fights in March
On March 3, the Chief of the General Staff von Falkenhayn arrived at the headquarters of Einems in Vouziers and insisted on holding the positions. On March 7, new attacks began at Souain, the French XII. Corps with the 24th Division (General Mordacq ) and the 60th Division (General Réveilhac ). As of March 10, the front of the VIII. Army Corps was divided into three divisional sections, the 15th Division , the 19th Reserve Division and parts of the 1st Guard Division were now fighting in the main attack area .
In the Artois , meanwhile, the British under Douglas Haig led simultaneous relief attacks in the Battle of Neuve-Chapelle . The aim at Neuve-Chapelle was to break through the German front and conquer Lille . Haig's attacks were also intended to prevent the German 6th Army from freeing further charges for Champagne.
At the same time, on March 12, another French attack took place in Champagne. General Paul-François Grossetti took command in the main attack area; he left the XVI. Storm again with the 31st, 32nd and 48th Divisions. Again violent barrage shook the German positions near Perthes. A lieutenant of the German 2nd Guards Regiment reported in a letter: “We were now showered with insane artillery fire, the so-called 'drum fire'. One shot chases the other, there is an incessant crackling and boiling. Huge masses of iron were thrown on the trenches. In addition, the bursting grenades 'complain' so peculiarly. Because the pieces that have been blown off continue to rotate and cause a whistling sound, which in its entirety looks like a drawn out Oh! listens: It's all so disgusting that you can't describe it… ”The first German trench was taken again, then the attack fell silent.
General Grossetti reported: "We have only struck a crack in the enemy front". Against this gap and against the height 196 north of Le Mesnil, the French launched their next major attack on March 16. The right wing of General Altrock's division was thereby encompassed and pushed back as far as Perthes-Cernay. A counterattack by the 16th Reserve Division on March 17th failed, but a brigade from the 56th Division arrived and poorly stabilized the section. A strip 8 km wide and 2 km deep was conquered by the French. But after that the exhausted soldiers could not move any further. In view of the high losses, General Joseph Joffre stopped the unsuccessful attacks.
Result and consequences
Compared to the autumn battle in Champagne that followed in the same front section , the losses in this much smaller winter battle were correspondingly lower. The French lost about 45,000 soldiers dead and wounded. The German losses were 15,000 men. The comparatively lower number of German losses is primarily due to the well-developed positions and shelters at this early stage of the war.
The official bulletin of the French headquarters announced that the operations were "an unbroken chain of local successes" with comparatively few losses and very few prisoners. The enemy would have been forced to muster five army corps for defense, inflicted great losses and forced to fire large quantities of ammunition.
literature
- 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 .
- Jean-Pierre Cartier: The First World War , Piper , Munich 1984, ISBN 3-492-02788-1 .
- Wolfgang Förster: We Fighters in World War I , Munich undated
- 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 .
- Hew Strachan: The First World War , Bertelsmann , Munich 2003, ISBN 3-570-00777-4 .
- Christian Zentner : The First World War , Moewig Verlag , Rastatt 2000, ISBN 3-8118-1652-7 .
- Reichsarchiv: Volume VII, Mittler und Sohn, Berlin 1931, pp. 41–54.
Web links
- Winter battle in Champagne on the website of the German Historical Museum
Individual evidence
- ^ Christian Zentner: The First World War , Moewig Verlag , Rastatt 2000, ISBN 3-8118-1652-7 , p. 187.
- ^ Jean-Pierre Cartier: The First World War , Piper , Munich 1984, ISBN 3-492-02788-1 , p. 260.
- ↑ Wolfgang Förster: We fighters in the world war , Munich undated, p. 149.
- ^ A b Jean-Pierre Cartier: The First World War , Piper , Munich 1984, ISBN 3-492-02788-1 , p. 264 f.
- ^ Hermann Stegemann: History of the war . Volume 3, p. 109.