THE WESTERN FRONT      

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ARTOIS:  DECEMBER 1914 – JANUARY 1915

THE  FIRST BATTLE OF CHAMPAGNE:  DECEMBER 1914 – MARCH 1915

Acknowledgements

Noyon Salient:  mainoapps.com   Sketch: ww1today.com  Artois/Champagne: en.m.wikipedia.org  First Battle of Champagne: wwitoday.com  Memorial: courtesy chrismas.co.uk. Christmas: by Harold Burge Robson, Imperial War Museum.  Book Cover: work by Geoff Bridges Chocolates: York Museums Trust

    The First Battles of Artois and Champagne began in late December. They formed a two-pronged attack by the French, aimed at reducing the Noyon Salient, a large bulge of German-held territory (mostly in Picardy) that, from its south-west border, was little more than 70 miles from Paris. These regions in the north-west corner of Belgium and France were of particular significance throughout the war because of their strategic importance. They were dominated by two heights at Vimy and Lorette, and both sides were anxious to hold these “ridges” to gain the tactical advantage they offered. Furthermore, the Allies were forever hoping to make a break through in this area in order to sever the railway link by which the German Army in the north received their supplies of men and material. The Germans, for their part, wanted to capture Ypres and then seize the ports of Dunkirk and Calais, vital supply lines for the British Expeditionary Force. There was to be no shortage of action in this part of the Western Front, but very little movement.

     It was in mid-November, 1914, that the French high command, led by General Joseph Joffre, came up with a plan to launch two concentric offensives upon the northern and southern edges of the Noyon Salient, one in Artois, north of Paris, and the other in Champagne, east of the French capital (see map above). The plan was to break through the well-fortified lines of the German defences – formidable though they might be – in order to force the Germans to back out of the Noyon Salient and, at best (given the return of mobility), to drive them out of northern France altogether. It was a highly optimistic and ambitious plan, and it was to prove unworkable.

    In the First Battle of Artois, fought from the 17th December to the 13th January 1915, the French Tenth Army failed to gain their prime objectives, hampered as they were by the lack of heavy artillery and the conditions under foot. Winter rains had set in and the ground was muddy and very treacherous. The immediate aim was to take the strongly fortified town of Carency and then go on to capture Mont de Lorette (see sketch maps), but the German defences proved far too powerful and the resistance far too persistent. With casualties mounting (put at over 7,700 killed and wounded), the offensive was abandoned. At one stage (18th to the 22nd December), the British took on the Germans at Givenchy in the Pas de Calais in order to support their ally, but, hard-fought though it was, it failed to divert German troops from the French offensive. Here, as along the entire Western Front, it was becoming ever more evident that mobility had given way to static trench warfare, a mode of conflict in which barbed wire, the machine gun, and more precise bombardment had become masters of the battlefield.

    Andxthe First Battle of Champagne, fought from the 20th December to the 17th March, 1915, only served to emphasis this development. The opening attack, launched by the French Sixth Army over an 18 mile front and supported by close on 700 guns, overran the the German’s first line of defence close to the towns of Perthes and Noyon, but fierce German counter attacks and atrocious weather conditions forced the French to withdraw. And an attack by the Fourth Army, further south, launched towards Rothel and Mezières on the 30th December, fared no better, and was brought to a halt by a series of German counter-attacks. Over the next two weeks, the French managed to take small amounts of ground, but on the 13th January, following close on a German exploratory attack on Soissons (on the route to Paris!), the French high command suspended the offensive to review the situation. Taking advantage of this respite, the Germans launched an attack upon the French Third Army, then defending the heights of Aubreville, but faced with strong opposition, failed to reach the vital railway line to Verdun. When the French resumed their offensive on the 16th February, they had more guns up front, and an attempt was made to synchronize artillery fire with the infantry’s advance, but, once again the German resistance proved too powerful, notably along La Basse Canal and near Soissons. Here, and, indeed, along most of the Western Front, the Germans were greatly assisted by the quality of their field fortifications. Their series of trenches were well constructed and connected, their dugouts were generally deeper and better built, and their machine gun posts in particular were well sited. On the 20th March the French high command called the operation off. For a few square miles of ground, the Fourth Army had lost some 90,000 men, dead, wounded or missing.

Despite the extent of this setback, Joffre remained convinced that the German lines could be ruptured (percée) by massed infantry attack. He argued that the campaign in Champagne had been lost because there had been inadequate artillery support and a lack of infantry. He was to resume the offensive in the autumn of 1915.

    Incidentally, thexBattles of Artois and Champagne included a number of places on the Western Front where, on Christmas Day, following impromptu carol singing, British, French and Belgian troops met up with their German counterparts in no-man’s land to exchange gifts and, in some cases, play football. As one soldier put it, “It was a short peace in a long terrible war.” Such action was officially banned from then onwards and, it is said, never occurred again. A memorial to the Christmas Truce in this area is to be seen in the village of Frelinghein, situated on the Franco-Belgian frontier just to the north-east of Armentières. It was unveiled on the 11th November 2008 ……

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    As we shall see, the Second Battle of Artois, which took place in May and June 1915 and did, in fact, succeed in capturing Mont de Lorette, was preceded by the Battle of Neuve Chapelle from the 10th to the 13th of March, and the Second Battle of Ypres, beginning on 22nd April. The first failed to achieve its objectives, and the second saw some loss of ground to the Germans, but neither side escaped from the deadlock that, by now, had gripped the Western Front from the North Sea to the Swiss border.

    …… and it was at this Christmas that he Lord Mayor of York, John Bowes Morell, and his Sheriff, Oscar F. Rowntree, sent a box of chocolates to all York men serving on the front line. Many sent back thank-you letters and 255 have survived from men in training, men serving in the trenches, and men at sea. A number of boxes have also survived, one complete with the chocolates!