The Ebb and Flow of the Battle
- fighting on the Aisne as seen by French newsmagazines
- continued from part 1 - The Battle of the Marne
From the line of the upper Ourcq the German right, under Von Kluck, had fallen back across the Aisne, a deep, rapid river which runs down from the Southern Argonne, flowing east and west to the middle Oise. North of the Aisne, the Germans halted on the heights that rise almost immediately from its right bank. This high ground is a plateau broken up in places with narrow valleys, and dotted with clumps of wood that slope in a north-eastern direction to the crest of the line of heights which extend from the Oise at La Fère by Laon, eastward to the neighbourhood of Rheims. The northern and eastern edge of the plateau, where it descends by bold escarpments to the eastern plains, is the position known in France as the Falaises de Champagne, the ground originally chosen by the French for a last stand against an invader marching on Paris. It had been abandoned during the retreat from the frontier, and the Germans now chose this high ground above the Aisne for a determined stand of their right. It was historic ground. During the campaign of France in 1814 at the end of February, Napoleon had made a dash across the Aisne against Blucher. After a hard fight the Prussians were driven from the eastern end of the plateau at Craonne, but Napoleon failed in his attempt to force the Blucher's position at Laon. In those days the small numbers of the armies engaged and the short range of their weapons localised the fighting on special points of the high ground. But in studying the history of the campaign the German staff must have fully realised the advantages that the heights of the Aisne offered as a defensive position against an enemy, moving, like Napoleon, from the southward across the river, and when, after the battle of the Marne, they decided on making a stand to check the advance of the victorious Allies, they chose this strong ground for their right.
When, in the second week of September, the Allied armies pushed northward across the Ourcq and approached the Aisne, still driving the German rearguards before them, the general impression was that the enemy was so badly beaten that he would soon be driven out of France. On September 13th, Sir John French with the British Expeditionary Force was approaching the Aisne. On the left his cavalry pushed close up to Soissons, and some of his artillery was in action against the German troops beyond the river. On his right, three of Allenby's cavalry brigades drove the Germans across the little river Vesle, a tributary of the Aisne, near Braisne.
That evening the First Corps bivouacked on the high ground between the Vesle and the Aisne. The Second Corps was in the centre on both sides of the Vesle, and the First Corps was about Buzancy, south-east of Soissons, The cavalry reported that the Germans were holding the heights along the opposite bank of the Aisne, and that nearly all the bridges over the river had been destroyed. It was obvious that the enemy's position was a strong one, but it was believed that the most he would attempt would be to fight another rearguard action along the river to cover the general retirement of his armies. The British force was only one of the armies that was pushing northward in a great wave along a front that extended across central France, from the upper Meuse to beyond the Oise.
The great battle, which began on Saturday, September 14th, mainly took place between these river lines. It was the beginning of a long conflict that was to last for months. The first days of fighting are known to us as the battle of the Aisne. The Germans call it the battle between the Oise and Meuse. On the British left from near Soissons to beyond the Oise was the 6th French Army under General Mannoury. On the right was the 5th Army under General D'Esperey. These three Armies, French and British, were opposed to the 1st German Army under Von Kluck, holding the Aisne plateau. Eastward of Craonne the ground sinks sharply to the Aisne, near the old ferry of Berry-au-Bac, where a modern bridge carries the Rheims-Laon road across the Aisne. Beyond Berry- au-Bac a little river, the Suippe, runs into the Aisne, and along the northern banks of this tributary stream, the ground rises northward in a gentle slope. This was the position to which the 2nd German Army, under Von Bulow had retreated, abandoning Rheims, which was reoccupied by the gth French Army under General Foch. The German line was prolonged eastward to the Argonne and the upper Meuse by the Army of the Duke of Wurtemberg, the Saxon Army, lately under Von Hausen, but now commanded by Von Einem, and the Army of the Crown Prince. These three armies were faced by the 4th French Army under De Langle, and the 3rd Army under Sarrail. Beyond the Meuse and the fortified range of heights that run south from Verdun the Bavarian Army was attacking Nancy and the barrier forts on the hills. Once more armies, each more than a million strong, were set in battle array along fronts of over a hundred miles.
Of the French operations during the first days of this great battle we know only some salient points. Thanks to Sir John French's despatches, we have a more detailed knowledge of the fine work that was done by our own men. The battle began at daybreak on Saturday, September 14th, by a general advance against the line of the Aisne. The orders were to force the river crossing at several points. From the heights in the south bank our artillery covered the operation and engaged the German batteries posted on the wooded slopes on the other side of the river. The front assigned to the British was about fifteen miles. Along some parts of this frontage it was difficult even to approach the river, because the hills receding in places from the stream left broad stretches of open ground every yard of which could be searched by the enemy's long- ranging artillery. But, in other places, there was good cover at least from view nearly up to the river-bank. For there is abundance of wood on the slopes, and in the hollow of the river line villages and farmsteads with clumps of trees and roads sunk between high banks helped to screen the advance.
British engineers in action
The most difficult and dangerous work of the day fell to the lot of the engineers. The river was swollen, and a muddy torrent was roaring through the wreckage of the broken bridges at the villages. Near Soissons French and English engineers tried to push two pontoon bridges across, but, after repeated attempts made under a heavy shrapnel fire from the northern heights, they had to give it up. Further west, Mannoury's men had managed to bridge the river in the grey of the morning, and gained a footing on the northern bank. The French succeeded in getting pontoon bridges across at Vic and Fontenoy to the west of Soissons, and, in the afternoon, were fighting their way up the ravines and the wooden slopes of the plateau. But near Soissons both the French and the British engineers failed to push the pontoons over the river. A bridge would be half- made when it would be shattered by the bursting shells hurled from the German howitzer batteries on the northern heights. Attempts to find out the position of the batteries and silence them were ineffectual. Again and again the engineers renewed their efforts, but at last it was realised that a crossing at this point was impossible.
To the east of Soissons near the village of Venizel, where a long island divides the river into two branches, a bridge was successful constructed, and the nth British Brigade got across the river. At the village itself the road bridge had been blown up by the enemy, but the explosion had only partly demolished it. It was repaired early in the morning, and supplied another crossing point. On the bend of the river between Venezil and the mouth of the Vesle, other brigades of the 3rd Corps crossed the river by means of rafts. The village of Missy was occupied, and an attack pushed forward up the long ravine-like valley that opens on the river north of the village.
In the British centre Smith-Dorrien with the 2nd Corps advanced against the river-line on both sides of the junction of the Vesle and Aisne. There was heavy loss during the crossing of the open ground where the valley of the Vesle opens between the heights of the south bank. Attempts to bridge the river opposite the village of Missy ended ir> failure, but in the afternoon rafts were constructed and hauled backwards and forwards, and by this means two brigades were sent across the Aisne. Smith-Dorrien's other division, the 3rd, attempted a crossing east of the Vesle. Here the Germans had left the bridge at Condé intact. On the other side they held the village, and had tiers of rifle trenches on the steep slope by which the heights rise above it, and batteries in position on the crest. Some of them actually sheltered among the ramparts of the abandoned French fort of Condé. At this point all attempts to force the crossing were repulsed with loss, and the Germans held Condé not only all that day, but for weeks to come.
The 8th Brigade, on Smith-Dorrien's right, gained a footing on the nothern bank at the village of Vailly round the bend of the river above Condé. Beyond this point Haig was attacking with the 1st Corps at the villages of Chavonne, Pont Arcy, and Bourg on a front of about six miles. In this part of the valley the river winds along the base of the hills in long loops and bends, and to facilitate the barge navigation a canal has been cut on a fairly straight line on the south side from near Chavonne to beyond Bourg. The ist Corps had thus to cross two obstacles, first the canal, and then the winding river, and the flat open space between them was swept by the German guns on the heights. The canal was easily bridged, but the difficulties of the attack then began. At most points it proved impossible to get the pontoons across the open ground of the river. At Chavonne the crossing was made by boats and rafts. At Pont Arcy an iron road bridge had been blown up, the broken girders formed a kind of switchback across the river, but in the middle at the deepest part, even the tops of them were a couple of feet under water, and the river swollen by rain, was foaming over them like a mill-race. Having crossed the canal and got into the village, the men of the leading battalion of the 5th Brigade decided on attempting the crossing of the broken bridge. Ropes were stretched across to help them to keep their footing at the most difficult point, and one by one they made their way over the wreckage, being nearly up to their waists in water in the middle.
Gradually a small force was accumulated on the north bank and as it pushed forward the engineers were able to improve the difficult crossing. But it was on the extreme right, near Bourg, that Haig was most successful. Here the whole of the 1st Division, three strong brigades, succeeded in crossing the river during the morning. Near Bourg a branch canal starts from the canal of the Aisne, and is carried across the river itself by a low aqueduct with a broad tow-path. By a lucky chance the enemy did not hold this point very obstinately. They were driven from the tow-path and the aqueduct, and a steady stream of men was pushed across. Then beside the aqueduct, and largely sheltered by it from the enemy's fire, pontoon bridges were constructed for the artillery. The ist Division not only crossed, but succeeded in pushing for more than two miles up the plateau, and halted in the evening on a partly entrenched line between the villages of Moussy and Moulin. On its right, D'Esperey with the 5th Army had been crossing, and a brigade of French Morocco Infantry covered the flank of the British line.
By evening, not without much loss, and the most heroic efforts on the part of the engineers, the crossing of the river had been secured at several points, and about half Sir John French's force was on the north bank, and on the right not only had the river been crossed, but solid progress had been made on the heights beyond it. The forcing of this strong river line in a single day seemed to suggest that the enemy was still in retreat and had merely fought with a delaying or rearguard action along the river. This was the view generally taken by the Allied Generals. Its correctness was to be put to the test next day by a general advance against the northern heights.
trenches along the Aisne
This plateau of the Aisne is broken up on its southern margin by a number of minor valleys, some of them almost like steep-sided ravines, others more open. In many of these valleys there are quarries which have been worked for centuries, and their excavations, underground passages and huge waste heaps afford an abundance of ready-made cover. There are clumps of wood everywhere, especially on the higher slopes, where they make it difficult to obtain a distant view of the main crest-line. The villages are strongly built of stone. A good road, locally known as the "Route des Dames," runs along the main crest of the plateau, and at the eastern end of the heights the ground falls away behind it into a deep hollow, running parallel with the road, and giving excellent shelter for the supports of troops holding the crest line. The full strength of the position was revealed during the attack made upon it all along the line on the morning of Tuesday, September 15th, the day of the hardest fighting during the battle of the Aisne.
Sir John French in planning the day's operations, relied chiefly upon what would be done by the 1st Corps on the right under Sir Douglas Haig. As we have seen, Haig, on the day before, had pushed well forward up the slopes, and of all the British force his troops were nearest the crest of the plateau. His orders were to push forward at dawn towards the "Route des Dames." If he could win this high ground he would be able to outflank the German line further west, and thus materially assist the rest of the British force in storming the main position of the enemy.
It was a dull, cloudy day with frequent showers of driving rain that made the long-range work of the artillery somewhat difficult. Haig sent his 1st Division forward on the right to attack the villages of Ven dresse, Troyon and Chivy, while the 2nd Division on the left sent two brigades along the valley followed by the canal towards the village of Braye, the 5th Brigade east of the canal, and the 6th west of it, while the 4th Guards' Brigade moved up the spur of the plateau still further west towards the village of Ostel. In the first hour good progress was made. The German advanced parties being everywhere driven in.
But as the attack approached the villages, the enemy's resistance became more determined. It was soon realised that the Germans were fighting no mere rearguard action, but were obstinately defending a well-chosen and elaborately prepared position. It was only gradually that its full strength was revealed. The wooded, broken ground made it impossible to obtain any general view of the position held by the enemy, but at every point where the attack approached the crest of the plateau there was the same experience. The men came under a heavy fire from unseen enemies, using their rifles from deep trenches, and supported by hidden batteries still further back. Troyon and Vendresse were stormed after some hours of desperately hard fighting in which the Northamptons suffered heavily. The 3rd Brigade fought its way into Chivy, but the villages proved to be only the outworks of the main position and all further advance was checked by the storm of fire that poured down the slopes from the German entrenchments along the Route des Dames. In the valley, to the left along the canal, the attack came to a standstill in front of the village of Braye, where the ridge rises abruptly and the canal disappears in a tunnel underneath it. On the other side of the hollow the Guards were fighting their way through the woods towards Ostel.
Further to the left the two other corps had been engaged since daybreak, but starting almost from the river bank, they had made much less progress. The attack of the 2nd Corps was divided into two separate parts by the Germans still holding undisputed possession of the Condé spur. East of the Condé the 3rd Division was just able to gain a footing on the slopes above Vailly. On the other side of Condé the 5th Division was co- operating with the 3rd Corps in an advance upon the heights on each side of the narrow valley that runs down to the Aisne above Missy. Still further to the left, the French 6th Army had begun the day well, winning its way over the lower spurs of the plateau, storming the quarries at the village of Autruche, capturing the long wooded spur that runs parallel to the Aisne at the village of Nouvion, and penetrating into the valley behind it near Morsain. By noon General Mannoury's attack was beginning to work up towards the main ridge of the plateau, though it was making very slow progress.
But now a change came over the battle. During the morning hours the enemy had lost some ground, but had gradually brought the attack to a standstill at most points. The Germans now began to counter-attack all along the line, their advance being heralded by a sudden development of a tremendous artillery fire. On the left the German attack drove the French from all the ground they had won and forced them steadily back till they could at last barely hold their own along the river bank. On the British left the 3rd Corps was also forced back to the low ground. On the right Haig's men succeeded in holding their own in the villages they had won, though the position was for a while in danger by the retirement of the French Moorish troops, who had been covering the right. In the woods about Ostel the Guards had to fall back before an overwhelming force, and the Germans began to work round their left into the hollow, north of Cha-vonne, threatening to break through the British line between the 1st and 2nd Corps. The only reserve that Sir John French had in hand was made up of three brigades of Allenby's cavalry division. These were hurried through Chavonne and pushed forward on the left of the Guards, and every available man was dismounted to prolong the hard-pressed firing line. This reinforcement stopped the German advance, and saved the situation at this point.
After their first success the Germans made no further progress. At some points they maintained themselves till nightfall on the ground they had won. At others they fell back to their entrenched lines. By this time the idea of storming the enemy's position in a single day had been abandoned. Haig's men were busy digging themselves in on the ground they actually held from Troyon by Chivy, and across the canal to the wooded heights between Chavonne and Ostel. The shelter-trenches hastily dug that afternoon marked out the advanced line of the enormous system of entrenchment that gradually grew up along the Aisne, and were held for weeks to come. It was the beginning of the long war of entrenched positions and siege work that was characteristic of the second phase of the campaign. This battle of September 15th was one of those engagements in which both sides claimed the victory. The Germans had held their main position and at several points had regained ground lost the day before. On the other hand, on our side Sir Douglas Haig had solidly established himself on the heights in an advanced position, capturing several villages, and taking some hundreds of prisoners and several of the enemy's cannon and machine guns. He had secured ground, the possession of which by the enemy, would have made it impossible for the Army to hold its own on the north side of the Aisne. Of the work done by the 1st Army Corps Sir John French wrote, in his despatch of October 8th:
"Throughout the battle of the Aisne this advanced and commanding position was maintained, and I cannot speak too highly of the valuable services rendered by Sir Douglas Haig and the Army Corps under his command. Day after day and night after night the enemy's infantry has been hurled against him in violent counter-attack, which has never on any one occasion succeeded, while the trenches all over his position have been under continuous heavy artillery fire."
During this battle of the 15th large shells exploded over the British attack, the fragments of which revealed the fact that the enemy had in action some 8-inch siege guns with a range of about 10,000 yards. The fortress of Maubeuge had been taken a few days before, and the enemy had hurried down to the entrenched position on the Aisne many of the heavy siege guns and howitzers which had been used to reduce the fortress. There is no doubt they were also reinforced by the greater part of the troops engaged in the siege.
illustrations of fighting along the Aisne
The hard fighting in which the 6th French Army and the British Expeditionary Force had been engaged during these days was only part of the great battle, the front of which extended from the Oise to the upper course of the Meuse. Beyond the British right, along this extended front, four French Armies were in action. The 5th French Army, under D'Esperey, was acting on Sir John French's immediate right, and attacking the heights to the north of the Aisne from Bourg to their eastern end near the village of Craonne. D'Esperey directed his chief effort against Craonne, the possession of which would turn the whole line of the heights. But he did not succeed in driving the Germans from the strong ground they held—the same long steep-sided spur which had been the scene of one of Napoleon's victories in 1814.
Beyond D'Esperey, next in the long line came the 9th Army under General Foch, which had played a leading part in deciding the victory of the Marne. In the subsequent pursuit the Germans had fallen back before Foch through Epernay over the wooded hills north of it, and into Rheims, which they abandoned almost without firing a shot. The French reoccupation of the historic city, one of the most important junctions of road, railway and canal traffic in northern France, seemed to set the seal on the victory of the Marne, and the abandonment by the Germans of the strong positions around it suggested that they were thoroughly demoralised by their failure. But Von Bulow, who commanded this section of the German line, was deliberately falling back to a position selected to protect the left of his colleague Von Kluck's stronghold on the Aisne heights. After abandoning Rheims, Von Bulow halted with his right at Berry-au-Bac, on the Aisne and his line extending along a few miles of the river, and then turning eastward along the northern bank of its tributary, the river Suippe. At first sight, the position seemed a weak one compared to that held by his colleague on the wooded hills above the Aisne. But all our experience of war with the quick-firing weapons of to-day goes to show that the strongest of positions is not the steep hillside, but the gentle slope sufficiently even and open to be exposed to the low-so sweeping fire of rifles and machine guns, and thoroughly searched by the bursting shrapnel of the quick-firing artillery. Even on the Aisne heights Von Kluck chose for his obstinate defence not the bold slopes looking down on the river, but the gentle declivities near the crest of the plateau. When he halted north of Rheims, Von Bulow established himself in an entrenched position on the long swell of ground north of the Suippe, with open fields, sloping evenly in its front to the bank of the stream. His right at Berry-au-Bac was well posted behind the Oise and a nearly parallel canal line barring the main road from Rheims by the rear of the Aisne heights to Laon. Foch with the 9th Army advanced to the attack of this strong ground, while the Allied left was crossing the Aisne and assailing the heights beyond it. But General Foch not only failed to force Von Billow's position on the Suippe, but was driven back towards Rheims by a German counter-attack.
Von Bulow crossed the Suippe in pursuit of the retiring French, and succeeded in capturing the hill of Brimont, north of Rheims, and within long artillery range of the city. When the defences of France were reorganised in 1875, Rheims was fortified by constructing a circle of forts on the hills around it. One of these forts was on this isolated hill of Brimont. When the introduction of high explosive shells for siege artillery rendered the fortifications of 1875 obsolete, nothing was done to bring the defences of Rheims up to date. With a strange disregard of possibilities which it is hard to understand, the forts constructed for this and other of the great French cities, were first neglected, and then disarmed and dismantled. Rheims, like Lille, appeared in French official publications up to the very eve of the war as an entrenched camp, or first-class fortress, though these places had really become open towns. In their advance, the Germans had occupied the city without resistance, and Foch had retaken it in the same way, when the enemy retreated after the Marne. He now had to hold it under considerable difficulties, for not only had Von Bulow captured Brimont, a point once considered essential to its defence, but the German commander succeeded within a few days in occupying in the same way the sites of two others of the old circle of forts on the hill of Nogent l'Abbesse, to the east of the city. But he failed to capture the adjacent hill of Pompelle. He brought up heavy siege guns to Brimont, and began a bombardment of the city and the French artillery positions around it.
Eastward of Rheims the 3rd and 4th Armies under Generals De Langle and Serrail, were in contact with the Crown Prince's Army, and some of the Saxon and Wurtemberg troops in the country south of Argonne. Here, too, during the fighting on the Aisne the German retreat came to an end and the invaders began a persistent defence of lines of entrenched positions.
On the 16th, the day after the general attack on the Aisne heights, the French 6th Army recovered some of the ground it had lost on the left. Sir John French had intended to renew the advance of his own right on this day, but he says in his despatches that he realised that any advance at this point would dangerously expose his right flank. The fact was that D'Esperey and the French 5th Army were no longer able to give the necessary support on this side. A further reason for delay was the information received at the British headquarters from General J offre, that the 6th Army on the extreme left, was being reinforced with a view to an attempt against Von Kluck's right flank.
But for the rest of the week no further advance was possible. The Allied lines were heavily bombarded day and night and several local counter-attacks by the Germans had to be repulsed. British and French alike were busy digging themselves in on the ground they held. The possession of the Condé spur and the bridge below it by the enemy divided the British line forming an awkward salient between the two divisions of the 2nd Corps. On Friday 18th, Sir John French discussed with General Smith-Dorrien the question of whether it was advisable to attempt its capture. It was decided that at the moment it would be too costly an undertaking. All the more because though the Germans held the bridge, all exits from it on the south bank were barred, so that the enemy could not make any use of it to break out of its position on to the south bank. It was just after this conference that Sir John French heard from General Joffre, that he had found it necessary to make a new plan, and to attack and envelop the German right flank.
- two illustrations by R. Caton Woodville showing
- British trenches on the Aisne (from the 'London Illustrated News')
The situation was this. The fighting on the Aisne heights had ended in an absolute deadlock all along the line from the Oise to Craonne. It was evident that a mere frontal attack was not likely to have any useful effect, but it seemed that there would be a good prospect of forcing Von Kluck to abandon his strong position by a movement from the westward against his right rear and his line of communications. The 6th Army had been reinforced, and General Manoury had already pushed some of his troops up the right bank of the Oise towards Noyon, and Von Kluck had met this threat against his right by extending his line beyond the river. But General J off re's plan did not consist in a mere extension of his existing battle-line to envelop the German right. He was using the French railway system to concentrate a new army between the lower Seine and the Belgian frontier. Amiens was the headquarters of this concentration, and the western Army was to march by St. Quentin against the line of the upper Oise, so as to push in behind the German right, and threaten the invaders' communications with Belgium and Luxemburg. The plan was really a revival on a larger scale of one of the plans of campaign of the Franco-German war more than forty years before. In January 1871, Faidherbe, with the French Army of the North based on Amiens, attempted a march by St. Quentin and Laon against the communications of the main German Army. The enterprise ended in the disastrous defeat of the French at St. Quentin but the conditions now offered much better prospects for an advance on the same line. It was generally believed that the invading army was just able to hold its own on the long line it occupied from the east of France to the Oise, and there were no large reserves available with which to stop the march of the new army as it advanced from Amiens into the wide gap between the Aisne heights and the Belgian frontier.
There was also a too optimistic hope that the Germans would not anticipate this new stroke, and would only realise their danger when it was too late. The general opinion, as expressed not only in the Press at home, but in letters from headquarters in the field was that, notwithstanding a temporary check on the Aisne, the Allies had secured a marked superiority over the enemy, and would now by a bold and unexpected stroke be able to complete his destruction. "It will be a matter of a few days," was what was said even in high places. It proved to be a matter of many months. But before following further the course of events in France we must say something of the important work that was being done by the Navy and the great events that were happening in the east of Europe.
taking shelter in a quarry
to part 3 - the Fighting in the East of France
