major operation except Verdun, the Allies attacked. Save in
that one case, the Germans held to their decision to stand upon
the strategic defensive in France and Belgium, from Nov. 1914
to March 1918. In order to attempt a decision, it was, therefore,
necessary to attack their entrenchments. The strength of the
defensive in trench warfare, and the corresponding difficulty
of the attack, were realized only with time.
Originally, the entire Lorette ridge was occupied by the Germans during the race to the sea ; the French swept them off in a brilliant little attack. Then the Germans moved in again and took the chapel and all the eastern end of the ridge nearly to the wood of Buvigny, not by assault but because the place had been left entirely unguarded during the night of Oct. 7-8 in the course of a relief of the French troops in the sector an incident altogether typical of the race to the sea. As regular trench warfare began, the Germans had the best of the artillery fighting. Their guns were both heavier and more numerous, and their fire control better suited to the new and unexpected sort of fight- ing. Their batteries were emplaced near Lievin . and Angres, behind Vimy ridge, and behind the butte of Monchy-le-Preux. In Nov. they began to use hand grenades, the first of the typical trench weapons to appear, or rather to reappear. The French did not begin manufacturing grenades during the following winter, and were not able to issue them to the troops until March 1915. Nevertheless, despite the German heavy artillery and grenades, the month of Nov. saw such an improve- ment in the French defensive works that casualties became fewer, although it was not yet possible to put out continuous wire.
Early in Dec. the situation changed for the better with the arrival of several units of French heavy artillery, whose fire compelled the Germans on Lorette ridge to take cover in their deep dug-outs. The French Higher Command ordered the XXI. Corps, which had held the Lorette sector since its stabilization, to attack in the hope of a break-through. The Corps commander, Gen. Maistre, was doubtful of the success of the operation proposed, judging the means insufficient and the obstacles to be encountered too strong. Nevertheless, the attack took place on Dec. 17 at 1:10 P.M. on a front of a mile and a quarter, with diversions against Auchy-les-La Bassee, and Loos, and in front of St. Laurent-Blangy. Near Lorette the artillery preparation had not been sufficient to prevent the assaulting troops coming under heavy fire, especially from machine-guns, as they left the trenches. The German wire was strong and had been very little cut. Nevertheless, they struggled on through deep mud, and succeeded in taking some trenches. For four days the operation was persisted in. The artillery support was weak, partly because of the winding, irregular front line, partly through insufficient liaison with the infantry. Against such handicaps the infantry strove bravely but in vain. At last, after murderous losses which justified only too well Gen. Maistre's forebodings, the attack was broken off.
An unbroken series of minor operations took place throughout the winter and early spring. In the afternoon of Dec. 27 ten battalions of Chasseurs Alpins, commanded by Gen. Barbot, attacked the hamlet of La Targette, after two hours of artillery preparation. " No-man's-land " was here a quarter of a mile wide, quite flat and without cover save for a single sunken road. Hence losses were heavy and onlv half a mile of first-line trenches were taken.
As the winter went on, the sticky mud became even worse, and the heavy German trench-mortar projectiles added still more to the danger and discomfort of the trenches. On March 3, at dawn, after a short but violent preparation by heavy artillery and heavy trench mortars, an entire German division made a sudden attack along the crest of the ridge, and drove the French into Buvigny wood. Two days of counter-attacks recovered most of the ground lost, and throughout March and April a series of local attacks and counter-attacks slightly improved the French position at a cost in casualties disproportionately large in comparison with the ground gained. The dead were not all Frenchmen. Already the German troops were beginning to call the ridge " Tolenhugd" the Hill of Death.
In April the first French sS-mm. trench mortars, few in number, were put in service. The French had already begun the use of hand grenades in March.
About May i the French Higher Command decided upon a general attack, and chose Artois as its sector. It was desirable that something be done on the western front in the hope of relieving the pressure upon the Russians, on whose front the great blow was about to fall. The British agreed to support the operation by a diversion in Flanders.
From the original formation of the French " Group of armies of the North," Gen. Foch had been in command. This command he still retained, and his was the decision as to the length of front to be attacked. Even at this early stage of trench warfare, he saw clearly that to estimate the possible width of an assault according to the number of infantry available was nonsense. He therefore insisted upon calculating the front to be attacked according to the available quantity of heavy artillery, insisting that a clear superiority in heavy pieces was necessary over the full width of the operation proposed. On the western front as a whole, the Germans still disposed of superior numbers in this particular arm, so that it seemed impossible to obtain a sufficient superiority of fire over a front of much more than six miles. As a result of Foch's insistence the width of the attacking front was limited accordingly. The right of the proposed assault was fixed in the neighbourhood of Roclincourt, the left on the northern slopes of Lorette ridge. At this stage of the war it was still believed that a violent effort, even on so restricted a front, stood a fair chance of breaking through the opposing trench system and restoring a war of movement.
From May 4, the German Higher Command was convinced that a considerable attack was to be expected. Nevertheless, so high ran their hopes of victory in the east that even Falken- hayn, usually so chary of reinforcements for that theatre, drew yet another division thither from France.[1]
In Artois, the French order of battle was as follows: the left of the XVII. Corps was around Roclincourt. North of them stood the XX. Corps, its left facing La Targette and extending a little north of that village. North of the XX. came the XXXIII. Corps, commanded by Petain, the future commander-in-chief of the French armies on the western front. His extreme left faced Ablain. North again of the XXXIII. Corps, astride the Lorette ridge and on to the Arras-Bethune high road, stood the XXI. Corps which, always under Maistre, had held the sector from the beginning. The XX. and the XXXIII. Corps had three divisions each, the other corps two. All four corps formed part of the X. Army, now commanded by D'Urbal, who had relieved Maud'huy, the original army commander, in March. Foch shifted his headquarters from Cassel to Prevent on the Doullens-St. Pol road in order to follow the operation more closely. The troops were in high spirits at the prospect of quitting the foul and muddy trenches, and in the hope of fighting in the open thenceforward.
Opposite them, the German defences were formidable; indeed the painstaking German national character is well adapted to the construction of elaborate works. Each of the solidly built French villages was a complicated little citadel. North of Ecurie a huge tangle of trenches formed a strong point, known as the Labyrinth, covering more than half a square mile. A series of works, known to the French as the "Ouvrages Blancs," ran in a concave line from a hummock in front of La Targette to the western end of Carency. On the Lorette ridge itself, the ground favoured the defence. The southern slopes were precip- itous and were, moreover, cut by deep ravines which the French likened to the grooves in a melon rind. Of the five spurs between these ravines, the Germans held the easternmost three, their front line running from a point a thousand yards west of the ruins of the chapel, across the summit of the third spur, and so to the western end of Ablain a curious position which only the great strength of the modern defensive made possible. To the
- ↑ Falkenhayn, Die Oberste Heeresleitung, p. 74. At this period, Falkenhayn says, the total German combatant strength in the western theatre was 1,900,000 against an Allied total of 2,450,000.
