New Methods
In early 1917 the Western Front had become solid. The war of the trenches had caused a great construction activity, which made it almost impossible to storm the enemy´s strongholds. On top of that two commanders of the allied armies were either removed from their post or replaced. The battle cruiser HMS Hampshire with the British War Minister Kitchener on board hit a mine and sank en route to Russia. Lloyd George took the vacant job and promoted Lord Derby to War Minister immediately. In France Joseph Joffre was replaced by Robert Nivelle as Commander-in Chief. Only Ludendorff and Hindenburg remained in office.
Robert Georges Nivelle (1857 – 1924) was born in Tulle as son of an English mother and a French father. Nivelle graduated from the École Polytechnique in 1878, served in Indochina, Algeria, and China as an artillery officer. He was cavalryman cum regimental Colonel of an artillery unit at the Marne in 1914, and was made a General of Brigade in October 1914. In 1915 he was Commander of the III. Corps. In 1916 his meteoric rise carried him to Commander-in Chief of the French Army in December 1916. On October 24, 1916 he became a national hero when his troops recaptured Douaumont and other forts at Verdun. Paramount in his success at Verdun was his clever, innovative deployment of the “creeping barrage”. However, it was by no means an original ploy; the British had already used it on the Somme. The creeping barrage” tactic meant that the infantry advanced closely behind a cleverly orchestrated artillery barrage. This avoided the usual murderous void between the time the artillery lifted its barrage and the time when the infantry actually reached the enemy's trenches. This much-heralded success at Verdun, was followed by effective counter offensives east of the Meuse River in October and December 1916.
Nivelle had quickly understood the entanglement of military and politics and soon he became an expert in lobbying members of the parliament as well as the military elite. Flushed by his successes, and an aura close to adulation that it brought from the war weary French nation, he made grandiose claims of having found the key to certain success on the Western Front and of the ability to “end the War in 48 hours”. His self-promotion was considerably helped by the fact that Nivelle's mother was English with useful contacts with British society. Also, his fluency in the English language placed him in a particularly advantageous position when dealing with the British military and political elites.
A combination of these factors prompted the French Prime Minister Aristide Briand to nominate him as General Joseph Joffre's successor in December 1916. The British Prime Minister, David Lloyd-George, not only heartily endorsed Nivelle's promotion, but in a countermove against the dominant position of the British C-in-C, General Sir Douglas Haig, agreed that the British Expeditionary Forces (BEF) should be subordinate to Nivelle, i.e. under French command. The French War Minister Huberty Lyautey resigned from his office when he heard of Nivelle´s promotion. Even Nivelle's Reserve Army Group commander, General Micheler, was opposed and so was General Henri-Philippe Petain.
Doomed to fail
Now, Nivelle began to work on his plan that designated the British to attack at Arras and the Vimy Ridge. This offensive should divert the German attention from the Chemin de Dames Ridge where he intended to attack the Germans head-on. The Chemins des Dames (Ladies Road) is running along a crest between the Aisne and Ailette rivers, Northern France. Built during Roman times, the road was the site of the battle (57 BC) in which Julius Caesar defeated the Gauls. Chemin des Dames received its name in the 18th century when Louis XV's daughters travelled along the road to Bove Castle with their ladies-in-waiting.
But Nivelle´s plan was doomed from the start. The Germans knew precisely what Nivelle's “formula” was - after all he had used it twice before. The Germans, in their usual meticulous way, had made appropriate preparations and, in an inspired tactical move, had pulled back from their forward positions to their impressive fortifications on the Hindenburg Line. Thus they skilfully avoided the heavy pre-assault artillery barrage, but left behind belts of thousands of well sited machine guns to meet the French as they advanced. By shortening their frontline the Germans also managed to put 10 divisions in reserve.
Nivelle expected to achieve his strategic aims within 48 hours but failed to maintain secrecy for the attack. He was so confident in success that he promised the British and French War Cabinets that he would call off the attack if no breakthrough was achieved in just three days. Nivelle even stubbornly refused to alter his plans after details were thought to have been captured, and the Germans had re-grouped to the Hindenburg line effectively neutralising the attack. The Germans had also learned from Nivelle´s tactic and had manned their main battle line only with few forces (15 divisions). The mass (21 divisions) was stationed outside the French artillery range.
On April 16 at 06.30 hours, 19 divisions of the French 5. and 6. Army under the command of General Charles Mangin began their attack. Opposite the French on high ground, heavily defended and fortified, was von Boehm's German Seventh Army, who conducted an efficient defence. They were supported by their newly formed First Army, which had been rushed forward to face the expected French attack. 3,800 guns, which formed the centrepiece of the attack, had a minimal effect on the heavily defended German second line, but left the following infantry exposed to machine guns as they struggled through the mud and barbed wire. Not one of the supporting tanks managed to reach the German front line. The creeping barrage was a complete failure.
100 yards were to be covered within three minutes then the barrage would have crept further on. But that was just theory, the reality looked different. The German machine- gunners opened fire once the infantry was cut off from the artillery fire. Then they shot direct from their trenches, from the flanks, even from the rear. The topography made the attack even more difficult. The French had to storm up hill while the Germans were firing down hill. The weather, a mix out of snow, drizzle and fog even troubled the first massed French tank assault.
Char Schneider
At the end of 1914 the French Army began to consider how it was going to overcome the machine-guns and barbed wire of trench warfare. In January 1915 the French armaments firm of Schneider & Cie began work on a new military vehicle.
Designed by Eugene Brille, the prototype tank was demonstrated before Raymond Poincare, the French President, on 16th June 1915. Encouraged by what he saw, Poincare ordered ten tanks to be built. Later this was increased to 400. The first Char Schneider tanks were delivered to the French Army in September 1916. Built for a six man crew, the tank was fitted with one 75-mm gun and a Hotchkiss Machine Gun.
The Char Schneider was used for the first time on April 16, 1917. The tank performed badly and the poor ventilation and vision arrangements made it difficult to use. The inadequate armour and internal petrol tanks made it extremely dangerous to crew members. By the end of the day, the French had lost 150 of their tanks. The French Army decided to abandon this model and ordered the British Mark V instead. 77 of the British tanks were delivered to the French before the Armistice.
Regardless that Nivelle – nicknamed “blood-sucker” by his subordinates – had lost 40.000 men on the first day of his offensive he carried on with his assault. On the second day the French Fourth Army under Anthoine launched a subsidiary attack east of Rheims towards Moronvilliers. However, von Below's German First Army readily repelled the assault.
Despite evidence to the contrary, Nivelle believed his offensive would ultimately prove successful, continuing French attacks until 20 April. Some gains were made, by Mangin west of Soissons, but progress was slow. The offensive was scaled back over the next two weeks, although by 5 May a 4 km stretch of the Chemin des Dames Ridge - part of the Hindenburg Line - had been captured. The offensive was finally abandoned in disarray on 9 May following a final ineffective four day assault.
Mutiny on the horizon
As Nivelle launched his second attempt on the eastern end of the Chemin des Dames the first signs of indiscipline appeared at the western end of the front. A company at Laffaux refused to go up to the front line complaining about their general conditions and the mismanagement of the campaign. The conditions under which the French soldiers served would have caused uproar in the British or German armies. Pay was poor, the food neither nourishing or of sufficient quantity and leave was difficult to obtain. The use of decimation was still used in the French Army - shooting a number of men to encourage the others to be more vigorous in their attacks (monument at Vingré to such a group of soldiers).Above all else, the French were fed up with the impossible battles they were asked to fight. Defending their country was one thing they argued, but the colossal scale of the wastage in life for a few kilometres of gain (if that) had become intolerable. But, the fighting spirit of the French Army was broken, and, on the 5th May 1917, the mutiny of the 2. Division broke out. Despite severe reprisals on the mutineers, by June 1916, 54 divisions - 50% of the strength of the French Army - was involved. Incredibly, no inkling of these events reached German Intelligence.
“The soldiers were prepared to die but they did not want to commit suicide”, wrote journalist Albert Londres and Guy Pedroncini, historian at the French military academy St. Cyr and specialist of WW I said about the mutiny of 1917: “It is not a question of a refusal to fight but a refusal to acknowledge the manner. These soldiers who were part of an elite unit had enough of those murderous and useless offensives. They were no cowards they never surrendered or opened any front”. According to Pedroncini 629 mutineers were sentenced to death, and on January 31, 1918 75 of them were shot.
At home, disillusion among French public and politicians alike led to Nivelle's prompt removal, replaced on 25 April by the considerably more cautious Henri-Philippe Petain. Petain was only able to restore order within the French Army by improving trench conditions and, more importantly, by refraining from committing his forces to offensive operations. This prevented a complete collapse of the French Army.
As for Nivelle, those who had so blithely pushed him into a post beyond his competence, were equally ruthless in disposing of him. When he refused to resign, putting all the blame for the Chemin des Dames fiasco on his second-in-command - General Charles Mangin - he was literally pushed out of office on May 15, 1917, subjected to a humiliating court-marshal, and sent off into his North African exile. He never wrote his memoirs or offered any justification for his spectacular failure. 187.000 French as well as 168.000 German casualties were the result of his megalomania.
Decades later the incident was still a sensitive issue: When director Stanley Kubrick made a film of it, called Paths of Glory in 1958, it wasn't released in France until nearly 20 years later. Mutineers and insubordination were not meant to be part of French public life.
In November 1998 , 80 years after the end of World War I, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin paid homage to a score of French soldiers shot as examples in a mass mutiny of some 40,000 French soldiers in the spring of 1917. Then Jospin, visiting Craonne, the site of the battle, publicly voiced his regret that some of the soldiers, exhausted by futile offensives over blood soaked mud were shot by firing squad as an example. He offered national forgiveness to the fraternisers and the mutineers of the Great War. "May these soldiers, chosen as an example at the time, be fully restored to our collective national memory," he said.
His comment raised a political storm. Rightist politicians accused him of endorsing mutiny, playing politics with sacred memory and of endorsing disobedience in the ranks. It was felt that attempting to rehabilitate the mutineers at Chemin des Dames was an act of disrespect towards the great majority of French soldiers who had obeyed orders, and died for it.
Under pressure from his party, President Jacques Chirac distanced himself from the Socialist premier's remarks, calling them ill timed.
Under pressure from his party, President Jacques Chirac distanced himself from the Socialist premier's remarks, calling them ill timed.
On the face of it, this was a reference to Remembrance Day. At the same time, Jospin's comments coincided with a radical change in the structure of the French army, which is in the process of making the radical transition from a conscript force to a professional, all volunteer army. So far, though, there has been no great public outcry against Jospin. He may have identified a desire for reconciliation, or at least recognizing the senselessness of the conflict that settled nothing and can be said to have opened the way for a second one. Besides, the 40,000 mutineers may not have been the real culprits. Jospin's gesture, Le Monde said, was the recognition that the guilty are not the mutineers, but the officials, the generals and the ministers who would not recognize that men do not accept death unless they believe they are not being sacrificed for nothing.
Chanson de Craonne
The opening verse and chorus
Quand au bout de huit jours le repos terminé
On va reprendre les tranchées,
Notre place est si utile
Que sans nous on prend la pile.
Mais c'est bien fini, on en a assez,
Personne ne veut plus marcher.
Et le coeur bien gros, comm' dans un sanglot,
On dit adieu aux civelots.
Mais sans tambour et sans trompette
On s'en va là-bas en baissant la tête.
Chorus
Adieu la vie, adieu l'amour,
Adieu toutes les femmes.
C'est bien fini, c'est pour toujours
De cette guerre infâme.
C'est à Craonne sur le plateau
Qu'on doit laisser sa peau
Car nous sommes tous des condamnés
Nous sommes les sacrifiés.