XXI.1 The Plan of the Rheims Battle
The situation in the Marne salient after the June action came to an end gave me the impression of an imperfect and uncompleted task. Although we occupied this salient from the middle of June, we could not remain there permanently. The lines of communication in the mighty semicircle were defective. They were just good enough for a state of relative inactivity, but threatened serious complications if a great battle lasting any length of time should flame up. We had only one railway, of very slight capacity, at our disposal as the principal line of supply of our great mass of troops to an area which was relatively confined. Moreover, the deep salient obviously invited our enemy to attack it from all sides.
A real improvement of our supply system as well as our tactical situation was only possible if we captured Rheims. In the battles of May and June we had not managed to get possession of the town. We had then exercised our main pressure principally to the west of it. The capture of Rheims must now be the object of a special operation, but the operation thus required fitted into the general framework of our plans.
I have already emphasised that after we broke off the Lys battle we did not abandon our goal of dealing the English a decisive blow in Flanders. Our offensive at Soissons had been in keeping with that idea, for it had compelled the enemy High Command to withdraw the French reinforcements from the English front in Flanders.
In the interval we had proceeded with our preparations for the new Flanders battle. While the work was proceeding on the future fronts of attack the divisions earmarked for the execution of our plans were billeted in Belgium and Northern France for the purpose of rest and training.
I had no fear of any offensive countermeasures on the part of the English. Even though the larger portion of the English Army had now had several months in which to recover the fighting qualities which had been so seriously affected, it appeared improbable that the English would venture on an offensive in view of the dangers threatening them in Flanders.
Our former experiences enabled me to hope that we should soon settle with the English main armies in Flanders when once we had succeeded in keeping the French away from that battlefield for all-time. The resumption of the attack at Rheims would therefore serve our greater and further purpose of seeking a decision against the English main armies.
The situation on the French front at the beginning of July was more or less as follows: General Foch kept the bulk of his reserves in the region of Compiègne and Villers-Cotterêts. From a strategical point of view this position was very favorable. They were prepared to meet any further attack of ours in the direction of these two towns, but they were also in a position, thanks to their extraordinarily good railway communications, to be transferred rapidly from their present concentration area to any part of the French and English front. It seemed to me highly improbable that Foch would attempt a great offensive before strong American reinforcements arrived, unless he found himself driven to such a step by a particularly inviting situation or urgent necessity.
There were apparently no large bodies of enemy troops south of the Marne. On the other hand, there was unquestionably a strong hostile group at Rheims and in the hills south of it, a group which comprised English and Italian units as well as French. On the rest of the French front the situation was not materially different from what it had been at the time of our spring offensive. The position on these fronts was not essentially changed by the perpetual replacement of worn-out divisions by troops from other parts of the line. We were not absolutely clear about the arrival of the American reinforcements, but it was obvious that the American masses would now be poured out uninterruptedly on the soil of France. Our U-boats were unable to hinder or limit these movements, just as they had previously failed to reduce the shipping available to the enemy to a figure which made this mass transport impossible. In view of the urgent necessity of rapid and comprehensive military assistance for France and England, the enemy put on one side considerations of the food supply and economic necessities of their countries. We had to find some way of dealing with this situation. If we worked the intended attack on Rheims in close strategic cooperation with our plans in Flanders we had still to decide the question what extension we should wish and have to give to the operation at Rheims. We had originally intended to be satisfied with the capture of the town. The possession of Rheims would be settled by the occupation of the hilly district between Epernay and Rheims. The main purpose of our attack was the capture of these hills. To facilitate our advance at that point — and that meant to eliminate the danger of a hostile flank attack from the south bank of the Marne — a considerable force was to cross to the south side of this river on both sides of Dormans, and then also press on to Epernay. The crossing of the river in the teeth of an opponent prepared to dispute it was certainly a bold operation. However, in view of our successive experiences in crossing various rivers and streams, we did not regard such an attempt as too hazardous in this case. Our principal difficulty was not in mastering the river sector, but in proceeding with the action on the far side of the obstacle. Artillery and all war material and supplies for the troops engaged could only be brought up by temporary bridges, which naturally offered easy targets for the long-range guns and bombing squadrons of the enemy. After we had originally decided to limit our operation practically to the capture of Rheims, our plan was extended in the course of various conference? By adding an attack eastwards and right into Champagne. On the one hand our motive was an intention to cut off the Rheims salient from the southeast also. On the other we believed that, in view of our recent experiences, we might perhaps reach Châlons-sur-Marne, attracted as we were by the prospect of great captures of prisoners and war material, if an operation on such a scale succeeded. We therefore decided to face the risk of weakening our forces at decisive points for the sake of securing a broad front of attack.
Of course it was of great importance to us that our new operation should begin soon. Thanks to the arrival of American reinforcements, time was working not for but against us. To find a proper balance between the requirements of preparation and the demands of the general situation was our special problem, and certainly not the easiest element in our decision. Quite apart from purely tactical preparations, such as bringing up and assembling everything required for the attack to the appropriate front, and in spite of the claims of the general situation, we could not ignore the difficulties which the proper rest and recuperation of our troops would put in the way of fresh operations. Thus in the case in question we could not fix the date of the attack for earlier than July 15th.
XXI.2 The Rheims Battle
In the early hours of July 15th our thousand-stringed artillery began to play its battle tune on the new front of attack. It was equally active on our side of the Marne. At the outset the reply of the enemy was not particularly violent, though it gradually became more so. We had noticed nothing which seemed to indicate that the enemy front had been reinforced or special countermeasures taken. Our infantry succeeded in crossing to the southern bank of the Marne. Enemy machine-gun nests were destroyed. We mounted the heights on the far side of the river and captured a number of guns. The news of this first advance reached us very soon in Avesnes. It relieved our natural anxiety and increased our hopes.
As on the Marne, the battle flamed up in a wide circle round Rheims without actually touching the town itself and its immediate neighborhood. The town was to fall into our hands by being cut off from both sides. In Champagne and away to the Argonne the first enemy defensive system had been destroyed by the fire of our artillery and trench mortars. Behind the enemy's front lines there was a great maze of trenches which were the legacy of earlier battles. No one could say whether we should find them occupied, wholly or partially. In any case they offered the enemy innumerable strong points, and very little work would have been required to make them serviceable again and suitable to play a part in some new defensive scheme. On the other hand our opponents here in Champagne appeared to be quite unprepared to resist, judging by first impressions. The reply of their artillery was not very strong. It was apparently loosely and remarkably deeply distributed.
After concentrating our heaviest fire on the first enemy lines, as in previous offensive battles, these tightly-packed storm clouds began their devastating march across the hostile defenses. Our infantry followed. The first enemy lines were stormed, practically without resistance, along the whole front. The attack was continued, but as soon as our barrage lifted from the second objective, in order to make way for the infantry, an unexpected and violent resistance on the part of the enemy was encountered. The enemy's artillery fire began to swell mightily. Our troops nevertheless attempted to struggle on. In vain! The infantry guns were brought up. They arrived partly horse-drawn and partly man-handled, for horses were of little use in this wilderness of shell holes. Scarcely were the guns in position before they lay in fragments on the ground. The enemy had obviously used his second position as his principal line of defense. Our most effective artillery preparation had, therefore, been practically without result. A new system of defense against the destructive effects of our massed artillery had been introduced and employed by the enemy—thanks to a German traitor, as the enemy subsequently announced in triumph to the whole world!
The situation in Champagne remained unchanged until the evening of the first day.
Our operations southwest of Rheims and on both sides of the Marne took a more favorable course. South of the river our infantry pressed forward for nearly a league, exercising its main pressure in the direction of Epemay. By the evening we had got a third of the way, after very severe fighting. North of the river also our attack had made progress in the "Mountain of the Forest of Rheims," greater than the chalk cliffs of the Chemin des Dames, a medley of heights cleft by deep gullies and for the most part crowned with dense forest. The whole district was eminently suited for the most obstinate defense, for it made it extremely difficult for the attacker to concentrate the full fury of his artillery on definite targets. Yet our infantry made progress. For the first time they had met Italian troops on the Western Front, troops who apparently fought with little enthusiasm on French soil.
By the evening of July 15th we had captured about fifty guns on the whole front of attack. Fourteen thousand prisoners were reported. The results certainly did not correspond to our high hopes. But we expected more on the following day. In Champagne, the morning of July 16th passed without our troops making definite progress at any point. We were faced with the difficult alternative either of breaking off the attack at this point or renewing our attempts at a decision with our forces, which were not very numerous. We ran the risk of seeing our troops bleed to death in vain, or in the most favorable case suffer such heavy losses that they would hardly be in a condition thoroughly to exploit the advantages they had gained. Our goal at Châlons had, therefore, vanished into the dim distance. For these reasons I approved the suggestion that we should dig in at this point. On the other hand we adhered to our plan of continuing our attacks south of the Marne and in the Rheims hills. During the day we were gradually forced to the defensive on the far side of the river. The enemy counterattacked us with strong forces. In the direction of Epemay, however, we gained more ground on both sides of the river. By the evening we were halfway to the town — that is, about six miles off. In the Rheims hills we were approaching the Epernay— Rheims road in spite of desperate counterattacks on the part of the enemy. The fate of Rheims seemed to hang by a thread. Even if all the rest of our plan could now be regarded as a failure, Rheims at least would fall. The town was an important military objective for us, and therefore justified the effort. If we captured it, perhaps a very great impression might be made on the enemy.
On July 17th the battle died down in Champagne. South of the Marne the situation began to change ever more to our disadvantage. It is true that we held the ground we had gained against severe enemy attacks, but our lines were so near to the river, and therefore had so little depth, that a reverse might prove fatal. Moreover, our temporary bridges across the Marne were increasingly in danger from the long-range fire of hostile artillery and French bombing squadrons. We had, therefore, to withdraw to the northern bank as we could not gain any more ground on the southern. Hard though it was for me, I ordered the withdrawal of our troops to the north bank of the Marne. The movement was carried out in the night of July 20-21.
In the Rheims hills the enemy attacks continued with extreme desperation on July 17th. They were beaten off. But for us also further progress was impossible for the time being. It required a fresh and thorough preparation.
We seemed to have very little left of all we had striven for. The operation had apparently failed and, so far as the French front was concerned, nothing definite had been gained. But it was not impossible that it might prove very valuable for our attack on the Flanders front. The battles had not been in vain if the only result we achieved was to keep the French forces away from the English defenses.
With this thought in mind, General Ludendorff went to visit the Army Group of Crown Prince Rupprecht on the evening of July 17th in order to discuss the proposed attack on the English northern wing in greater detail.
For the execution of our plans in the region of Rheims, it was essential that the western flank of the great Marne salient between Soissons and Château-Thierry should stand firm. It was to be assumed that our offensive would provoke countermeasures on the part of the French reserves concentrated in the neighborhood of Compiègne and Villers-Cotterêts. If General Foch were in a position to embark on active operations at all, he would have to abandon his previous attitude of passivity as soon as our plan of attack across the Marne and at Rheims was revealed. I have already said that the French commander knew of our plans in time and had plenty of opportunity to make preparations to meet them.
In the case of a French attack from the general direction of Villers-Cotterêts the task of our troops in line between the Aisne and the Marne was therefore not a simple one. We had disposed a number of divisions behind our forward lines and believed consequently that we could proceed in full confidence to the great attack on Rheims which I have described. It is true that the troops between Soissons and Château-Thierry were not all fresh, but they had fought so brilliantly in the previous battles that I regarded them now as fully equal to their task. The main consideration, in my view, was that every part of our defenses there should keep the probability of a strong enemy attack continuously in mind. Whether there were omissions in this respect on the Soissons—Château-Thierry front will probably always remain a subject of debate. In view of later information, I myself believe that the initial successes which were gained in our operations on the Marne and near Rheims from July 15th to 17th made some of our troops on the Soissons—Château-Thierry front inclined to ignore the seriousness of the position on their own front. During those days these troops could hear the thunder of the guns on the battlefield. They knew of our crossing of the Marne and the success it promised. Exaggerated accounts of our victories reached them, as happened so often, through irregular channels. There was talk of the capture of Rheims and of great victories in Champagne. However, on their own front everything was quiet for these three days, unnaturally quiet to an expert observer, but agreeably quiet to anyone who liked to enjoy the sensation and had no intimate knowledge of the situation. Phenomena observed in the direction of Villers-Cotterêts, which still had our full attention on July 15th, were deemed less worthy of notice on the 17th. Messages which were transmitted immediately to all our telephone stations when our operation began seemed to get held up at some intermediate station on the third day. Thus touch with the situation was to some extent lost and the first feeling of anxiety had passed off.
On the morning of July 18th some of our troops, who were not in line at the time, went out on harvest work in the cornfields. Suddenly a violent hail of shells descended upon the back areas. Harassing fire? Our own artillery replied but feebly, apparently because a pretty thick haze veiled everything. The tat-tat of machine guns began on a broad front and showed that it was a question of more than harassing fire. Before the situation was definitely ascertained enemy tanks appeared in the high corn. The enemy was undoubtedly attacking on the whole front from the Aisne to the Marne. Our first lines had already been broken through in places. The sector between the Ourcq and Soissons appeared to be the greatest danger point. While what was left of our decimated and isolated troops in the front lines were fighting with the fury of despair, our reserves farther back attempted to form and hold a new line of resistance until the divisions in support could be brought up for a counterattack. Many a heroic deed was done. In parts of the line which were temporarily recovered, our troops found German machine gun nests in which every single man of the guns' crews lay dead surrounded by whole circles of fallen opponents. Yet even heroism such as this could no longer save the situation. It could only prevent an utter catastrophe. The enemy had penetrated particularly deeply towards Soissons and farther south; that is, at our most sensitive point, the western pillar of the Marne salient south of the Aisne. The enemy pressed down from here on the rest of our line of defense as far as Château -Thierry. What was worse, he was approaching the single line of railway communicating with the Marne salient at the point where it turns south from the valley of the Aisne east of Soissons into the center of our great semicircle.
The position was thus serious for us from the very first moment. It threatened to become a real catastrophe unless we succeeded in restoring the original situation or, at any rate, preventing it from getting any worse. It was my desire and intention to take the enemy irruption in flank from the north across the Aisne near Soissons and destroy him where he stood. However, the necessary concentration would have taken too much time, and so I had to accept the counterproposal that we should first completely secure the part of our front which had been attacked, in order to be masters of our own decisions once more. All the reserves which were available were therefore employed to that end. Unfortunately the crisis was not overcome but only postponed. The enemy broke through at other points and aggravated our situation in the Marne salient. How did it help us that, generally speaking, the enemy onslaught south of the Ourcq was a failure, and more particularly that the strong but unskillfully led American attacks collapsed before our weak lines, especially at Château-Thierry? We could not and must not allow the situation to hang in the balance for any length of time. It would have been madness. We therefore withdrew our left wing from Château-Thierry and at first retired a short distance eastwards while still keeping our flank on the Marne.
In conformity with our decision of July 17th we had withdrawn from the southern bank of this river in good time after very severe fighting. The splendid behavior of our troops — thanks to which all the French attacks had failed — had enabled us successfully to overcome the critical situation at that point. The retirement had been carried out even more successfully than we expected. It was only on July 21st that, after powerful artillery preparation, the enemy attacked our evacuated lines — tanks in front and strong columns behind. Our troops watched this little piece of by-play from the northern bank of the Marne.
Owing to the hostile artillery fire from every side the conduct of operations in the salient, which was still very deep, was extremely difficult. The enemy artillery had the critical section of our railway east of Soissons under fire. A regular hail of enemy aeroplane-bombs descended upon it day and night. We were compelled to detrain the arriving reinforcements and reliefs in the neighborhood of Laon and far away from the salient. They then proceeded to the battlefield by forced marches which took days. Often enough they reached their destination only just in time to take over the line from their exhausted comrades and save a complete collapse.
The situation could not be allowed to remain thus for long. The battle threatened to consume all our reserves. We must evacuate the salient and say goodbye to the Marne. It was a grievous decision, not from the purely military standpoint but from that of professional pride. How the enemy would rejoice if the word "Marne" were to mean a revolution in the military situation for the second time! Paris, and indeed all France, would breathe again. What would be the effect of this news on the whole world? We realized how many eyes and hearts would follow us with envy, hatred — and hope.
But at such a time military considerations could alone prevail. Their warning rang out loud and clear: get out of this situation! There was no reason for precipitate action. General Foch might hurl all his armies at us from all sides, but a really deep breakthrough was a rare occurrence. We could thus retire step by step, save our precious war material from the clutches of the enemy, and withdraw in good order to the new line of defense which nature offered us in the Aisne—Vesle sector. The movement was completed in the first days of August. It was a masterpiece on the part of both commanders and men. It was not the power of the enemy's arms which forced us out of the Marne salient, but the hopelessness of our situation as the result of the difficult communications in the, rear of our troops fighting on three sides. General Foch had thoroughly realized those difficulties. He had a great goal in sight. The magnificent behavior of our men prevented him from reaching it. After the first surprise they had fought brilliantly. They had done everything that human beings could have done. The result was that our infantry left the battlefield in no way with the feeling of having been vanquished. Their sense of pride was partially due to their observation of the fact that their enemies' attacks had largely failed when they had been carried out without the protection or the moral support of tanks.
Where there were no tanks our enemy had sent black waves against us. Waves of black Africans! Woe to us when these waves reached our lines and massacred, or worse, tortured our defenseless men! It is not at the blacks who performed such atrocities that indignant humanity will point an accusing finger, but at those who brought these hordes to the soil of Europe to take part in the so-called struggle for Honor, Freedom, and Justice. The blacks were led to the slaughter in thousands..
Though Englishmen, Americans, Italians, French and all their subject races swarmed round our infantry, when it came to fighting, man against man, our soldier felt and proved himself the lord of the battlefield. Even the feeling of helplessness against the enemy's tanks had to some extent been overcome. Our men had often made audacious attempts to lay low this troublesome foe and had been lustily supported by our own artillery. Once more the French artillery had been responsible for the worst crises with which our men had been faced. The employment for hours, and even days, of this destructive weapon, which was boldly brought out into the open and disdained even the cover of shell holes, had shattered the lines of our infantry and put their nerves to the hardest test. The approach of the enemy storm troops had often been regarded as a release from the menace of inevitable destruction.
Our troops had had to perform prodigies, not only in the fighting itself, but also in unremitting preparation, marching, and the endurance of privations. Their losses had been great and the strain on their nerves even greater. I had several conversations with soldiers who had taken part in the recent fighting. Their homely and straightforward replies and stories were more eloquent than volumes about their experiences and the mighty moral resolution which imbued them. How could one ever doubt such splendid men! They were tired, of course, needed physical rest and mental relief. We were only too anxious to give them all that, but it was questionable whether the enemy would leave us time to do so.
Although the fighting in the Marne salient had saved us from the annihilation our enemy had intended, we could have no illusion about the far-reaching effects of this battle and our retreat.
From the purely military point of view it was of the greatest and most fateful importance that we had lost the initiative to the enemy, and were at first not strong enough to recover it ourselves. We had been compelled to draw upon a large part of the reserves which we intended to use for the attack in Flanders. This meant the end of our hopes of dealing our long-planned decisive blow at the English Army. The enemy High Command was thus relieved of the influence which this threatened offensive had had on their dispositions. Moreover, the English armies, thanks to the battle in the Marne salient, were relieved from the moral spell which we had woven about them for months. It was to be expected that resolute generalship on the part of the enemy would exploit this change in the situation, which they could not fail to realize, to the full extent of their available forces. Their prospects were very favorable, as, generally speaking, our defensive fronts were not strong and had to be held by troops which were not fully effective. Moreover, these fronts had been considerably extended since the spring and were thus strategically more sensitive.
Of course, it was to be assumed that the enemy also had suffered very heavily in the recent fighting. Between July 15th and August 4th, 74 hostile divisions, including 60 French, had been suffering losses while the English armies had been practically spared for months. In these circumstances the steady arrival of American reinforcements must be particularly valuable for the enemy. Even if these reinforcements were not yet quite up to the level of modern requirements in a purely military sense, mere numerical superiority had a far greater effect at this stage when our units had suffered so heavily.
The effect of our failure on the country and our allies was even greater, judging by our first impressions. How many hopes, cherished during the last few months, had probably collapsed at one blow! How many calculations had been scattered to the winds!
But if we could only master the situation at the front once more we could certainly rely on the restoration of the political balance.