| Battle of the Ailette | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Western Front of World War I | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 German Empire |  French Republic | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Johannes von Eben | Charles Mangin | ||||||
| Units involved | |||||||
| 9th Army | Tenth Army | ||||||
The Battle of the Ailette took place during the First World War in August 1918, on the banks of the Ailette between Laon and Aisne. [1]
After the Battle of Amiens, the forces of the Entente, led by Marshal Foch, planned a large-scale offensive on the German lines in France, the various lines of advance converging on Liège in Belgium.
Blocking the road to Paris between the Somme and Aisne, the Ailette and its canal linking the Oise and Aisne served as retrenchment for a number of soldiers of the Imperial German Army. Though it was a largely unknown battle of the Hundred Days Offensive during the First World War, the Ailette was the scene of fierce fighting between the French and German forces for its control from August to September 1918, before it returned to the French in October.
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The Second Battle of the Marne was the last major German offensive on the Western Front during the First World War. The attack failed when an Allied counterattack, supported by several hundreds of tanks, overwhelmed the Germans on their right flank, inflicting severe casualties. The German defeat marked the start of the relentless Allied advance which culminated in the Armistice with Germany about 100 days later.
The German spring offensive, or Kaiserschlacht, also known as the Ludendorff offensive, was a series of German attacks along the Western Front during the First World War, beginning on 21 March 1918. Following American entry into the war in April 1917, the Germans decided that their only remaining chance of victory was to defeat the Allies before the United States could ship soldiers across the Atlantic and fully deploy its resources. The German Army had gained a temporary advantage in numbers as nearly 50 divisions had been freed by the Russian defeat and withdrawal from the war with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
In France, the Chemin des Dames is part of the route départementale D18 and runs east and west in the Aisne department, between in the west, the Route Nationale 2, and in the east, the D1044 at Corbeny. It is some 30 kilometres (19 mi) long and runs along a ridge between the valleys of the rivers Aisne and Ailette.
The Race to the Sea took place from about 17 September – 19 October 1914 during the First World War, after the Battle of the Frontiers and the German advance into France. The invasion had been stopped at the First Battle of the Marne (5–12 September) and was followed by the First Battle of the Aisne (13–28 September), a Franco-British counter-offensive. The term describes reciprocal attempts by the Franco-British and German armies to envelop the northern flank of the opposing army through the provinces of Picardy, Artois and Flanders, rather than an attempt to advance northwards to the sea. The "race" ended on the North Sea coast of Belgium around 19 October, when the last open area from Diksmuide to the North Sea was occupied by Belgian troops who had retreated after the Siege of Antwerp. The outflanking attempts had resulted in a number of encounter battles but neither side was able to gain a decisive victory.
Robert Georges Nivelle was a French artillery general officer who served in the Boxer Rebellion and the First World War. In May 1916, he succeeded Philippe Pétain as commander of the French Second Army in the Battle of Verdun, leading counter-offensives that rolled back the German forces in late 1916. During these actions he and General Charles Mangin were accused of wasting French lives. He gives his name to the Nivelle Offensive.
The Hundred Days Offensive was a series of massive Allied offensives that ended the First World War. Beginning with the Battle of Amiens on the Western Front, the Allies pushed the Imperial German Army back, undoing its gains from the German spring offensive.
The Battle of the Frontiers comprised battles fought along the eastern frontier of France and in southern Belgium, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War. The battles resolved the military strategies of the French Chief of Staff General Joseph Joffre with Plan XVII and an offensive adaptation of the German Aufmarsch II deployment plan by Helmuth von Moltke the Younger. The German concentration on the right (northern) flank, was to wheel through Belgium and attack the French in the rear.
The Great Retreat, also known as the retreat from Mons, was the long withdrawal to the River Marne in August and September 1914 by the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the French Fifth Army. The Franco-British forces on the Western Front in the First World War had been defeated by the armies of the German Empire at the Battle of Charleroi and the Battle of Mons. A counter-offensive by the Fifth Army, with some assistance from the BEF, at the First Battle of Guise failed to end the German advance and the retreat continued over the Marne. From 5 to 12 September, the First Battle of the Marne ended the Allied retreat and forced the German armies to retire towards the Aisne River and to fight the First Battle of the Aisne (13–28 September). Reciprocal attempts to outflank the opposing armies to the north known as the Race to the Sea followed from (17 September to 17 October).
The Second Battle of the Aisne was the main part of the Nivelle Offensive, a Franco-British attempt to inflict a decisive defeat on the German armies in France. The Entente strategy was to conduct offensives from north to south, beginning with an attack by the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) then the main attack by two French army groups on the Aisne. General Robert Nivelle planned the offensive in December 1916, after he replaced Joseph Joffre as Commander-in-Chief of the French Army.
The Nivelle offensive was a Franco-British operation on the Western Front in the First World War which was named after General Robert Nivelle, the commander-in-chief of the French metropolitan armies, who led the offensive. The French part of the offensive was intended to be strategically decisive by breaking through the German defences on the Aisne front within 48 hours, with casualties expected to be around 10,000 men. A preliminary attack was to be made by the French Third Army at St Quentin and the British First, Third and Fifth armies at Arras, to capture high ground and divert German reserves from the French fronts on the Aisne and in Champagne. The main offensive was to be delivered by the French on the Chemin des Dames ridge. A subsidiary attack was to be made by the Fourth Army. The final stage of the offensive was to follow the meeting of the British and French armies, having broken through the German lines, to pursue the defeated German armies towards the German frontier.
The Battle of Soissons (1918) was a battle fought on the Western Front during World War I. Waged from 18 to 22 July 1918 between the French and the German armies, the battle was part of the much larger Allied Aisne-Marne counter-offensive. It followed the final German Spring Offensive, Operation Marneschutz-Reims. The primary objective of the attack was to cut both the Soissons – Château-Thierry road and the railroad running south from Soissons to Château-Thierry. As these were the main supply routes for the German forces in the Marne salient, cutting them would severely impair the Germans' ability to supply its armies defending it. This would force them to retreat and give up their gains. This battle marked the turning point of the war as the Germans would be on the defensive for the remainder of the conflict.
The Battle of Albert began on 25 September 1914, in what became known as the "Race to the Sea", during the First World War. It followed the First Battle of the Aisne as both sides moved northwards, trying to turn the northern flank of their opponent. The Second Army, began to assemble at Amiens in mid-September and was directed by General Joseph Joffre, the Generalissimo of the French Army, to attack near Albert.
The United States campaigns in World War I began after American entry in the war in early April 1917. The American Expeditionary Force (AEF) served on the Western Front, under General John J. Pershing, and engaged in 13 official military campaigns between 1917 and 1918, for which campaign streamers were designated. The streamer uses the colors of the World War I Victory Medal ribbon which had a red center with a rainbow on each side of the center stripe and a purple edge. The double rainbow symbolizes the dawn of a new era and the calm which follows the storm.
Quierzy, also known as Quierzy-sur-Oise, is a commune in the Aisne department in Hauts-de-France in northern France, straddling the Oise River between Noyon and Chauny.
Vassens is a commune in the Aisne department in Hauts-de-France in northern France near the town of Laon.
The Ailette is a 59.5 km (37.0 mi) long river in the Aisne department in eastern France. Its source is at Sainte-Croix. It flows generally west-northwest. It is a left tributary of the Oise into which it flows between Manicamp and Quierzy, 30 km (19 mi) northeast of Compiègne.
The War memorials (Oise) or Monuments aux Morts of Oise are French war memorials commemorating those men of the region who died in World War I.
The Battle of La Malmaison from 23 to 27 October, was the final French action of the 1917 campaign in the First World War, which had begun with the Nivelle Offensive. The French captured the village and fort of La Malmaison and took control of the Chemin des Dames ridge. The German 7th Army had discovered French preparations for the attack and also identified the date and time. Boehn chose to defend the front positions, rather than treat them as an advanced zone and to conduct the main defence north of the Oise–Aisne Canal. The German artillery was outnumbered three-to-one and on the front of the 14th Division, 32 German batteries were confronted by 125 French, which silenced most of the German guns before the attack. Gas from French bombardments on low-lying land near the Oise–Aisne Canal in the Ailette valley, became so dense that it was impossible to carry ammunition and supplies forward or to remove the wounded.
The First Battle of Picardy(22–26 September 1914) took place during the Race to the Sea (17 September – 19 October) and the First Battle of the Aisne (13–28 September). The "race" was a Franco-British counter-offensive, which followed the Battle of the Frontiers and the German advance into France during the Great Retreat, which ended at the First Battle of the Marne (5–12 September). The term describes reciprocal attempts by the Franco-British and German armies to envelop the northern flank of the opposing army, through Picardy, Artois and Flanders.
Max Ferdinand Karl von Boehn was a German officer involved in the Franco-Prussian War and World War I. He held the rank of Generaloberst in World War I.