Evolution of French infantry tactics

[Latze]

Hello Phil,

And neither, for that matter, were they short of firepower. I was astonished to learn how much more lavish the French artillery preparation was than that of their British allies on the Somme; this was to be repeated through 1917 : much is made of the fact that, for their Flanders offensive of July 1917, the British deployed three thousand guns....yet, in their notorious Nivelle offensive three months earlier, the French attack was supported by five thousand pieces. And at Third Ypres itself, the French troops under Anthoine's command were to enjoy a much more lavish heavy artillery support ( in relative terms) than that of the British.

That was also my impression that led me to say that French tactics later in the war very more fire-power based. And I think that this was evident not only in artillery support but possibly also in application of infantry firepower... If I understand correctly Robert says that this not a break from pre-war doctrine but more of a natural progression. And I am intrigued that he seems to be able to developed that in the threat here.

Apart from these quantitative considerations, there is evidence that the Germans thought highly of French tactical prowess. As Colonel Wetzell (?) was charged with the duty of advising as to where the German offensive of 1918 should fall, he made observations that emphasised the strengths and weaknesses of the Entente forces. The French, he stressed, were more skillful than the British in both defensive and offensive fighting;

And that fact brought me into starting this thread in the first place http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/s...efault/cool.gif

regards

Latze

[Robert Dunlop]

Laffargue. I think he was not that much of in influence.

Matthias, you are right that we should not place too much emphasis on Laffargue's influence re German thinking. Laffargue was not ignored though, as Chris Boonzaier noted in this thread here.

If I understand correctly Robert says that this not a break from pre-war doctrine but more of a natural progression.

Yes, you have understood my hypothesis correctly.

Robert

[SteveMarsdin]

Good evening Latze,

An interesting thread that you've started which I hope will develop as you intended. I am rather late to having such an interest in WW1, which only really started December 2008 but has been greatly nurtured since I joined this Forum last summer. I have only really studied a part of the Battle of Frontiers in great depth and am gradually expanding my reading from that startpoint (Mons, the retreat to the Marne and a few general overviews , such as Strachan's), I will let Robert, Tom, Phil and others take the discussion forward once we progress beyond August 1914 !!! and look forward to learning more.

PS, the "emoticon" you inserted comes up as an http reference only; if you just click on one from the choice on the left it is automatically inserted in your post.

[phil andrade]

Surely Verdun was immensely important on account of the way it taught the French how to husband manpower and develop firepower. Often cited as the epitome of a drawn, senseless and futile Great War battle, it was in a sense decisive, in so far as it bestowed on the French the ability to match, or even outmatch, the Germans in the artillery war.

Infantry tactics are the theme of this thread, but were they not themselves very much a function of artillery performance?

Phil

[salesie]

Hi salesie,

I hope you find the time to read this after your travelling and that we may continue that discussion... You said that I made your point when in fact I think I didn't. I said that the idea that looking at end-states of the frontier battles and the Marne does not allow us to come easily to conclusions regarding tactical efficiency. I read your former post as saying that there was no tactical edge anywhere. Now you talk about the edge but consider it un-decisive. Or did I misinterpreted what you said?

regards

Latze

I now have an unexpected two-day break in my schedule, Latze, so I can give an earlier than expected reply.

There is no contradiction in my earlier posts - by the very nature of the extremely short time-scale between the Frontiers and the Marne, and the very different end-results of the two, and the stalemate that subsequently ensued, it seems to me, as a matter of logic and for the reasons I gave earlier, that any tactical edge enjoyed by any side was highly localised and/or extremely short lived. And, that any such short-lived tactical edge in 1914 was more to do with operational/strategic considerations than the infantry tactical level per se (for example - geography, lack of reliable intelligence about the enemy's location, leadership etc.)

In other words, I can see no reason, despite the huge mass of literature devoted to this subject and the many forum threads quoting much of this work, to say that the overall tactics prescribed, and trained for pre-war, by the French and German armies made a jot of difference when put into practice in 1914. I can see no reason to say that the end-result should be ignored - we know what the end-result of the battles of 1914 was i.e. four long bloody years of military stalemate in the field (despite the many innovations in tactics developed by both sides post-1914). So any research of the minutiae of tactics that doesn't consider this undoubted fact when drawing conclusions is, in my opinion, nothing more than an extremely narrow, purely academic, exercise which misses a vital lesson of WW1 i.e. no side enjoyed an overall, purely military, superiority in the field at any stage of that war.

Virtually everything I read about the military tactics of WW1 leaves me with burning questions. Four years of tactical innovation, development and changes, fine; the French did this and the Germans did that and the British did this, all very knowledgeable - but why did it always end in military stalemate? Why did all that tactical development always lead to trading huge losses in men for relatively small gains in real estate? Could it just be that there were much bigger factors involved, and much more powerful in influence, than the tactical level? Factors which many authors, aficionados of tactics, or mankind in general, don't find exciting, or depressing, enough to bother writing, reading or thinking about?

Cheers-salesie.

[bmac]

Fayolle's views prior to the Battle of the Somme (and supported by Foch) was that the infantry were only to be used within an area that could be effectively prepared by all of the guns available, as they each had a part to play in preparing the enemy position. Thus, on 1st July, in spite of the evaporation of the Germand defences in several areas, only in two places were French troops allowed to go beyond the area designated for occupation on day 1. These were Assevillers (from which Senegalais troops were ejected by counter attack) and Herbevillers from which the French withdrew in order for the village to be 'prepared' for the attack due the next day. The limits of the second day were similarly set but, because the first day objectives were well within the range of the 75s and some of the shorter range and elderly guns, it was possible for these guns to move forward to pre-prepared positions within the existing French lines during 1st July so as to bring the second day objectives within range. Many batteries started to move from around mid-day onwards. The infantry were also assisted by various innovations in trench artillery and mobile weapons. The very large number of Mortar 58s, which could fire both HE and gas, which were installed caused havoc within the first two German trenches such that, on the 30th June, French patrols were able to penetrate into these lines without opposition, the Germans having withdrawn. Several batteries of Mortar 58s went forward with the infantry giving them some local light artillery support which, allied to the light and heavy machine guns and the new 37mm gun, for use against hardened positions and MG nests, provided a range of weapons systems unavailable to any other army at the time.

It was by using these limited advances that the French 6th Army made a larger and faster advance than the Allies had achieved at any point in the war to date. North of the river progress was slower but there it was very much dictated by the need to wait for the British to advance east from Montauban. Overall French casualties were a couple of thousand (mainly at Curlu, Frise and Assevillers) but all first day objectives were taken. The infantry's ability to do this, however, was determined by the scale, intensity and concentration of the French artillery and greatly assisted by Fayolle's absolute insistence that a priority was the destruction of the German guns (from which XIII Corps benefits hugely) even if it meant taking long guns and heavy howitzers off existing trench or communications targets. Comparisons between the enormous weight of shell fired at German batteries by the French artillery and the fairly paltry numbers fired, often by fairly light guns such as the 4.7 in, on the British front speak volumes about what the two armies had learnt in the first 23 months of the war.

Which is a rather long-winded way of saying 'yes, Phil, I agree'!

[truthergw]

I think that if a soldier has spent his career espousing a doctrine and elaborating its implementation, then he is going to let go of it very reluctantly and only partially. Foch was quite happy to be associated late in the war with statements such as " A battle lost is a battle which I think I have lost". This insistence on the moral dimension and its supremacy on the field is bound to be dangerous in unskilled hands. Part of the doctrine was that one reinforced success, not failure. This very nearly allowed the Germans through in the 1918 attacks in the British sector when he was very reluctant to send reserves in answer to Haig's request.

[Robert Dunlop]

Bill, it has to be emphasized, however, that the British preparations for the Somme drew German forces, infantry and artillery, north. This left the French sector south of the river much more vulnerable to attack.

Robert

[bmac]

Robert,

Agreed south of the river but to the north they were equally successful employing these tactics until forced to wait for the British advance eastwards.

Bill

[Robert Dunlop]

Bill, the Germans focused their defensive efforts north of the French sector. This is partly why the British and French succeeded on day one in the Montauban area. The French infantry attack towards Curlu, north of the river, was greatly helped by the fact that it started several hours after the British attack, which severely disrupted the Bavarian defenders.

Robert

[bmac]

The French attacked at 7.30 north of the river. They attacked at 9.30 south of the river.

[Robert Dunlop]

Yes, that's quite right. Thanks for that correction.

Robert

[phil andrade]

A nation of under 40 million people is in a deadly struggle with a nation of over 65 million. In 1914 alone, the smaller belligerent suffers the best part of one million casualties; the following year she suffers well over one million, and despite this the Germans are still within a few score miles of Paris and remain in occupation of the richest industrial areas. And then comes Verdun. All in all, a veritable nightmare. I wonder how far French tactical dotrine was predicated on awareness of demographic weakness.....a sort of compelled husbandry. Did Joffre, Petain and Foch ever allude, during the war itself, to this acutely uncomfortable sense of population deficiency ? I know that after the war this impinged largely on French national consciousness. Did the French reduce the infantry component of their army faster than the Germans ? I have seen statistics somewhere to the effect that by their successful offensives in the autumn of 1917, the French gunners equated to nearly 95% of their infantry : maybe my memory plays me false; perhaps I'm exagerrating...but not by much. Such a drastic reduction in the ratio of infantry deployed must have entailed spectacular improvements in the automatic firepower available to the foot soldiers, along with more effective grenades etc. We hear much about this in relation to the British army, but I suspect that the transformation was more dramatic for the French. Please comment.

Phil

[Jack Sheldon]

This is the first of two sketches derived from that well known authority on French tactics Almanach Hachette : Petite Encyclopedie Populaire de la Vie pratique for 1918, where they lurk alongside gardening tips and advertisements for such products as Poudre Laxative de Vichy. Interesting what turns up in flea markets. This sketch depicts the line up for a company assault in the latter part of the war, by which time the school of hard knocks had taught all three of the major belligerents to organise themselve in more or less this manner.

More to come, if I can persuade the other items to load correctly.

Jack

[Jack Sheldon]

[Jack Sheldon]

[Jack Sheldon]

I apologise for the clunkiness of these posts. I am not sure if it is me, my computers, the wifi here in the mountains or the site itself. Anyway, I thought that they might be of interest. Notice the importance placed on artillery - mentioned first in both captions. I would only repeat my earlier point. There is nothing to choose at this stage of the war between the way any of the three armies handled the nuts and bolts of infantry in the attack, though mention of inf/tank cooperation would have been useful.

Jack.

[Robert Dunlop]

Thanks Jack. The diagrams illustrates les nettoyeurs. In English, mopper-uppers. Is there a German equivalent term?

There is an excellent description of a nettoyeur in Hermann's book about his experiences during the Battle of Verdun.

Robert

[Robert Dunlop]

...to the north they were equally successful employing these tactics until forced to wait for the British advance eastwards.

Bill, the general theme of your post seems to imply that the French successes were due to their having learned more than the British.

I don't want to suggest that the French had not learned. Far from it. I have spent quite a bit of time studying the French Army. My concern is that the British efforts on the Somme cannot be compared like-with-like. If the French had been so good at attacking, then this should have been reflected in a much more impressive record of attacking at Verdun in the period preceding the German shutdown of their part in that sector. Consistent major French successes at Verdun only really began when the German defences had been wound down. This is akin to my point about the French success south of the Somme. In other words, French successes cannot be regarded in isolation from what the Germans were (or were not) doing.

So to your point about the relative lack of French progress when forced to wait for the British. The French made good progress south of the river until they came within range of guns and observation around Mont St Quentin. This same area posed a serious problem to the French advances north of the river too, given that it threatened the southern flank of this advance. The British were slowed by an equivalent problem to their north - Thiepval ridge and associated high ground.

Robert

[bmac]

I'm not suggesting that everyone learned the necessary lessons of earlier battles but it does seem to me that Fayolle, with his plans supported by Foch, did a better job than most. Personally I can see no good reason why one cannot compare the way Fayolle appears to have taken on board the lessons of earlier fighting with what appears to have been a lack of similar development amongst British generals. They had developed a theory about width and depth of an attack which was based on available gun power which was nowhere apparent on the British front. A lot of what they then did and achieved flowed from that. Fayolle's attitude towards counter battery fire was completely different from that of the British artillery officers with people like Birch writing after the war that they had not yet learned this lesson. Why not? I would ask. There seems to me to have been a better appreciation of what was possible with the guns and manpower available and that was based on an analysis of previous fighting. This does not seem to have been the case on the British side where, though more guns than ever before were used prior to 1st July, the concentration was less than at Neuve Chapelle if I remember correctly (sorry, this is being done during half time of the Barca-Inter game, which is just as attritional as many a Western Front battle).

As to the issue of Mont St Quentin: certainly the French progress slowed south of the river as, north of Les Biaches/La Maisonette, they had reached the river and could go no further. The original pre-Verdun plan was for a crossing well to the south of this point which was not going to happen given the reduction in available forces. The other issue is that the original axis of the attack north of the Somme was SE, i.e. towards Mont St Quentin, as a way of outflanking Peronne to the north. The French, at least to start with, carried on in this general direction but, once th BEF became the dominant partner in the offensive, the British axis of attack shifted to the NE, i.e. towards Bapaume, to reflect Haig's hoped for break out and drive north. The failure to drive SE would have caused the French on both side of the river increasing difficulty as they came within range of many batteries on the reverse slope of Mont St Quentin and it was a problem that was never resolved.

However, I do not see that this in any way undermines my view that Fayolle, in particular, had learned lessons and developed ideas far in advance of Rawlinson and his immediate juniors when it came to the initial attack on the Somme. I suppose this why I have trouble with the notion of the 'learning curve' as it suggests, at the very least, smooth, if not necessarily fast, upward progress. Seems to me that lessons were learned patchily and applied inconsistantly. Some generals learned better and faster than others and, by 1st July 1916, Fayolle (and perhaps Foch) had learned more and better than his British equivalents.

[Robert Dunlop]

Thanks, Bill. I agree with many of your points. But let me put this another way. Let's suppose that the Germans did the opposite. Let's suppose they significantly depleted infantry and artillery forces holding Gommecourt and Theipval areas, sending them south to hold the area around Curlu and south of the river. What would the outcome have been then I wonder?

In other words, the British tactics and outcomes cannot be divorced from what the Germans did in response. So we must be cautious about trying to attribute too great a difference between Rawlinson and Fayolle, for example.

Robert

[Robert Dunlop]

...not a break from pre-war doctrine but more of a natural progression.

Despite the minor excursion to the Somme area (which is still relevant to your original question), work is still ongoing with respect to French tactics pre-August 1914. I am working on some translations and will post when completed.

Robert

[phil andrade]

If the French had been so good at attacking, then this should have been reflected in a much more impressive record of attacking at Verdun in the period preceding the German shutdown of their part in that sector.

Robert

Might it be argued that it was these very difficulties at Verdun that made the French so much more effective ....that the infernal struggles on the Meuse equipped them with the experience and appreciation that made them so effective on the Somme ?

Fayolle, I have heard it said, had grasped the concept of the "all arms battle" ( excluding tanks, of course) and put it into practice in Picardy a couple of years before the British.

This was the theme of a lecture I attended at Canterbury in July 2006, in the conference to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Somme...I scribbled down some notes. I hope I've remembered the gist of it....it's a tall claim; no wonder it stuck in my mind !

Phil

[Latze]

Hi salesie,

In other words, I can see no reason, despite the huge mass of literature devoted to this subject and the many forum threads quoting much of this work, to say that the overall tactics prescribed, and trained for pre-war, by the French and German armies made a jot of difference when put into practice in 1914. I can see no reason to say that the end-result should be ignored - we know what the end-result of the battles of 1914 was i.e. four long bloody years of military stalemate in the field (despite the many innovations in tactics developed by both sides post-1914). So any research of the minutiae of tactics that doesn't consider this undoubted fact when drawing conclusions is, in my opinion, nothing more than an extremely narrow, purely academic, exercise which misses a vital lesson of WW1 i.e. no side enjoyed an overall, purely military, superiority in the field at any stage of that war.

Unfortunately I don't quite get your point. If there are factors above the levels of tactics that shape and determine the overall outcome of battles how and why does it then follow (just from a standpoint of logic) that one side might not have enjoyed a tactical edge (at certain places and times) ?

And just to put my interest into perspective: I think that the development of infantry tactics in the period 1914 to 1918 is highly relevant as it was a period of transition towards what can be very broadly described as 'modern usage'. So I think that the question exactly how that happened (on a national and a comparative level) quite interesting and that is not linked to any discussion about superiority per se.

regards

Latze

Thanks Jack. The diagrams illustrates les nettoyeurs. In English, mopper-uppers. Is there a German equivalent term?

curiously I am not aware of one.... strange now that you mention it!

[Latze]

Hello Jack,

I apologise for the clunkiness of these posts. I am not sure if it is me, my computers, the wifi here in the mountains or the site itself. Anyway, I thought that they might be of interest. Notice the importance placed on artillery - mentioned first in both captions. I would only repeat my earlier point. There is nothing to choose at this stage of the war between the way any of the three armies handled the nuts and bolts of infantry in the attack, though mention of inf/tank cooperation would have been useful.

Nothing to apologise for. Thank you for posting this. Unfortunately my French is really not good. Can somebody maybe offer a translation of the French text (even if I get the gist of it).

I wonder about spacing of the various groups and what the 'voltigeurs' are supposed to be? Riflemen?

regards

Latze