100 years ago, in April-May 1917, the Entente troops tried to break through the defenses of the German army. It was the largest battle of the First World War in terms of the number of participants. The offensive was named after the commander-in-chief of the French army, Robert Nivelle, and ended in a heavy defeat for the Entente. The offensive of the allies became a symbol of senseless human sacrifice, therefore it received the name "Slaughterhouse of Nivelle" or "Meat grinder of Nivelles."
The situation before the battle. Nivelle's plan
At the Allied conference in Chantilly in November 1916, it was decided to intensify action on all fronts, with the largest number of forces at the very beginning of 1917, in order to maintain the strategic initiative. The Entente powers were going to use their superiority in forces and means and decide the course of the war during the 1917 campaign. The French commander-in-chief, General Joffre, divided the 1917 campaign into two periods: 1) winter - operations of local importance in order to prevent the enemy from going over to a decisive offensive and prevent him from retaining reserves until summer time; 2) summer - a broad offensive on all main fronts.
The original plan of action in 1917 in the French theater was drawn up by General Joffre and consisted of a repetition of the attack on both sides of the Somme simultaneously with a decisive offensive on the Russian, Italian and Balkan fronts. According to Joffre's general plan, the British began the offensive on the French front in the Arras region, and in a few days they were to be supported by the northern troupe of the French armies between the Somme and the Oise. Two weeks after that, it was planned to throw into battle the 5th Army from the reserve group between Soissons and Reims: to develop the success of the main attack delivered by the British Army Group and the Northern French Army Group, or for an independent breakthrough if the attack of the main forces drowned. The French high command planned to inflict a decisive defeat on the German army: to break through the front and use this to completely defeat the enemy. At the same time, Italian troops were to attack the Isonzo, and the Russian-Romanian and Thessaloniki armies were to advance in the Balkans in order to incapacitate Bulgaria.
However, in France, in connection with the Romanian catastrophe, there was a change in Briand's cabinet, his replacement with the Ribot ministry. Almost simultaneously, after numerous political intrigues, the French commander-in-chief, General Joffre, was replaced, and General Robert Nivel took his place. Knivel served in Indochina, Algeria and China and was promoted to brigadier general during the First World War. During the Battle of Verdun in 1916, he was Pétain's main assistant and showed his military talent, commanding French troops during the capture of Fort Duamon. Soon Nivelles became the commander of the Verdun sector.
On January 25, the new French commander-in-chief Nivelles presented his plan of operations on the Western Front for 1917. The general offensive was scheduled for early April and was supposed to begin with two powerful attacks in the area of the town of Cambrai (60 kilometers northeast of Amiens) and slightly east, in the Aisne River basin. In order to accelerate the "frustration" of the enemy, according to Nivelle's plan, then the troops had to go over to the offensive in other sectors of the front. The operation was divided into three stages: 1) crush as many enemy forces as possible, pinning down the remaining enemy forces in other sectors of the front; 2) to push forward the maneuverable mass in order to detain and defeat the German reserves; 3) to develop and use the achieved successes to inflict a decisive defeat on the German army.
The British offensive in the direction of Cambrai and the operation of the northern group of French forces against the largest number of enemy forces were supposed to distract the enemy. Then, a few days later, the main mass of French troops (reserve group of armies) broke through the enemy's defenses on the river. Aisne and the operation to defeat the German troops connected by the first group. Troops in the remaining sectors of the front went over to a general offensive, completing the disorder and defeat of the German army. Thus, the essence of the plan was to capture the German salient at Noyon in the pincers, which led to the destruction of a significant mass of German troops and the appearance of a large gap in the enemy's defensive line. This could lead to the collapse of the entire German defense on the Western Front and the decisive defeat of the German army.
British Prime Minister Lloyd George supported Nivelle, instructing him to command British forces in a joint operation. The French general argued that a massive strike on the German defensive line would lead to a French victory within 48 hours. At the same time, Nivel told about his plan to anyone who was interested in him, including journalists, as a result of which the German command learned about the plan and the element of surprise was lost.
French commander-in-chief Robert Knivel
Changing the plan of the operation
While the Allies were preparing for a decisive offensive, the German command confused all the cards of the French, unexpectedly starting in February a previously prepared operation to withdraw troops to a well-prepared position along the entire front from Arras to Vaille on the river. Ena. This withdrawal was begun after the German High Command decided to go over to strategic defense and withdraw the troops occupying the protrusion at Noyon from a dangerous position. The troops were taken to the so-called. The Hindenburg Line, which had been under construction for almost a year. The line had several rows of trenches, wire fences, minefields, concrete bunkers, machine gun nests, dugouts, and infantry bunkers connected by underground tunnels. It was believed that these fortifications should withstand even the attacks of the enemy's heavy artillery. By reducing the front, the Germans were able to tighten the defensive formations and allocate additional reserves (up to 13 divisions). The French missed the withdrawal of the German army, and the pursuit of the enemy, begun by the 3rd Army, gave nothing.
The Deputy Chief of the German General Staff, General Erich von Ludendorff, described the course of the operation as follows: “In close connection with the beginning of the submarine war, they led to the decision to withdraw our front from the arc, curved towards France, to the Siegfried position (one of the sections of the“Hindenburg Line”- A. S.), which by the beginning of March was supposed to be defensive, and to carry out systematic destruction in a strip 15 kilometers wide in front of the new position. " Withdrawing the troops, the Germans took out everything they could - food, metals, wood, etc., and destroyed what they left, following the "scorched earth" tactics - communication routes, buildings, wells. “It was extremely difficult to decide to pull back the front,” wrote Ludendorff. But since retreat was necessary from a military point of view, there was no choice."
The environment has changed dramatically. German troops by mid-March made a successful withdrawal to a new well-prepared defensive line. There was a revolution in Russia. The events in Russia, on the one hand, made the allies happy - the Provisional Government was easier to manipulate than the tsarist government, on the other hand, they threatened to weaken the onslaught of the Russian army (Russian commander-in-chief Alekseev refused to launch a decisive offensive in early spring). And speaking on the side of the Entente did not promise quick help. The Americans were in no hurry to move the army to Europe. All this made the French government think about whether or not to postpone the offensive. After a series of discussions, it was decided to start the offensive on the French and Italian fronts in April 1917, while the Germans had not yet withdrawn their troops from the Russian front. At the same time, the government gave instructions to stop the offensive operation if a breakthrough of the front was not achieved within 48 hours.
The withdrawal of the German troops led to a regrouping of the allied armies and a change in the original plan. The main blow was now delivered by the reserve army group, which was supposed to break through the German front between Reims and the Ensk canal: the 5th and 6th armies were intended to break through the front, and the 10th and 1st armies (the latter was transferred from the northern army group) - for the development of the offensive. This main attack was supported from the right by the 4th Army, attacking between Reims and the r. Suip, and to the left is the northern army group attacking south of Saint-Quentin. A minor blow was delivered by the 3rd and 1st British armies.
Thus, instead of capturing the Noyon salient in the pincers, which was the essence of the first plan, here the stake was placed on breaking through the center of the German position between the sea and Verdun and with a breakthrough on a wide front in the form of a wedge, the sharp corner of which was the shock armies of the reserve group. This breakthrough was to be helped by a minor attack by British forces.
Forces of the parties
Allied forces were located from Newport to the Swiss border. From Newport to Ypres, there was a French corps (on the coast) and a Belgian army. From Ypres to the Roy-Amiens road, five English armies held their own. From this road to Soissons is the northern group of the French armies, consisting of the 3rd and 1st armies. From Soissons to Reims - the reserve group of the French armies, with the 6th and 5th at the front and 10th in reserve. In Champagne and Verdun, from Reims to S. Miel, an army group from the center, from the 4th and 2nd armies. From Saint Miill to the Swiss border, the 8th and 1st armies.
The German army deployed from the sea to Soissons a group of the Crown Prince of Bavaria of three armies: the 4th - in Belgium, the 6th - from the Belgian border to Arras and the 2nd - from Arras to Soissons. From Soissons (to Verdun there was a group of the Crown Prince of Germany: with the 7th Army from Soissons to Reims, the 3rd - from Reims to the headwaters of the Aisne and the 5th - to Verdun. Here was also transferred from the north and the 1st Army, which received a section between the 7th and 3rd armies. From Verdun to the Swiss border, a group of the Duke of Württemberg held the defense of 3 army formations with a ledge at Saint-Miyel and further almost along the state border. Russian to the French front and back, using the developed network of railways in the German Empire.
In April 1917, the Allies on the Western Front had large forces and assets at their disposal. The Entente troops were French, British, Belgian and Portuguese troops, as well as the Russian Expeditionary Force. The total number of allied troops was about 4.5 million people (about 190 divisions), more than 17, 3 thousand guns, the German army had 2, 7 million people (154 divisions), 11 thousand guns. In total, more than 100 Allied infantry divisions and over 11,000 guns of all types and calibers, about 200 tanks and 1,000 aircraft were planned to be involved in the operation. The German command in the direction of the main attack had 27 infantry divisions, 2,431 guns and 640 aircraft.
Battle of Scarpa. April 10, 1917
Battle
On April 9, in northern France, the Allies launched the first major offensive operation in 1917. Only English units took part in it, which attacked the positions of the Germans in the area of the city of Arras. In addition to the British themselves, units from the dominions - Canadian, New Zealand and Australian - took an active part in the battle.
The British have done a lot of preparatory work. So, British engineers dug tunnels with a total length of more than 20 kilometers to the forward positions, in which railways were laid for the delivery of ammunition and the laying of mines. These tunnels alone could accommodate 24 thousand people. From a tactical point of view, the British took into account the experience of the Battle of the Somme, choosing for the offensive one small sector of the front, where it was supposed to achieve the maximum density of artillery fire. Artillery preparation began on April 7 and lasted two days, during which more than 2.5 million shells were expended. However, the British did not succeed in achieving a special effect, except that the supply of food to the enemy positions was disrupted and German soldiers in some areas were left without food for more than three days. Also, the British were unlucky in the air, since at Arras they could not concentrate a sufficient number of experienced pilots to achieve air superiority. The Germans, due to the inaction of the Russian army, which was rapidly decomposing, were able to gather the most experienced aces on the Western Front.
On April 10-12, fierce fighting continued in the area of the city of Arras. Despite the most powerful artillery barrage, on the whole, the offensive of the British army failed. Only on the northern outskirts of Arras, in the Vimy Uplands, Canadian soldiers were able to break through the enemy's defenses in a small area. With the support of tanks, they managed to advance several kilometers into the depths of the enemy's defensive formations. At the same time, the main fortifications of the "Hindenburg Line", which was considered impregnable, in this area were almost completely destroyed, and the Germans did not have time to pull up reserves along the muddy and broken roads. But the British tanks, in turn, got bogged down in the mud, and it was not possible to transfer artillery after the advancing infantry in time. The allies were unable to establish interaction of the infantry with artillery and tanks. As a result, the Germans managed to close the gap by April 13, withdrawing the surviving units to the second line of defense.
British infantry attack
Canadian machine gunners at Vimy, April 1917
On April 16, in Champagne, in the Soissons area, the French units (5th and 6th armies), which were originally supposed to attack simultaneously with the British, also went on the offensive. The offensive of the main forces of the French armies in the direction of the main attack was preceded by an artillery preparation conducted from 7 to 12 April. The offensive was postponed until April 16 due to poor artillery preparation, but the new artillery preparation also did not give the expected results.
The Germans were ready to attack the enemy. Two weeks before the start of the operation, the Germans captured a French non-commissioned officer, who was carrying a copy of the main plan of the operation. It also mentioned that the British strike at Arras would be a distraction. As a result, the German command withdrew the main forces from the first line so that they did not fall under an artillery strike, leaving only machine-gun crews in concrete caps. The French immediately came under terrible machine-gun and artillery fire and suffered huge losses, only in places having managed to capture the enemy's forward trenches. The French were not helped either by their first Schneider tanks, which proved to be worse than the British. Of the 128 vehicles of the first detachment thrown at the enemy, the Germans knocked out 39. The second squad of "Schneider", which was attacked by the German aviation, was destroyed almost entirely - 118 of 128 vehicles. Some of the vehicles fell into prepared ditches. The weak points of these tanks turned out to be an extremely unreliable tractor chassis and low speed, which made them easy prey for German artillery. In addition, during the attack at Soissons, in order to increase the range, additional fuel tanks were attached to the tanks outside, which made the Schneider burn very well.
Destroyed French tank "Schneider"
The attack continued on 17 April. The French 4th Army, supported by the 10th, continued the general offensive. The fiercest fighting these days took place in the area known as the Champagne Hills, east of the city of Reims. On the first day, the French advanced only 2.5 kilometers deep into enemy territory, by April 23 - up to 5-6 kilometers, and then only in some areas. The attackers captured more than 6 thousand Germans, while the losses of the French army in just 5 days of fighting amounted to more than 21 thousand killed and wounded. The offensive did not bring decisive success, the German troops retreated in an organized manner to the next line of defense.
Thus, the offensive of the French army failed. A military historian, General Andrei Zayonchkovsky, wrote about Nivelle's operation: “In terms of the number of troops, artillery, shells, aircraft and tanks gathered here, the French attack between Soissons and Reims was the most ambitious undertaking of the entire war. Naturally, the French could expect complete success from a breakthrough and be confident in developing it into a great strategic victory. But the hopes of the French did not come true. The lengthy preparations and political discussions caused by this offensive, together with 10 days of artillery preparation, took away all the benefits of surprise, and bad weather deprived the French troops of the participation of strong aviation."
French infantry attack
Meanwhile, the bloody battle was still going on. On April 22, the commander of the British forces, Lord Haig, announced his decision "to continue the British offensive with all his might to support our allies," although the French at that moment, due to huge losses, temporarily stopped the attacks. As the historian of the First World War Basil Liddell Garth noted, in fact, then there was already "nothing and no one to support." On April 23, British forces attacked the Germans in the Scarpa River Valley. At the first stage, they managed to capture the enemy's forward trenches, but then the Germans pulled up their reserves and counterattacked. With desperate efforts, the fighters of the Canadian Royal Newfoundled Regiment managed to defend the captured village of Monchet-le-Pro, which was the last success of the Allies. After that, given the heavy losses, General Haig halted the fruitless offensive.
On April 28, the Canadians were able to advance slightly again and took over the village of Arleux-en-Goel, located next to the village of Vimy, which had been occupied two weeks earlier. The Russian military historian Zayonchkovsky described the overall results of the British offensive: "All these attacks in places improved only the tactical position of the Allies, placing at their disposal several good strongholds and observation points."
On April 30, at a meeting of the Allied army commanders, General Haig announced that he had little hope of the success of the French offensive, but declared his readiness to continue the offensive of the British units "in order to move forward methodically" until a good defensive line was reached. As a result, local battles continued until May 9. So, on May 3, British soldiers stormed the fortifications near the village of Bellecour and in the Arras region in the Scarpa River valley. All attacks were repulsed by the Germans. On May 4, given the huge losses, the British command decided to suspend the offensive for a while.
The complete failure of General Nivelle's grandiose plans was already evident. "The French offensive [which began] on April 16 on the Ain, which was introduced by the attack [of the British] at Arras, proved to be an even worse disaster [than the British attacks], destroying Nivelle's frivolous hopes and predictions and burying his career in its ruins." - noted the historian Garth.
It is worth noting that during this battle the British aviation suffered heavy losses. Those events went down in the history of the RAF as "bloody April". Within a month, the British lost more than 300 aircraft, 211 pilots and other members of the flight crew were killed or missing, 108 were captured. Only the German squadron "Jasta 11" under the command of Manfred Richthofen (the most eminent German ace of the First World War) reported 89 victories. About 20 of them were on the account of Richthofen himself. During the same period, German aviation lost only 66 aircraft.
In addition, the first unrest began in the French army. The French politician Paul Painlevé recalled: “When, after the failure of the breakthrough, new operations were announced, the decay in the troops immediately began to turn into distrust and indignation. On May 3, signs of collective disobedience were noticed in the 2nd Infantry Division of the Colonial Forces. It was easily suppressed. However, a dull excitement continued to grow among the soldiers both in the injured units, who, after a curtailed rest, were again sent to the line of fire, and in fresh divisions, which, when approaching the line of fire, heard the amazing stories of their comrades replaced."
Later, in 1932, when the ban on "decadent demonstrations" was lifted, the newspaper L'Humanite published the memoirs of one of the eyewitnesses of a soldier's riot during the Nivelle Offensive: “The attacks of May 9, 1917 turned into a terrible massacre. In the 59th regiment, soldiers fired at their officers. The regiment, from which only miserable remains survived, is now resting in the cellars of Arras. The uprising is spreading. The soldiers say to the officers: “We will not go on the attack. Down with the war! " The 59th and 88th regiments occupied the trenches at Rocklencourt. After a short artillery preparation, which did not destroy the barbed wire, the order is given to attack. Nobody moves. In the trenches, the slogan is passed from mouth to mouth: “The 59th Regiment will not attack! The 88th Regiment will not attack! " A lieutenant in my company threatens the young recruits of the 1917 draft with a revolver. Then one old soldier puts his bayonet to the officer's chest. Several frightened recruits emerged from the trenches. Almost all of them were killed on the spot. The assault did not take place. After some time, the 88th regiment was disbanded."
Tanks "Schneider", moving to the front to attack in the Reims area. April 1917
Outcomes
Allied attacks were unsuccessful, the German front was not broken through. Under pressure from the government, the operation was terminated. Everything turned into another senseless massacre and this operation went down in history as the "Nivelle Meat Grinder". In the "Slaughter of Nivelle" the French lost 180 thousand people killed and wounded, the British 160 thousand people, the Russians - more than 5 thousand people (out of 20 thousand). The losses of the German army amounted to 163 thousand people (29 thousand prisoners).
After this unsuccessful offensive on May 15, Nivelles was removed from his post and was replaced by General Henri Patin - "Hero of Verdun". And Clemenceau was appointed Minister of War, who was given dictatorial powers. In the French army, demoralized by the failure of the offensive (against the background of past "meat grinders"), riots broke out, the soldiers refused to obey, left the trenches, seized trucks and trains to go to Paris. The mutiny engulfed 54 divisions, 20 thousand soldiers deserted. A wave of strikes took place at French military factories, light industry and construction sites. Metallurgical workers went on strike in May and June. However, the French authorities were not overwhelmed. The new commander very harshly suppressed all actions in the army. Rallies and demonstrations were dispersed with lead. All publications that showed the slightest disloyalty were dispersed. All prominent oppositionists were arrested. The rebel regiments were blocked by cavalry and disarmed. Some of them were shot on the spot, court-martial started working. The tribunals convicted thousands of people, some were shot, others were thrown into prisons and hard labor. In July, an order was issued imposing the death penalty for refusing to obey. Thus, the French quickly restored order in the army and in the rear.
The revolutionary movement also embraced the Russian Expeditionary Force, which fought bravely and suffered heavy losses. The 1st Special Brigade took Fort Brimont, repelled several enemy counterattacks. The 3rd Special Brigade rushed ahead of the French, attacked the Pig's Head redoubts, and withstood the German counterattack. French newspapers admired and extolled "the valor of the troops of free Russia …". The failure of the offensive and the huge casualties caused indignation among the Russian soldiers. Knowing about the revolution in Russia, they demanded to return to their homeland. In July, the Russian units were withdrawn from the front and transferred to the La Curtin camp, the camp was surrounded by French troops, who with particular cruelty suppressed the uprising of Russian soldiers by September 19. 110 people were put on trial, the rest were sent to the Thessaloniki front.
Execution at Verdun during the mutinies in the French army
