The Western Front, January–May 1917

The western Allies had good reason to be profoundly dissatisfied with the poor results of their enterprises of 1916, and this dissatisfaction was signalized by two major changes made at the end of the year. In Great Britain, the government of H.H. Asquith, already turned into a coalition in May 1915, was replaced in December 1916 by a coalition under David Lloyd George; and that same month in France the post of commander in chief of the army was transferred from Joffre to General R.-G. Nivelle.

As for the military situation, the fighting strength of the British Army on the Western Front had grown to about 1,200,000 men and was still growing. That of the French Army had been increased by the incorporation of colonial troops to some 2,600,000, so that, including the Belgians, the Allies disposed an estimated 3,900,000 men against 2,500,000 Germans. To the Allies, these figures suggested an offensive on their part.

Nivelle, who owed his appointment to the contrast between the brilliant success of his recent counterattacks at Verdun and the meagre results of Joffre’s strategy of attrition, was deeply imbued with the optimism of which experience was by now curing Joffre. He also had ideas of national glory and, accordingly, modified plans made by Joffre in such a way as to assign to the French Army the determinant role in the offensive that, it was calculated, must decide the issue on the Western Front in 1917. Nivelle’s plan in its final stage was that the British should make preparatory attacks not only north of the wilderness of the old Somme battlefields but also south of them (in the sector previously held by French troops); that these preparatory attacks should attract the German reserves; and, finally, that the French should launch the major offensive in Champagne (their forces in that sector having been strengthened both by new troops from the overseas colonies and by those transferred from the Somme). The tactics Nivelle planned to use were based on those he had employed so successfully at Verdun. But he placed an optimistic overreliance on his theory of combining “great violence with great mass,” which basically consisted of intense artillery bombardments followed by massive frontal attacks.

Meanwhile, Ludendorff had foreseen a renewal of the Allied offensive on the Somme, and he used his time to frustrate Nivelle’s plans and to strengthen the German front in two different ways. First, the hitherto rather shallow defenses in Champagne were by mid-February reinforced with a third line, out of range of the French artillery. Second, Ludendorff decided to anticipate the attack by falling back to a new and immensely strong line of defense. This new line, called the Siegfriedstellung, or “Hindenburg Line,” was rapidly constructed across the base of the great salient formed by the German lines between Arras and Reims. From the German position east of Arras, the line ran southeastward and southward, passing west of Cambrai and Saint-Quentin to rejoin the old German line at Anizy (between Soissons and Laon). After a preliminary step backward on February 23, a massive withdrawal of all German troops from the westernmost bulges of the great salient to the new and shorter line was smoothly and quickly made on March 16. The major towns within the areas evacuated by the Germans (i.e., Bapaume, Péronne, Roye, Noyon, Chauny, and Coucy) were abandoned to the Allies, but the area was left as a desert, with roads mined, trees cut down, wells fouled, and houses demolished, the ruins being strewn with explosive booby traps.

This baffling and unexpected German withdrawal dislocated Nivelle’s plan, but, unperturbed by warnings from all quarters about the changed situation, Nivelle insisted on carrying it out. The Battle of Arras, with which the British started the offensive on April 9, 1917, began well enough for the attackers, thanks to much-improved artillery methods and to a new poison gas shell that paralyzed the hostile artillery. Vimy Ridge, at the northern end of the 15-mile battlefront, fell to the Canadian Corps, but the exploitation of this success was frustrated by the congestion of traffic in the British rear, and though the attack was continued until May 5, stiffer German resistance prevented exploitation of the advances made in the first five days.

Nivelle’s own offensive in Champagne, launched on April 16 on the Aisne front from Vailly eastward toward Craonne and Reims, proved to be a fiasco. The attacking troops were trapped in a web of machine-gun fire, and by nightfall the French had advanced about 600 yards instead of the six miles anticipated in Nivelle’s program. Only on the wings was any appreciable progress achieved. The results compared favourably with Joffre’s offensives, as some 28,000 German prisoners were taken at a cost to the French of just under 120,000 casualties. But the effect on French morale was worse, because Nivelle’s fantastic predictions of the offensive’s success were more widely known than Joffre’s had ever been. With the collapse of Nivelle’s plan, his fortunes were buried in the ruins, and after some face-saving delay he was superseded as commander in chief by Pétain on May 15, 1917.

This change was made too late to avert a more harmful sequel, for in late April a mutiny broke out among the French infantry and spread until 16 French army corps were affected. The authorities chose to ascribe it to seditious propaganda, but the mutinous outbreaks always occurred when exhausted troops were ordered back into the line, and they signaled their grievances by such significant cries as: “We’ll defend the trenches, but we won’t attack.” Pétain restored tranquillity by meeting the just grievances of the troops; his reputation for sober judgment restored the troops’ confidence in their leaders, and he made it clear that he would avoid future reckless attacks on the German lines. But the military strength of France could never be fully restored during the war.

Pétain insisted that the only rational strategy was to keep to the defensive until new factors had changed the conditions sufficiently to justify taking the offensive with a reasonable hope of success. His constant advice was: “We must wait for the Americans and the tanks.” Tanks were now being belatedly built in large numbers, and this emphasis on them showed a dawning recognition that machine warfare had superseded mass infantry warfare.