FRENCH IN FORT DE LA MALMAISON AFTER ITS CAPTURE
FRENCH ' GUNS ON THE WAY TO THE FRONT
ENTRANCE TO THE MONTPARNASSE QUARRY
A big French success
The great shells shot up into the air with the roar of an express train, a sound which it is better to hear when it is travelling away than when it is coming towards you
October 24, 1917
This morning the French have gained a very fine success on the much-debated section of the Aisne front, north-east of Soissons and east of Vauxaillon, over the army of General von Miller. The main German force consisted in the centre of the 2nd and 6th Guard Divisions, based on Lully and Corneil, and flanked west and east by the 13th Division, south of Chivy, and the 47th Division of the Reserve, south of Vorges. Two other divisions, the 14th and the 211th, supported these troops, right and left, outside the actual area of attack.
Writing at an early hour, after watching the closing stages of the preliminary bombardment during the night and the first rapid bound of the attack, I am only able at present to say that our Allies have gained all their first objectives, and have already captured 1,000 prisoners and two of the enemy’s airmen, lost, like the Zeppelins, in the fog. [According to the latest report 7,500 prisoners have been captured.] The ground over which the advance was made - a four-mile front three miles north of the Aisne, stretching from east of the Laffaux Mill to La Royere Farm - is the most difficult corner of the big triangle of plateaux which is bounded on the east by the Aisne-Oise Canal and on the south by the Aisne, east of Soissons, between Fort de Conde and Pont Arcy. It was along the base of this triangle that the Germans finally made their stand after their retreat from the Marne, a well-chosen position made immensely strong by the confused mass of plateaux and ravines on the heights between the Aisne and the Ailette, the strategic point which first enabled them to convert the open war of movement into fixed warfare of the trenches.
Writing at an early hour, after watching the closing stages of the preliminary bombardment during the night and the first rapid bound of the attack, I am only able at present to say that our Allies have gained all their first objectives, and have already captured 1,000 prisoners and two of the enemy’s airmen, lost, like the Zeppelins, in the fog. [According to the latest report 7,500 prisoners have been captured.] The ground over which the advance was made - a four-mile front three miles north of the Aisne, stretching from east of the Laffaux Mill to La Royere Farm - is the most difficult corner of the big triangle of plateaux which is bounded on the east by the Aisne-Oise Canal and on the south by the Aisne, east of Soissons, between Fort de Conde and Pont Arcy. It was along the base of this triangle that the Germans finally made their stand after their retreat from the Marne, a well-chosen position made immensely strong by the confused mass of plateaux and ravines on the heights between the Aisne and the Ailette, the strategic point which first enabled them to convert the open war of movement into fixed warfare of the trenches.
After the second great German retreat, in the spring of this year, the French made two advances in May and in June, which carried their line to the position which it occupied until today’s attack - a practically straight line running nearly due east and west from the angle made by the sweep of the general front where it turns east towards Craonne and the Plain of Champagne, after running south from St Quentin, past the west flank of the Forests of Coucy and St Gobain.
SCENE OF FIERCE FIGHTING
During 1916, after the strenuous fighting of the previous year, of which Soissons was the centre, the region was so quiet that it was used as a rest camp for troops withdrawn from the Somme and Verdun. But since then, before and after the French had reached their present lines, it has been the scene of incessant struggles of the fiercest description. All through this summer the enemy have done everything in their power to drive the French back to the river. In the last fortnight of May they made 11 separate attacks, followed by 20 more in June, and on July 8 they assaulted the section of the French front at La Royere, on the extreme right of to-day’s attack, less than a mile in extent, with a force of two divisions, but without succeeding in their object.
Up to today’s engagement, the net result of the whole series of operations carried out by our Allies was that they had managed to deprive the Germans of their previous points of observation southwards over the valley of the Aisne without themselves winning a line from which they could command a view over the valley of the Ailette to the north. Both sides were entrenched on the plateaux between the two rivers, but each had a river at its back, and each had a too narrow footing on the heights. That was the double weakness of the position for both the French and the Germans, and was partly the cause of all the violent fighting in this sector and of today’s determined effort by the French to effect a radical change in the situation.
NETWORK OF CAVERNS
In order to succeed, they had not only to contend with the initial difficulty of bringing their supplies across the Aisne, but also with the special local complication that the approaches to the plateaux, as well as the sides and reverse slopes, are studded with a network of quarries and caverns of extraordinary strength, one of them so vast that it can house in its two tiers of rock chambers a whole brigade. Much of the preliminary business of bombardment, which began in earnest on October 17, has consisted in hammering the entrances and roofs of these quarry-caverns, some of which are entirely underground. For the success of the attack, it was all important not only to dispose of as many as possible of the troops which they contained, but to make them useless as emplacements for machine-guns. Otherwise, the cost of taking them and the heights which they guarded would have been practically prohibitive.
During the preparation two days ago I watched for some time a battery of 15in and another of 16in guns engaged in this particular work. They were thundering away for a large part of the afternoon at intervals just long enough for the monster tubes to be lowered and loaded and raised again to their almost perpendicular firing elevation after each shot. Then there was a deafening report and a rush of filmy white smoke from the muzzle, and beyond it, travelling far faster than the smoke but just visible for a second, you saw the great shell - a tiny black speck against the clear blue of the sky high above the line of hills behind which the batteries were hidden - shoot up into the air for the first half-mile or so of its long journey with the roar of an express train, a sound which it is better to hear when it is travelling away than when it is coming towards you.
Until the evening mist of a late October day began to rise it was first-rate shooting, and both batteries were making excellent practice. While I was there one of the 15in guns, as recorded by the observation plane far in front, put five shots running into the same hole in the face of one of the caves, and batteries of “75’s” were on ahead bombarding each breach.
STREAM OF 16-INCH SHELLS
During almost the whole of the preparation the hours of good visibility, on account of mists, have been few, and this, to some extent, has hampered, both the artillery and photographic work of the airmen. But for all that, it has gone on steadily and relentlessly day and night, and, as far as could be judged from the photographs, with good results. The roof of the quarry of Mont Parnasse, the biggest of all the caves, was known some days ago to be honeycombed with craters, made by the stream of shells showered upon it by the l6in guns, two at least of which broke right through the whole thickness of the upper covering of earth and rock.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-french-victory-on-the-aisne-jqz853978?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=newsletter_118&utm_medium=email&utm_content=118_November%2015,%202017&CMP=TNLEmail_118918_2521941_118
SCENE OF FIERCE FIGHTING
During 1916, after the strenuous fighting of the previous year, of which Soissons was the centre, the region was so quiet that it was used as a rest camp for troops withdrawn from the Somme and Verdun. But since then, before and after the French had reached their present lines, it has been the scene of incessant struggles of the fiercest description. All through this summer the enemy have done everything in their power to drive the French back to the river. In the last fortnight of May they made 11 separate attacks, followed by 20 more in June, and on July 8 they assaulted the section of the French front at La Royere, on the extreme right of to-day’s attack, less than a mile in extent, with a force of two divisions, but without succeeding in their object.
NETWORK OF CAVERNS
In order to succeed, they had not only to contend with the initial difficulty of bringing their supplies across the Aisne, but also with the special local complication that the approaches to the plateaux, as well as the sides and reverse slopes, are studded with a network of quarries and caverns of extraordinary strength, one of them so vast that it can house in its two tiers of rock chambers a whole brigade. Much of the preliminary business of bombardment, which began in earnest on October 17, has consisted in hammering the entrances and roofs of these quarry-caverns, some of which are entirely underground. For the success of the attack, it was all important not only to dispose of as many as possible of the troops which they contained, but to make them useless as emplacements for machine-guns. Otherwise, the cost of taking them and the heights which they guarded would have been practically prohibitive.
During the preparation two days ago I watched for some time a battery of 15in and another of 16in guns engaged in this particular work. They were thundering away for a large part of the afternoon at intervals just long enough for the monster tubes to be lowered and loaded and raised again to their almost perpendicular firing elevation after each shot. Then there was a deafening report and a rush of filmy white smoke from the muzzle, and beyond it, travelling far faster than the smoke but just visible for a second, you saw the great shell - a tiny black speck against the clear blue of the sky high above the line of hills behind which the batteries were hidden - shoot up into the air for the first half-mile or so of its long journey with the roar of an express train, a sound which it is better to hear when it is travelling away than when it is coming towards you.
Until the evening mist of a late October day began to rise it was first-rate shooting, and both batteries were making excellent practice. While I was there one of the 15in guns, as recorded by the observation plane far in front, put five shots running into the same hole in the face of one of the caves, and batteries of “75’s” were on ahead bombarding each breach.
STREAM OF 16-INCH SHELLS
During almost the whole of the preparation the hours of good visibility, on account of mists, have been few, and this, to some extent, has hampered, both the artillery and photographic work of the airmen. But for all that, it has gone on steadily and relentlessly day and night, and, as far as could be judged from the photographs, with good results. The roof of the quarry of Mont Parnasse, the biggest of all the caves, was known some days ago to be honeycombed with craters, made by the stream of shells showered upon it by the l6in guns, two at least of which broke right through the whole thickness of the upper covering of earth and rock.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-french-victory-on-the-aisne-jqz853978?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=newsletter_118&utm_medium=email&utm_content=118_November%2015,%202017&CMP=TNLEmail_118918_2521941_118
The French victory on the Aisne
Both the northern and southern slopes of the ridge are honeycombed with great quarries and caverns, in which large numbers of troops can shelter
October 25, 1917
In a single day, though after long and careful preparation, France has won a splendid victory on the heights north of the River Aisne. The gallant French Army attacked at dawn on Tuesday on a front of four miles, and the centre of the attacking forces reached Chavignon, on the northern side of the ridge. From Chavignon they can look down the valley of the little stream called the Ardan at the hill-fortress of Laon, only seven miles away. The sweeping character of the French triumph is demonstrated by the fact that they took 8,000 prisoners, belonging to eight divisions. The unofficial estimate that the total German losses in killed, wounded, and prisoners amounts to 26,000 must be accounted moderate, in view of the details of the battle now known.
In order to appreciate the character of General Petain’s success, it is necessary to look at the Allied line farther north. The present front touches the outskirts of St Quentin, and passes south-eastward to the canalized Oise, and then south past La Ferc. lt then travcrses the edge of the great forest of St Gobain, which is the key of all this area. The massive tree-clad heights of St Gobain form for the enemy a mighty bastion before which the French pursuit of the retreating Germans was checked in the spring. From the St Gobain area the German defences were continued eastuard along the narrow plateau north of the Aisne, which is crowned by the Chemin des Dames. General Nivelle’s attack after the German retreat had ended gave the Fsrench firm positions along the southern edge of the plateau, and resulted in the capture of the important village of Craonne, among other vantage-points; but the Germans still clung to the northern edge of the ridge, and have been there ever since. They have chiefly sheltered in the valley of the River Ailette, but the French were denied the opportunity they sought of commanding the open country to the north beyond Laon.
All this summer there has been constant hard fighting on the long plateau, but as the conflicts have been local the world has heard little about them. The Germans in particular have launched many small but fierce attacks, always without result. Both sides have fought again and again for the possession of ruined farms and small quarries. The goal of our Allies in this area has clearly been Chavignon, for Chavignon stands well down on the northern side of the ridge, and looks on Laon through the gap formed by the little Ardan stream.
Chavignon was shielded about a mile and a quarter to the south by the old ruined fort of Malmaison, which the enemy had converted into a powerful stronghold. By storming Malmaison and reaching Chavignon our Allies have opened the road to Laon, though the valley of the Ardan is flanked by other plateaux which have still to be carried. They may now be said to be in full possession of the Aisne heights. The real importance of their advance is, however, that it tends to outflank the formidable German salient of St Gobain.
No operation of the kind conducted by the French Army in this war excels in swiftness and completeness the attack on Tuesday. It is an achievement of which our Allies may well be proud, and on which we heartily congratulate them. It will surely form a classic example of General Petain’s theory of the limited offensive, delivered at the right moment with apparently absolute certainty, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy, and resulting in the acquisition of new positions of the highest value.
The Germans in their account issued yesterday pretend that on the right the attack failed, and they speak of a further attack to the eastward between Braye and Ailles, which was clearly never made. The lying character of their bulletin is plainly indicated by their misleading reference to “the heights of Ostel”, which have been in French possession for many months. On the other hand, they are compelled to admit the success of the actual offensive, and acknowledge that their advanced batteries had to be blown up and left.
The battle had peculiar characteristics, which have distinguished much of the fighting on the Aisne, as the British Army had good reason to know in 1914. Both the northern and southern slopes of the ridge are honeycombed with great quarries and caverns, in which large numbers of troops can shelter. The bombardment of these great retreats and of their entrances required much skilful artillery work, and our Special Correspondent said in his narrative, published yesterday that the big guns used for this purpose were raised to an almost perpendicular firing elevation.
The Malmaison fort seems to have been battered out of recognition by the 15in and 16in guns, and we may judge that it was stormed with comparative ease, although held by a Grenadier battalion of the Prussian Guard. The hardest struggle seems to have centired round the Mont Parnesse quarry, close to the road from Soissons to Laon, which passes through Chavignon. The heavy shells burst through the roof of the quarry at several points. Possibly the large number of prisoners is due to the fact that they were rounded up in these spacious shelters. Tremendous execution appears to have been wrought by shell fire among the German reserves concentrated in the Ailette Valley.
The whole operation shows that after more than thrce years of war the indomitable French troops are full of fight, and that they move forward with a heightened consciousness of the coming final victory.
Our troops will rejoice at the brilliant victory of our Allies on the Aisne, but both the British and French who are floundering in the sea of mud beyond Ypres will hear with envy of a battle fought at a well-drained altitude of nearly six hundred feet. The armies in Flanders have had to fight more than the enemy, for they have been fighting the equinoctial gales and their consequences.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/with-the-conquering-french-p8838z55b
All this summer there has been constant hard fighting on the long plateau, but as the conflicts have been local the world has heard little about them. The Germans in particular have launched many small but fierce attacks, always without result. Both sides have fought again and again for the possession of ruined farms and small quarries. The goal of our Allies in this area has clearly been Chavignon, for Chavignon stands well down on the northern side of the ridge, and looks on Laon through the gap formed by the little Ardan stream.
Chavignon was shielded about a mile and a quarter to the south by the old ruined fort of Malmaison, which the enemy had converted into a powerful stronghold. By storming Malmaison and reaching Chavignon our Allies have opened the road to Laon, though the valley of the Ardan is flanked by other plateaux which have still to be carried. They may now be said to be in full possession of the Aisne heights. The real importance of their advance is, however, that it tends to outflank the formidable German salient of St Gobain.
No operation of the kind conducted by the French Army in this war excels in swiftness and completeness the attack on Tuesday. It is an achievement of which our Allies may well be proud, and on which we heartily congratulate them. It will surely form a classic example of General Petain’s theory of the limited offensive, delivered at the right moment with apparently absolute certainty, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy, and resulting in the acquisition of new positions of the highest value.
The battle had peculiar characteristics, which have distinguished much of the fighting on the Aisne, as the British Army had good reason to know in 1914. Both the northern and southern slopes of the ridge are honeycombed with great quarries and caverns, in which large numbers of troops can shelter. The bombardment of these great retreats and of their entrances required much skilful artillery work, and our Special Correspondent said in his narrative, published yesterday that the big guns used for this purpose were raised to an almost perpendicular firing elevation.
The Malmaison fort seems to have been battered out of recognition by the 15in and 16in guns, and we may judge that it was stormed with comparative ease, although held by a Grenadier battalion of the Prussian Guard. The hardest struggle seems to have centired round the Mont Parnesse quarry, close to the road from Soissons to Laon, which passes through Chavignon. The heavy shells burst through the roof of the quarry at several points. Possibly the large number of prisoners is due to the fact that they were rounded up in these spacious shelters. Tremendous execution appears to have been wrought by shell fire among the German reserves concentrated in the Ailette Valley.
The whole operation shows that after more than thrce years of war the indomitable French troops are full of fight, and that they move forward with a heightened consciousness of the coming final victory.
Our troops will rejoice at the brilliant victory of our Allies on the Aisne, but both the British and French who are floundering in the sea of mud beyond Ypres will hear with envy of a battle fought at a well-drained altitude of nearly six hundred feet. The armies in Flanders have had to fight more than the enemy, for they have been fighting the equinoctial gales and their consequences.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/with-the-conquering-french-p8838z55b
With the conquering French
For a great distance round the fort there was not a square foot, honestly not a square inch, of the sticky surface that had not been churned up by the French and German shells.
October 28, 1917
This morning, with half a dozen men of the regiment which on the morning of the French attack got into Malmaison Fort 10 minutes after the whistle went for the start, I walked up to the fort and from the top of it had a look at the surrounding country. A certain number of French batteries were busily firing on the enemy’s positions and lines of communication on the other side of the Aisne-Oise Canal and on the low ground behind, and a constant stream of shells was shrieking and rattling overhead, where every now and then a scouting aeroplane sailed along in front of a pursuing train of puffs of black shrapnel. But for the most part the German guns appeared to be almost entirely silent.
As far as they were concerned, it was the calm after the storn. The scene in the deep ravines leading up to and cutting into the plateau was horribly desolate. Every tree was smashed to smithereens, and every yard or two there were shell-holes, those in the bottoms filled to the brim with water. On the plateau itself, a huge, flat, dreary expanse of monotonous brown, nothing was left standing but here and there a few twisted shreds of broken wire just sticking up above the sea of mud among the usual confused, unsightly litter of a modern battlefield. For a great distance round the fort there was not a square foot, honestly not a square inch, of the sticky surface that had not been churned up by the French and German shells.
MONSTER MUD CRATERS
As you get nearer to the fort after crossing the indistinguishable remains of the Chemin des Dames - as like the rest of the surrounding slough as one wave is like another - the monster mud craters made by the heaviest shells are more and more numerous; the fosse - from the south and east sides of which nearly all the masonry had been removed before the war by a building contractor, to whom the fort was sold as a stone quarry, after it had been used as a target for the testing of high explosives - is like the muddy bed of a moat from which the water has been drained off, and, when you have slithered and climbed down one side and up the other, you find inside the ramparts yet another hideous waste of mud before diving down into what is left of the badly smashed underground galleries, some half a dozen in all.
The view from the top gives an excellent idea of the extent of the French gains and of their importance. The low ground into which the reverse slopes of the plateau fall in front and on the right, and all but a small stretch of the canal, are hidden by the lie of the ground, but beyond the line of the canal the new German positions are clearly exposed. On the left, to the north-west, there is a clear view along the lower edge of the west side of the Forest of Coucy, past the village of Brancourt, immediately to the right of which, in the centre, rise the two massifs on either side of Anizy, with a third massif on the other side of the valley of the Ardon, crowned by the village of Monampteuil. And besides this, left and right of the Monampteuil massif, you look north-east straight along the couloir formed by the valley of the Ardon to Laon and its Cathedral, only eight miles away, and east, along the valley of the Ailette to Courtecon and Cerny.
At this last angle of the new French front Filain has now been taken, and further progress has been made to the east of the Chevregny Spur, which puts the finishing touch to the week’s triumph by rounding off the whole, and more than the whole, of the ground aimed at by the attack.
THE TABLES TURNED
While I was in the fort I was told, not by the man himself, but by the commandant of his old regiment, the following little story of a young sergeant, one of the men who took the fort on Tuesday and guided us up to it this morning. Some little time ago during an attack by his regiment on the Hurtebise Farm he stumbled into a shell-hole occupied by 10 Germans, who proceeded to carry him off to their lines as their prisoner. Before they had gone very far he realized that they were rather at sea as to their whereabouts, and taking the lead managed to lure them round and back to the farm, which they reached just at the moment when it had fallen into the hands of the French. The man who saw them first, a private in his regiment, hesitated to shoot for fear of hitting his sergeant. But the sergeant quickly shouted out, “Never mind me, fire!” The order was obeyed, the Germans threw up their hands, and the sergeant marched them quietly in as his prisoners, 10 at a blow.
MONSTER MUD CRATERS
As you get nearer to the fort after crossing the indistinguishable remains of the Chemin des Dames - as like the rest of the surrounding slough as one wave is like another - the monster mud craters made by the heaviest shells are more and more numerous; the fosse - from the south and east sides of which nearly all the masonry had been removed before the war by a building contractor, to whom the fort was sold as a stone quarry, after it had been used as a target for the testing of high explosives - is like the muddy bed of a moat from which the water has been drained off, and, when you have slithered and climbed down one side and up the other, you find inside the ramparts yet another hideous waste of mud before diving down into what is left of the badly smashed underground galleries, some half a dozen in all.
The view from the top gives an excellent idea of the extent of the French gains and of their importance. The low ground into which the reverse slopes of the plateau fall in front and on the right, and all but a small stretch of the canal, are hidden by the lie of the ground, but beyond the line of the canal the new German positions are clearly exposed. On the left, to the north-west, there is a clear view along the lower edge of the west side of the Forest of Coucy, past the village of Brancourt, immediately to the right of which, in the centre, rise the two massifs on either side of Anizy, with a third massif on the other side of the valley of the Ardon, crowned by the village of Monampteuil. And besides this, left and right of the Monampteuil massif, you look north-east straight along the couloir formed by the valley of the Ardon to Laon and its Cathedral, only eight miles away, and east, along the valley of the Ailette to Courtecon and Cerny.
THE TABLES TURNED
While I was in the fort I was told, not by the man himself, but by the commandant of his old regiment, the following little story of a young sergeant, one of the men who took the fort on Tuesday and guided us up to it this morning. Some little time ago during an attack by his regiment on the Hurtebise Farm he stumbled into a shell-hole occupied by 10 Germans, who proceeded to carry him off to their lines as their prisoner. Before they had gone very far he realized that they were rather at sea as to their whereabouts, and taking the lead managed to lure them round and back to the farm, which they reached just at the moment when it had fallen into the hands of the French. The man who saw them first, a private in his regiment, hesitated to shoot for fear of hitting his sergeant. But the sergeant quickly shouted out, “Never mind me, fire!” The order was obeyed, the Germans threw up their hands, and the sergeant marched them quietly in as his prisoners, 10 at a blow.
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