A French officer charging into battle in a watercolor by Fernand Rigouts. The original watercolor on deckle-edged watercolor paper is signed F. R. 1917, and addressed to Mademoiselle Henriette Dangon.
Signed F. R. 1917Reverse:Addressed to Mademoiselle Henriette Dangon
"On May 19 Pétain published Directive No. 1 and provided the entire army a clear explanation of his operational concept. The directive repeated the idea of an 'equilibrium of opposing forces' that would prevent an attacker from rupturing an opponent's defenses and conducting a strategic exploitation. To function within this equilibrium, the French could not remain passive and yield the initiative completely to the enemy; they had to attack. Instead of seeking a breakthrough however, Pétain intended to launch limited offensives that would incur 'minimum losses' but attrit the enemy. To lessen casualties he planned on massing artillery on the enemy's forward positions and then sending infantry into the destroyed trenches. Rather than fire into the huge area between the enemy's front and rear lines and thereby dilute the artillery's effect, he preferred concentrating all French rounds on the enemy's forward positions and having the infantry advance only a short distance."
With the failure of French commander in chief Robert Nivelle's 1917 spring offensive, the Second Battle of the Aisne, and as mutinies broke out in the French army, the government replaced Nivelle with General Henri Phillippe Pétain who aimed to end the mutinies and the failed military tactics that drove soldiers to their actions. His policy is sometimes summarized as 'Wait for the Americans and the tanks,' but his production plan initiatives called not only for tanks, but also for an increase in the production of aircraft to command the air, and of heavy artillery to reduce German defenses.
Pyrrhic Victory; French Strategy and Operations in the Great War by Robert A. Doughty, page 366, copyright © 2005 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2005
1917-05-19, 1917, May, Pétain, Petain, production, tanks, artillery, aircraft
