A command post near Perthes, likely Perthes-Lès-Hurlus, in Champagne between Reims and Verdun, now a destroyed village.
1. La Grande Guerre 1914-15Région de Perthes. - Le Poste de commandement du RavinA.R.visa 11. The Great War 1914-1915Near Perthes. - The Command Post RavineA.R.visa 1Reverse:Message dated August 3, 1915Impr. EDIA VersaillesPrinted by EDIA, Versailles
"Confident of success, Joffre asked that the size of the coming attack be explained to all soldiers. The explanatory note said: 'Three-quarters of all French forces will participate in the battle. They will be supported by 2,000 heavy [artillery] pieces and 3,000 field pieces for which the provision of munitions surpasses greatly those at the beginning of the war. Every chance of success exists, particularly if one remembers that our recent attack near Arras was made by fifteen divisions and 300 heavy pieces.'"
Note of September 21, 1915 from French Commander Joffre prior to his great autumn offensive. The 'recent attack near Arras' was the Second Battle of Artois Jofre had undertaken in May. The September battle was to be the Third. The French preliminary barrage was already underway, although field guns did little damage to entrenchments or entrenched troops. On September 14, in a note to 'the General Officers Commanding Army Groups,' Joffre had pointed out that the number of machine guns had more than doubled, that guns, particularly heavy guns, had large munitions stocks, that motor transport for troops had been expanded, that Kitchener's Army had just disembarked in France, and that British troops would take part 'in large numbers.' The bracketed text is Doughty's emendation.
Pyrrhic Victory; French Strategy and Operations in the Great War by Robert A. Doughty, page 190, copyright © 2005 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2005
1915-09-21
