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The department of the Marne in Champagne was some of the most contested land during the war, site of the initial German invasion, the Battle of the Marne, the First and Second Battles of Champagne, the Champagne-Marne Offensive, Rheims Cathedral, Épernay, Châlons, Vitry-le-Francois, Ste-Menehould, and Perthes-les-Hurlus (First Champagne).
Chosen Boy, a 1918 watercolor by Paul Klee. From Paul Klee: Early and Late Years: 1894-1940. © 2013 Moeller Fine Art
King Albert of Belgium decorates Willy Coppens, Belgium's Ace of Aces. Coppens describes this June 30, 1918 ceremony, in which he was awarded the Ordre de la Couronne in his memoir Flying in Flanders.
War memorial, Arras, France.
French General Robert Nivelle, from a pharmaceutical advertising card
"Days later, the [Second Battle of the Aisne] resumed in earnest. On 30 April the Nineteenth Infantry Division launched a concentrated assault on Mont Blond and Mont Cornillet. To clear the way the artillery unleashed a 'cannonade more terrible than anything [Paul had] ever seen even at Verdun.' Indeed the barrage was so formidable that he wondered how the Germans could survive it; they certainly weren't returning fire. I think that everything that we are sending over to them they hardly have the time' to retaliate. Yet the infantry made little progress, gaining only five hundred meters of ground and suffering heavy losses." ((1), more)
"On 26 April Sir William Robertson wrote to Haig: 'It seems to me the right thing to do is to keep on fighting.' And Haig agreed; but he was in a dilemma. He wanted to launch his new offensive in the north, but he couldn't neglect the Arras front while the French were in their present disarray. As he informed the War Cabinet on 1 May: 'We cannot rely on adequate French offensive co-operation. The fact is deeply to be regretted, but it must be recognized. We must maintain the offensive for at least two or three weeks more.'" ((2), more)
"I hereby desire to mention in Corps Orders, Captain Declercq and 1st Class Sergeant-Pilot Willy Coppens, for the coolness, courage, and skill shown by them in the course of a reconnaissance over the enemy's lines on the morning of May 1st. Attacked suddenly by four enemy scouts, they succeeded, after a prolonged and unequal fight, in bringing back their machine, badly damaged by the enemy's fire." ((3), more)
"Our orders didn't get through until the last minute and then they were all garbled. No one, including our officers, seemed to know what we were supposed to be doing, or where we were going. Officers were supposed to have synchronized their watches in so far as it was possible at that time of day. At a certain time, our barrage was supposed to lift and we were to climb out of the trenches and go forward. Well, we did — but it wasn't all at the same time! We were given false information and told the artillery had smashed the enemy defences and we would get through the wire — did we hell!" ((4), more)
"The first signs of a serious morale crisis appeared in the Laffaux sector on 4 May: one company refused to fight. In some quarters tracts were found with the words: 'Down with the war! Death to those in charge!' In his thesis on the 1917 mutinies, Guy Pédroncini observes that most cases of rebellion were found in the 6e armée (formerly Mangin's) and among the divisions engaged in the May 1917 operations, which, as was shown, were the most useless." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpt from Martha Hanna's Your Death Would Be Mine, based on the letters of Paul and Marie Piread during World War I. On April 30, 1917, Paul Pireaud was serving with the 112th Heavy Artillery Regiment, his battery then attached to the Fourth Army, which was engaged in the Battle of the Hills, or the Third Battle of Champagne, attacking east of Reims in an action part of the Second Battle of the Aisne, itself part of Robert Nivelle's great spring offensive of 1917. Paul had fought in the Battle of Verdun in 1916.
Your Death Would Be Mine; Paul and Marie Pireaud in the Great War by Martha Hanna, page 205, copyright © 2006 by Martha Hanna, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2006
(2) Britain's Arras Offensive, part of the Franco-British Nivelle Offensive, commenced on Easter Monday, April 9, 1917. After a first day that saw the taking of Vimy Ridge by the Canadian Corps and a British advance in other parts of the line, the British suffer heavy losses while achieving little more. French delays in launching their offensive — Second Battle the Aisne — led British Commander Douglas Haig to continue attacking to keep the Germans off balance. When the French attacked on April 16, their high hopes quickly came to little. They too suffered heavy losses, and a roundhouse blow to French morale that soon led soldiers to refuse to attack. Haig would get to execute his offensive 'in the north' in July. It would become the disastrous Battle of Passchendaele. William Robertson was Chief of Britain's Imperial General Staff.
Cheerful Sacrifice: The Battle of Arras, 1917 by Jonathan Nicholls, page 192, copyright © Jonathan Nicholls [1990 repeatedly renewed through] 2011, publisher: Pen and Sword, publication date: 2010
(3) Entry from the Belgian Flying Corps Orders of May 2, 1917. Willy Coppens, who would become Belgium's leading ace with 37 victories, was in his first aerial combat the previous day, piloting a Sopwith One-and-a-Half Strutter two-seater. He had crossed the line at Ypres, flying at 10,000 feet, when he saw four German single-seat scouts climbing towards him. Watching them carefully, he missed the approach of four others. After four and a half minutes, the Germans inexplicably flew away. Coppens and his gunner/observer were uninjured, but 32 bullets had pierced their plane.
Flying in Flanders by Willy Coppens, page 79, publisher: Ace Books, publication date: 1971
(4) Sergeant Jack Cousins of the 7th Bedfordshire regiment describing his experience in the May 3 and 4, 1917 final major attack of the Battle of Arras, the Third Battle of the Scarpe, fought on a sixteen-mile front from Vimy to Bullecourt. Nearly 6,000 British troops, including Canadians and Australians, were killed in the attack.
Cheerful Sacrifice: The Battle of Arras, 1917 by Jonathan Nicholls, page 197, copyright © Jonathan Nicholls [1990 repeatedly renewed through] 2011, publisher: Pen and Sword, publication date: 2010
(5) French commander in chief Robert Nivelle had convinced many politicians and his soldiers that he had discovered the secret to breaking through the German front and bringing the war to a rapid conclusion. The failure of his offensive, the Second Battle of the Aisne, to do more than pushing the front forward at great cost to his men, broke many of the units under his command. The battle began on April 16, 1917. Within hours it was clear it would achieve no more than its initial objectives, the crossing of the Aisne River and capture of the high ground of Chemin des Dames. The French mutinies had begun by the 21st with soldiers calling for peace. Other incidents occurred on April 24 and 29, but they spread widely in May. Lauffaux is northeast of Soissons on the western end of Chemin des Dames. French General Charles Mangin's nickname was 'the Butcher.'
The 1917 Spring Offensives: Arras, Vimy, Chemin des Dames by Yves Buffetaut, page 184, publisher: Histoire et Collections, publication date: 1997
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