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A French artillery crew moving a 75mm. field gun into position in Bougainville, France, behind the lines, west of Amiens. Bougainville is a commune in the Somme Département in Picardie. The Adrian helmet the soldiers wear was introduced in mid-1915.
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.
French soldier standing next to an unexploded 420mm shell that fell on Verdun. March, 1916. It weighed 2,100 pounds empty.
Soldiers of the French Foreign Legion moving into position on September 24, 1915, the night before the beginning of the Champagne Offensive. From Soldier of the Legion by Edward Morlae, an American and a Sergeant in the Foreign Legion.
Map of the plan for the Allied Offensive in France showing the situation on September 24, the eve of the infantry assault. An Anglo-French would attack eastward in Artois (with the British at Loos) as the French attacked northwards in Champagne. From 'Military Operations France and Belgium, 1915, Vol. II, Battles of Aubers Ridge, Festubert, and Loos' by Brigadier-General J.E. Edmonds.
"September 18th[, 1915].—Yesterday hot, to-day sweltering; the evenings September 19th—are cool to cold. Our 9.2s are registering; it sounds as if the shell left the muzzle wobbling and steadied itself September 20th—in flight. Heavy and continuous gun-fire in the south is in its second day. The Battle of Loos in the British Army Calendar is the northern extension of a French attack eastwards from the northern end of Vimy Ridge, made in conjunction with an attack northwards in Champagne. In the dressing-station we are told to cotton-wool our ears to-morrow. The Battalion relieved the 57th in Cambrin Right, which is to be its battle-front." ((1), more)
"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.'" ((2), more)
"The vibration of a gun-barrel after firing has tones that, to my ear, can be heard in the night air but not by day : so has the flight of a shell. Our heavies are less active to-day, but the Germans are shelling our rear with 4.2 and 5.9 to some purpose. In the afternoon I dropped into an artillery observation post to see the shoot. Our field batteries fire 1000 to 1200 rounds of shrapnel daily, wire-cutting. The shooting is remarkably good, but I did not like to hurt the gunner's feelings by saying how little sign there was of cut wire. Casualties are few yesterday; not 10 from the Brigade came through the dressing-station, deaths are fewer." ((3), more)
"On September 23, at four in the afternoon, the regiment was assembled and massed in a square in a meadow. Our Colonel Poujal announced what we already knew, that a general offensive was going to be unleashed, that at this moment the Russians were falling back, but while most of the Germans were bogged down in Poland we would crush them on our front.'And now,' he cried in a loud voice. "Forward! No more hernias! No more weak hearts! No more ached and pains! Nothing but the will to win! Vive la France!"This patriotic nonsense didn't arouse the slightest enthusiasm. We hadn't forgotten the horrors of the last offensive in Lorette. An impressive silence greeted the colonel's final words. Only the undertaker Torrès smiled. He nodded his head as if to say, "Yes, let the herniated, the weak-hearted, the sciatics come to me. They'll get a nice reception!"" ((4), more)
"The pace was accelerating. The strain was beginning to wear off. From right and left there came a steady murmur of low talk. In our own column men were beginning to chaff each other. I could distinctly hear Soubiron describing in picturesque detail to Capdeveille how he, Capdeveille, would look, gracefully draped over the German barbed wire; and I could hear Cadeveille's heated response that he would live long enough to spit upon Soubiron's grave; and I smiled to myself. The moment of depression and self-communication had passed. The men had found themselves and were beginning their usual chaffing. And yet, in all their chatter there seemed to be an unusually sharp note. The jokes all had an edge to them. References to one another's death were common, and good wishes for another's partial dismemberment excited only laughter. Just behind me I heard King express the hope that if he lost an arm or a leg he would at least get a médaille militaire in exchange. By way of comfort, his chum, Dowd, remarked that, whether he got the medal or not, he was very sure of getting a permit to beg on the street-corners." ((5), more)
(1) Entry for the period September 18 to 20, 1915 from the writings — diaries, letters, and memoirs — of Captain J.C. Dunn, Medical Officer of the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty-Third Foot, The Royal Welch Fusiliers. The French had begun their preliminary bombardment for the great allied autumn offensive of 1915. The British would fight the Battle of Loos; the French immediately to their right the Third Battle of Artois. Vimy Ridge had already cost many French lives, and would remain in German hands until Canadian troops took it in April, 1917.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, page 149, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(2) 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
(3) Entry for September 22, 1915 from the writings — diaries, letters, and memoirs — of Captain J.C. Dunn, Medical Officer of the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty-Third Foot, The Royal Welch Fusiliers. The Allies had begun their preliminary bombardment for the great allied autumn offensive of 1915. Although it was the heaviest Allied bombardment to that date, many of the guns were field artillery which did little against entrenchments or the men sheltered in them. The uncut wire, and the German machine guns behind it, would ensure the Anglo-French attacks would falter, failing to achieve the breakthrough so ardently desired.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, page 150, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
(4) Extract from the notebooks of French Corporal Louis Barthas whose reserve unit was in the process of being moved from Flanders to the Arras sector in Artois to take part in the Third Battle of Artois, part of the great autumn Anglo-French offensive of 1915. Barthas and many of his reservists were older, and suffered the ailments (or complained of them) listed by Colonel Poujal. The preliminary bombardment had begun and, on September 24, Barthas 'could hear a violent cannonade all along the front.' The corporals were assembled in the company post and given one cutlass for each of their men (14 to Barthas). Having heard elsewhere the weapons were for slaying the wounded and killing prisoners, Barthas and all but one of his men discarded them.
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 by Louis Barthas, page 107, copyright © 2014 by Yale University, publisher: Yale University Press, publication date: 2014
(5) Sergeant Edward Morlae recounting some of the black humor of soldiers of the French Foreign Legion moving into position for the Champagne Offensive the night of September 24/25, 1915. They turn from this to a discussion of the 'German methods of making war' including hand-grenades, poison gas, flame-projectors, vitriol bombs, and explosive bullets. In the trenches, they move to the front line ahead of other units who complain until they realize it is 'La Légion' moving to the fore. The Legion is passed by the Moroccan Division. Both units suffered heavily in taking the Butte de Souain. Of the 3,200 men in his regiment who entered the September 25 attack, only 852 would pass in parade after the battle later. Most of Morlae's men were Americans.
A Soldier of the Legion by Edward Morlae, pp. 21-23, copyright © 1916, by the Atlantic Monthly Company; 1916, by Houghton Mifflin Company, publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co., publication date: 1916
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