Allies retake Fère-en-Tardenois

At the end of July 1918 French troops returned to Fère-en-Tardenois, a small town on the upper course of the river Ourcq, which the Germans had taken on 29 May, on the third day of the offensive on the Aisne. The British chronology of the war and R. P. P. Rowe’s chronicle published in 1920 record the recapture of the town under 28 July, and this date is also given today by the authorities of the Aisne department. The French war history of the 62nd Infantry Division, which occupied the town, gives 27 July, however. The discrepancy is easily explained: according to the British official history, the Germans withdrew on the night of 26/27 July, and French patrols followed them only on the evening of 27 July, so the French entered Fère at the turn of the two days.

For two months Fère-en-Tardenois had been one of the most important communication junctions in the German salient between Soissons and Reims. Supplies for the divisions standing on the Marne passed through its station and roads. Small wonder that from the start of the French counter-offensive the town was one of its main objectives. General Philippe Pétain’s plan of 12 July envisaged that the attacks from the west and from the east would meet precisely in the area of Fère, cutting off the Germans in the southern part of the salient. On the morning of 18 July, in the first hours of Mangin’s attack, the French commander ordered the cavalry to break through all the way to Fère, into the German rear, although it failed to get across the battlefield. On 20 July Allied airmen reported long German columns moving north and traffic jams on the roads at Fère-en-Tardenois and Oulchy-le-Château.

The encirclement failed because the Germans began to withdraw in time. On the night of 19/20 July they abandoned the bridgehead on the Marne, and on 21 July the Allies entered Château-Thierry. On 26 July the German Supreme Army Command ordered a retreat to the so-called Grand Bridgehead position, running from Ville-en-Tardenois through Romigny and on along the upper course of the Ourcq. The following night, in the rain, covered by machine guns, the German divisions slipped away unnoticed. The Allied artillery went on shelling the empty trenches until late in the afternoon of 27 July. Fère-en-Tardenois, lying in the valley, was left in front of the new German line, which ran along the hills north of the river. The abandoned town was entered by the French 62nd Infantry Division of General Girard from General Jean Degoutte’s Sixth Army, brought by rail from the Vosges and thrown into the fighting on that very day, 27 July.

On 28 July the Allies renewed the attack around the whole perimeter of the salient, and the French Sixth Army, according to French accounts, reached the Ourcq along its entire front and crossed the river. East of Fère the American 42nd “Rainbow” Division, which two days earlier had relieved the 26th Division near the Croix Rouge farm, forced the river and climbed the hills on the other side. Fierce fighting broke out there, in which some points changed hands several times. Patrols entered the village of Sergy, but the Americans took it for good only the next day, together with Seringes-et-Nesles. Further east still, the American 3rd Division crossed the Ourcq and took Ronchères. In the west the French XI Corps took the Butte de Chalmont above Oulchy-le-Château, and on the eastern flank the British of the 62nd Division took Bligny and the hill above it. According to German accounts, on the evening of 28 July the Germans, after counter-attacks, still held their main line of resistance.

For the following days recaptured Fère-en-Tardenois lay within range of German guns, and on 30 July there was fighting in its vicinity again. On the night of 1/2 August the Germans began their retreat behind the Vesle, and from 5 August the American I Corps had its headquarters in the town. Today the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery lies between Fère and Seringes-et-Nesles, one of the largest cemeteries in Europe for American soldiers killed in the First World War.