Allies retake Soissons

On 2 August 1918 the Germans abandoned Soissons, and the French of General Charles Mangin’s Tenth Army entered the ruined town. The second German occupation of the town, which had fallen into German hands on 29 May, had lasted a little over two months. That day also saw the end of the fighting which the British Battles Nomenclature Committee named the Battle of the Soissonnais and of the Ourcq: from 23 July the Scottish 15th Division and the 34th Division had fought in Mangin’s army on the plateaux south of the town, where for two weeks the Germans had held the western flank of their Marne salient.

Retreat behind the Vesle and the Aisne

After the counter-offensive of 18 July the fate of the salient was sealed, but the Germans fell back slowly, from line to line, saving guns and stores. On the heights near Soissons and on the Ardre river they held on longest, because as long as the flanks held, troops and transport could get out of the interior of the salient. According to the British official history, which here summarises the German monograph on the battle, at 11 p.m. on 1 August the German infantry began its final withdrawal, to the so-called “Blücher” position behind the Vesle and Aisne rivers. Only rearguards with machine guns and single guns remained in front. At 2 p.m. on 2 August the Germans left Soissons, and half an hour later they blew up the bridges over the Aisne. After dark the rearguards too crossed the rivers.

The French in the town

In the afternoon and evening of 2 August the commanders of the French Fifth, Sixth and Tenth Armies, each on his own initiative, ordered a pursuit. The divisional cavalry squadrons went ahead, followed by advanced guards made up of units of all arms. The Scots of the 15th Division crossed the heights they had been fighting for for a week and in the evening stood in the village of Villeblain, where during the night they were relieved by the French 17th Division. According to French accounts, Soissons itself was entered by units of I Corps. The first patrols, including cavalrymen and chasseurs à pied, found the town empty and in flames. Before leaving, the Germans had set fire to some of the buildings, and the cathedral, shelled again and again since 1914, had its walls and vaults riddled with holes.

The victory was not yet complete. The suburb of Saint-Waast lies on the north bank of the Aisne, and there, just beyond the blown bridges, the Germans still had their positions. According to local chronicles, the town remained under their fire and was fully liberated only at the end of August, when the French pushed the Germans further north. On 3 August the head of the French armies reached the Vesle and the Aisne between Fismes and Soissons along almost the whole front.

Significance

The recapture of Soissons was a visible sign of the turn of the tide on the Western Front. Through the railway junction in this town ran the only main supply line of the German salient, and when after 18 July it came under the fire of French guns and ceased to function, a retreat from the whole area between the Aisne and the Marne became inevitable. General Mangin, who was welcomed in the recovered town by the mayor and the sub-prefect, was remembered by Soissons as its liberator. The Germans, however, made a stand behind the Vesle and the Aisne on a prepared position, and the French divisions were exhausted. Mangin led a new attack in this area, north of the Aisne, only in the second half of August.