Battle of Arras ends

On 4 October 1914, according to the British chronicle of the war, the Battle of Arras came to an end. It was the day of the greatest crisis. General Louis de Maud’huy warned the high command that he might be forced to retreat, but the Commander-in-Chief, General Joseph Joffre, forbade any withdrawal and sent General Ferdinand Foch north. Arras remained in French hands, but on the same day the Germans took Lens.

Three days of attacks

Since the start of the battle on 1 October, the German Sixth Army of Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria had been attacking Arras from the east and south-east. The French fell back slowly, but in the following days repulsed attacks on Beaurains, Mercatel and the outskirts of Arras. The Germans therefore shifted the weight of their attack north of the river Scarpe. Bavarian reserve divisions advanced towards the Vimy heights and the coalfield around Lens. The French lost one village after another, and many batteries were already running out of shells.

The crisis of 4 October

On 4 October the French situation seemed hopeless. In the north the Germans entered Lens, defended only by a squadron of dragoons and a company of cyclists. In the south the right wing of X Corps lost contact with the neighbouring Territorial divisions, and a gap opened between them. Both Maud’huy and his superior, the commander of the Second Army, General Noël de Castelnau, concluded that a withdrawal would be necessary.

Joffre did not agree. Castelnau was ordered to hold his positions. Maud’huy’s group was removed from his command and turned into an independent Tenth Army. French sources date its formal creation to 5 October. At the same time Joffre appointed Foch as his deputy, responsible for coordinating all the French armies in the north.

Foch at Aubigny

Foch reached Maud’huy’s headquarters at Aubigny-en-Artois on the morning of 5 October. According to the recollections of a Tenth Army staff officer, Marcel Jauneaud, he declared that he knew three ways of fighting: attacking, defending and running away, and that he forbade the last. Officers set off to the units to cancel the orders to retreat that had already been issued. On the morning of 6 October, according to the same account, Foch ordered Maud’huy to fight to the last man and to cling to his positions “like lice”, with no retreat whatsoever.

Outcome

The French held Arras, although the front came to rest just beyond the eastern outskirts of the town, which from then on was shelled by German artillery. The Germans kept the villages they had taken east of Arras and the coalfield around Lens, and during the night of 4–5 October they were already fighting for the Vimy heights. Neither side achieved its aim. The French did not outflank the German wing, and the Germans neither took Arras nor outflanked it from the north.

The end of the Battle of Arras did not mean the end of the fighting in Artois. Local clashes for villages and hills went on for several more days, and the British chronicle of the war ends the whole battle in Artois on 12 October. Meanwhile both sides were moving more corps further north, between Lens and Lille, where the Race to the Sea was entering its next stage.