Battle of the Grand Couronné

The Battle of the Grand Couronné, also called the Battle of Nancy, was fought in Lorraine in September 1914, at the same time as the First Battle of the Marne. The French Second Army of General Noël de Castelnau defended the chain of heights covering Nancy against the German Sixth Army of Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria. It was the last great German attack in Lorraine in 1914.

Dates of the battle

The British chronology of the war gives the battle as beginning on 4 September, the day after the end of the Battle of the Mortagne, and ending on 12 September. The fighting ceased when the German Sixth Army withdrew from Nancy, and on 12–13 September the French entered Lunéville and Pont-à-Mousson, abandoned by the Germans, without a fight. Sources differ on the end of the battle. French authors often close it on 11 September, when the German attacks ceased, while others take 13 September, the day both towns were recovered. On this page we follow the British chronology and take the dates 4–12 September.

The terrain

The Grand Couronné, the “great crown”, is a semicircle of wooded hills and plateaux north-east of Nancy, above the valleys of the Meurthe and the Moselle. The key points of the defence were the hill with the village of Amance, the woods around Champenoux and the hill of Sainte-Geneviève, pushed out to the north above the Moselle, near Pont-à-Mousson. Nancy, lying close to the German border, was not a fortress. The heights were hastily fortified only in August 1914, with trenches, wire entanglements and artillery positions.

Plans and forces

After the defeat at Morhange and Sarrebourg in August, the French armies in Lorraine had halted the German pursuit on the heights in front of Nancy and in the Trouée de Charmes. At the beginning of September the German Supreme Army Command wanted the armies in Lorraine not only to pin down the French but also to break through their defences and cross the Moselle between Toul and Épinal. Rupprecht, who had received part of the Seventh Army’s forces and a great deal of heavy artillery, decided to strike at Nancy. His success could have opened the way into the rear of the French armies fighting on the Marne.

The French Second Army was by then markedly weakened. The commander-in-chief, Joseph Joffre, was taking one corps after another from Lorraine and moving them west, and General Ferdinand Foch, commander of XX Corps, had at the end of August taken command of a new army on the Marne. What remained on the Grand Couronné was above all General Léon Durand’s 2nd Group of Reserve Divisions (the 59th, 68th and 70th Reserve Divisions), made up of older reservists, together with XX Corps. Further south the front was held by General Auguste Dubail’s First Army. According to French estimates the two French armies together numbered about 475,000 men, and the German Sixth and Seventh Armies about 550,000. These figures, however, cover the whole front in Lorraine and the Vosges, not just the battlefield in front of Nancy. The Germans also had a clear superiority in heavy artillery.

Course of the fighting

4–5 September. On the afternoon of 4 September the German artillery opened a heavy bombardment of the French positions. During the night the German infantry attacked on a broad front from Pont-à-Mousson to the area of Lunéville. The night attacks drove the French out of some of their forward positions, but the main line of defence on the heights remained intact.

6 September. The Germans continued their attacks, especially in the woods near Champenoux, and according to French accounts more than 3,000 heavy shells fell on the hill of Amance in eight hours. The French replied with counter-attacks. In the southern sector French troops recovered some of the lost ground. According to some sources, the Kaiser, Wilhelm II, was at the front in those days, waiting at Sixth Army headquarters in Dieuze for news of victory. Accounts differ on the dates of his stay.

7 September. This was the most critical day of the battle. During the night of 6/7 September part of the 59th Reserve Division fell back without orders from the hill of Sainte-Geneviève. The Germans did not exploit the gap and withdrew from the hill themselves, and the French soon reoccupied it. Fierce fighting went on in the woods near Champenoux. In those days Castelnau, depressed by the defeat at Morhange, in which his son had been killed, and fearing a breakthrough, considered retreating behind the Moselle and giving up Nancy. According to the version known from English-language literature, his staff contacted Joffre, who ordered the Grand Couronné to be held for at least another 24 hours. French historians point out, however, that Castelnau had prepared two courses of action, one in case of retreat and the other in case of continued defence, and chose defence himself. Joffre is said to have accepted a possible retreat earlier, and there is no evidence of his personal intervention on 7 September.

8–10 September. The great battle on the Marne changed the situation in Lorraine. The Chief of the German General Staff, Helmuth von Moltke, began taking troops and ammunition away from Rupprecht for the threatened right wing, and then ordered the attack to be broken off. Rupprecht at first objected but had to give way. The attacks on the Grand Couronné weakened. During the night of 9/10 September German heavy artillery shelled the centre of Nancy. According to French figures, several dozen shells fell on the city and eight civilians were killed.

10–12 September. Under cover of torrential rain the Sixth Army began withdrawing eastwards. By the morning of 11 September the German lines in front of the Grand Couronné were almost empty. Castelnau ordered a pursuit in order to push the German artillery away from the city. On 12 September the fighting in front of Nancy came to an end, and on 12–13 September the French entered Lunéville and Pont-à-Mousson without a fight. The front settled on the river Seille, near the pre-war border, and remained there with little change until 1918.

Losses

The losses of the Battle of the Grand Couronné alone are hard to separate from those of other fighting in Lorraine. According to German figures, the Sixth Army lost just under 29,000 killed, wounded and missing in September 1914, including more than 6,500 killed, most of these losses falling in the fighting in front of Nancy. French losses are estimated at several tens of thousands of men, but the available figures are incomplete and cover different periods.

Significance

The defence of the Grand Couronné secured the right wing of the French front during the decisive days of the Battle of the Marne. The Germans did not break the Moselle line or get into the rear of the French armies, and at the same time considerable German forces remained in Lorraine instead of supporting the right wing near Paris. Nancy, although it lay close to the front, remained in French hands throughout the war.

In France the defence of Nancy quickly became a legend. It overshadowed the earlier victory on the Mortagne and made Castelnau one of the best-known generals. Many myths also grew up around the battle, such as the story of Kaiser Wilhelm II waiting with the cuirassiers of the Guard for a triumphal entry into the city. From a military perspective the battle foreshadowed the coming war of position: entrenched defenders, supported by artillery, stopped an enemy with a clear superiority in heavy guns.