End of the Battle of the Grand Couronné

On 12 September 1914 the Battle of the Grand Couronné, fought on the heights covering Nancy from the north-east, came to an end. The German 6th Army of Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, which had been assaulting the French positions for more than a week, withdrew eastwards. The French Second Army of General Noël de Castelnau followed it and recovered the lost ground as far as the area of the pre-war border.

End of the attack

The Germans began their attack on the Grand Couronné on 4 September. For several days they attacked the heights of Amance and Sainte-Geneviève and the woods near Champenoux, while their heavy artillery shelled the French trenches. The defenders, largely reservists of the older classes, nevertheless held the main line of defence, even on the critical days of 6 and 7 September.

The outcome of the battle was decided by events on the Marne. When the German right wing found itself in danger, the Chief of the General Staff, Helmuth von Moltke, began to take troops and ammunition away from Rupprecht and then ordered him to break off the attack. The attacks on the heights weakened. The final act was the shelling of Nancy itself by German long-range artillery on the night of 9 to 10 September.

The German retreat

From 10 September, under cover of torrential rain, the units of the 6th Army began to leave their positions. On the morning of 11 September the French found that the German lines in front of the Grand Couronné were almost empty. Castelnau ordered a pursuit to push the German artillery as far as possible from the city. On 12 and 13 September the French entered, without a fight, Lunéville and Pont-à-Mousson, abandoned by the Germans. The Germans halted on the river Seille, near the border of 1871, and dug in there. The front on this sector hardly changed until the autumn of 1918.

Sources give different dates for the end of the battle. The British chronology of the war closes it on 12 September. Some French authors adopt 11 September, when the German attacks ceased, and others 13 September, when the French recovered Pont-à-Mousson and Lunéville.

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 and did not get into the rear of the French armies. Nancy, although it lay just behind the front, remained in French hands throughout the war. Castelnau became one of the most popular generals in France, and the defence of the heights before Nancy quickly became a legend. As early as the second half of September Castelnau and the staff of the Second Army were transferred west, to Picardy, where Joffre was trying to outflank the German wing.