First Battle of Artois begins

On 27 September 1914 the First Battle of Artois began, another stage of the so-called Race to the Sea. After the fighting in Picardy and at Albert, both sides moved their attempts to outflank the enemy further north, to the area around Arras and the coalfield around Lens. The battle lasted until 12 October. The French held Arras, but the Germans took Lens and the heights north of the town, and the front that settled here lasted with few changes until 1917.

Name and dates

This fighting is described under various names. The name “First Battle of Artois” is given by the British website greatwar.co.uk, which dates it to 27 September – 10 October. Our timeline is based on the British chronology of the war, which ends the battle on 12 October. The heaviest phase of the fighting, on 1–4 October, is called the Battle of Arras by many studies, especially French ones, and is often treated as a separate engagement. The Polish Wikipedia dates the Battle of Arras to 2–9 October. It should also be remembered that some authors, including the English Wikipedia, apply the name First Battle of Artois only to the French offensive of late December 1914 and January 1915.

The race moves north

At the end of September 1914, after the battles of the Marne and the Aisne, the Western Front already ran from Switzerland to the Somme. Both sides were still looking for the enemy’s open flank. The First Battle of Picardy ended on 26 September without a decision, and the fighting at Albert brought no breakthrough either. The same day the Germans took Bapaume, on the road from Albert to Arras. Further north, between Arras, Lens and Douai, there was still no continuous front line. Only French territorial divisions, made up of older reservists, and cavalry detachments of both sides stood there.

On the same day the Germans began the siege of Antwerp. The fate of the rest of Belgium and of the Channel ports depended on where the front between Arras and the sea would come to a halt.

French forces

The Commander-in-Chief of the French army, General Joseph Joffre, decided to assemble new forces around Arras, which were to strike east and north-east, towards Douai, and turn the German flank. He gave command to General Louis de Maud’huy, who had until then commanded an army corps. His group was formed at the end of September, according to various sources between 29 September and 1 October. Initially it was subordinate to the Second Army of General Noël de Castelnau.

X Corps, reserve and territorial divisions, and later also XXI Corps were brought to Arras and its surroundings by rail and motor transport. The northern flank was covered by General Louis Conneau’s cavalry corps. The troops arrived gradually, however, and the first units had to go into battle straight from the trains.

German forces

The Chief of the German General Staff, General Erich von Falkenhayn, was also thinking of outflanking the enemy from the north. To the right flank he was sending the Sixth Army of the Crown Prince of Bavaria, Rupprecht, moved from Lorraine. On 28 September he ordered him to attack Arras. Heading for Artois were, among others, the Guard Corps, I Bavarian Reserve Corps and IV Corps, while further north, towards Lens and Lille, German cavalry corps were advancing.

Course of the fighting

In the last days of September both sides were gathering their forces. In front of Arras German cavalry and advance guards clashed with French territorial divisions and cavalry, and the first units of Maud’huy’s group were entering the town.

On 1 October the Germans forestalled the French attack. They struck between Arras and Douai and drove the French out of villages east of the town, among them Monchy-le-Preux. They were stopped only by the arriving X Corps. In the following days Rupprecht brought new corps into battle and shifted the attack north of Arras. By 4 October the Germans had taken Lens, Souchez and Neuville-Saint-Vaast as well as the heights of Vimy. On 5 October they captured the Notre-Dame-de-Lorette spur.

Maud’huy’s situation became dangerous, and on 4 October he warned Joffre that he might be forced to retreat. Joffre forbade any withdrawal. Maud’huy’s group became an independent Tenth Army, according to French sources on 5 October, and the coordination of all the armies in the north was entrusted to General Ferdinand Foch. By 6 October the crisis was over. The French held Arras, and the front settled just beyond the town’s eastern suburbs and on the slopes of the Vimy and Lorette heights. From 6 October German artillery shelled Arras, and local fighting for villages and hills continued for several more days. Then the main weight of the fighting moved further north, to La Bassée and Flanders.

Significance

The First Battle of Artois repeated the pattern of the earlier engagements of the Race to the Sea. Neither side turned the other’s flank, and the new stretch of front froze into trenches. The Germans, however, gained important advantages. They took Lens, the centre of the coalfield, depriving France of an important part of its coal output, and the Vimy and Lorette heights, from which they could see many kilometres into the French rear.

Arras became a front-line town, shelled for four years. On 21 October 1914 its Gothic town hall belfry collapsed under German shells. The heights taken by the Germans in the autumn of 1914 later saw some of the bloodiest fighting on the Western Front. The French took the Lorette spur in 1915, but Vimy Ridge was permanently recaptured only by the Canadians in April 1917.