Soissons in the First World War

Soissons, an old episcopal town on the Aisne, about 100 kilometres north-east of Paris, was a front-line town for most of the war. The Germans held it for less than two weeks in September 1914 and then dug in on the heights across the river, from where their artillery shelled its streets and cathedral for years. In May 1918 they took it again, because the railway supplying their new salient on the Marne ran through Soissons. The French recovered it on 2 August 1918, in ruins.

Two weeks of occupation (1914)

The first German patrols entered the town on 1 September 1914, and according to some accounts the Germans took it for good a day later. The crossings of the Aisne were covered by French reserve divisions, which blew up two bridges, but the medieval Saint-Waast bridge survived. The occupiers at once imposed heavy requisitions on the inhabitants. From these days comes the story of Jeanne Macherez, a Red Cross worker who, in the mayor’s absence, is said to have told the Germans: “The mayor? I am!”. Some historians now consider it much exaggerated.

After the Battle of the Marne the Germans fell back to the north bank of the Aisne, and on 12 September units of the French Sixth Army entered Soissons, African troops among them. In the First Battle of the Aisne, however, the French could not drive the enemy off the plateau above the town. The Germans dug in a few kilometres from the centre, and Soissons stayed within range of their guns for years.

A town on the front line (1915–1917)

In January 1915 the French tried to push the Germans away from the town. On 8 January they took Hill 132 above the village of Crouy, but in the Battle of Soissons a German counter-attack and the swollen Aisne, which tore away the bridges, drove them back across the river. On 14 January the Germans took the northern suburbs, although the town itself remained French. According to the German official history they took about 5,200 prisoners. In France the defeat so close to Paris was called “the Soissons affair”, and the war minister Alexandre Millerand reprimanded Joseph Joffre.

In March 1917 the Germans withdrew to the Hindenburg Line along the whole front from Arras to Soissons, and on 18 March French patrols found empty trenches north of the town. The front moved away, but Soissons was still within range of German artillery. On 16 April the Nivelle offensive against the Chemin des Dames, known as the Second Battle of the Aisne, set off from Laffaux, not far from the town. After its failure, on 2 and 3 May, soldiers of the 2nd Colonial Infantry Division mutinied in the village of Saint-Bandry west of Soissons, which began a wave of mutinies in the French army.

The second occupation (May–August 1918)

On 27 May 1918 the Germans began the Third Battle of the Aisne, took the Chemin des Dames and crossed the river. On the evening of 28 May four battalions of the German 5th Division cleared Soissons, but were ordered to leave it. The German monograph admits that the command feared the soldiers would fall upon the stocks of food and alcohol. On 29 May the Germans entered the burning town for good, and it was looted. South-west of Soissons they were stopped by fresh French divisions, among them the Moroccan Division.

Soissons was now invaluable to the Germans. Only one main railway line led into the salient between the Aisne and the Marne, which reached as far as Château-Thierry, and it ran through the town. On 18 July Ferdinand Foch threw a counter-offensive of the Tenth Army of General Charles Mangin against the western flank of the salient. French and American guns brought the railway and the road from Soissons to Château-Thierry under fire, and the Second Battle of the Marne forced the Germans to retreat.

On 2 August at 2 p.m. the Germans left Soissons, and half an hour later they blew up the bridges over the Aisne. That day ended the Battle of the Soissonnais and of the Ourcq, in which the Scottish 15th Division and the 34th Division also fought. French patrols found the town empty and in flames, and the cathedral with its walls and vaults full of holes. The Saint-Waast suburb on the north bank remained under German fire until the end of August.

A town to be rebuilt

Soissons lay on the front line for more than 30 months and came out of the war in ruins: 80 per cent of the town centre had been destroyed. In 1919 the mayor promised that the town would be reborn. The rebuilding changed the street plan and brought in the Art Deco style. The British put up a memorial in Soissons to nearly four thousand soldiers killed on the Aisne and the Marne in 1918 who have no known grave.