The Great French Advance in Champagne. By permission of The Graphic.
While the British advanced between La Bassée and Lens, the French assaulted the German lines on a seventeen-mile front in Champagne. They carried all before them, and captured 21,000 prisoners and over 120 guns. A British surgeon who witnessed the onslaught tells us how the French dashed forward like an avalanche. "They are superb, these Frenchmen."
Of course it would never do for the French to attack in Champagne while the rest of the Allied troops lay quiet in their trenches. The enemy must be engaged at various points all along the line, so that he could not mass reinforcements against the great attack. Further, he must not be allowed to know exactly where the main thrust was to take place. The Allies intended, as we shall learn later, to make a big offensive between La Bassée and Lens, and to fight holding battles elsewhere.
Early in the month of September, during perfect autumn weather, a general bombardment began along the whole front. The airmen were very busy, and in the third week of the month there were no fewer than twenty-seven fights over the British front alone. On 23rd September the bombardment began to grow very violent. The guns had begun the overture to the great drama on which the curtain was now about to rise.
All was now ready. The French trenches were packed with men, waiting for the guns to cease fire and the order to advance. Meanwhile the greatest bombardment that the world had ever known was in progress. General Joffre had instructed his artillery commanders to smash up the enemy's trenches, and to destroy their dug-outs in such a fashion "that may make it possible for my men to march to the assault with their rifles at the shoulder." It is impossible to describe in words the awful din of the guns. The sky overhead was a canopy of flying shells, and a rain of death fell upon the German trenches. Wire entanglements were blown into a myriad fragments; concreted trenches were swept into shapeless ruin, and the troops holding them were buried alive in their dug-outs. Hundreds of men went mad through sheer terror. The big shells raised huge geysers of earth and smoke wherever they fell, and the French gunners, stripped to the waist, never ceased or slackened their fire for three days and two nights. Upon and behind the German trenches a cascade of fire continued to fall; the enemy could neither advance nor retreat.
At 5.30 on the morning of 25th September the réveillé rang out along the French lines. It was a gray, dismal morning, but the men were in good heart. They drank their morning coffee, looked to their equipment, and waited for the word that would launch them against the foe. Every man wore a patch of white calico on his back, so that the French gunners might know their own men, and not fire upon them. At 9.5 the regimental flags were unrolled; for the first time in this war the troops were to go into action with colours flying.
At 9.15 the guns suddenly ceased to fire, whistles shrilled all along the line, and bugles pealed the charge. "En avant! Vaincre ou mourir!"[71] shouted the officers, and a human wave of blue-gray, fifteen miles in length and topped with steel, surged from the trenches. Onward, with hoarse cheering and snatches of song, they went, under a hail of fire from the German batteries and from machine guns hurriedly withdrawn from deep dug-outs which the French guns had not wrecked. Despite the terrible gunfire, stretches of unbroken wire still remained, and amidst these death-traps many men fell. Numerous others were shot down in front of steel obstacles which had to be blown up before the advance could proceed. Nevertheless the French infantry swept on, and plunged into the ruin of the German first line. Leaving detachments to ferret out prisoners from the deeper dug-outs, the French made for the second line. So fierce did the German fire become, that they frequently had to lie flat on the ground and crawl forward. But in a lull they rose again to their feet and advanced once more. Soon they were on the edge of the woods, where the German field guns, unable to get away, were firing at point-blank range. They flung themselves upon the guns, and in a few seconds had captured whole batteries. Prisoners were taken by the hundred—broken, stricken men, dazed and stupefied by the terrible bombardment.
In some places the assault was pushed into the second German line; in other places men still battled furiously in the first line. Battalions became mixed up, but in a short time order was restored, and the troops surged on again. Wounded men cried out to their comrades to leave them and proceed. "Go on," they cried, "don't mind us. It's only you who are whole who matter now." Then the guns came up with a thunderous rumble, and unlimbering like magic, prepared the way for a further advance of the infantry. African troops were ordered up to finish the business with cold steel, and behind them came the cavalry—dragoons, chasseurs, and Spahis—making a charge and fighting from the saddle for the first time since the trench war began. They sabred the fleeing Germans and swept up hundreds of prisoners, while the "trench cleaners," as the Algerians and Senegalese are called, scoured the ruined earthworks for the lurking foe.