The theatre of this part of the conflict forms a triangle, Vitry–Verdun–Bar-le-Duc, whose base is extended on the west to the Camp de Mailly, on the east to the hills on the farther bank of the Meuse. It is naturally divided into two sectors of very different character: (1) the left, or western, stretching from Mailly to near Revigny, in which the French 4th Army had to meet on a level front the Saxon left and the IV Army of the Duke of Würtemberg; (2) the right, or eastern, including the southern Argonne, the salient of Verdun, and the Heights of the Meuse, held by Sarrail’s 3rd Army against the V Army of the German Prince Imperial and a force from the Army of Metz. Both French groups had been greatly weakened to help other commands, Langle giving his 9th and 11th Corps to form Foch’s Army, while Sarrail surrendered the 42nd Division to Foch, and the 4th Corps to Maunoury. These transfers, necessary to provision the Generalissimo’s offensive, were compensated just, and only just, in time; thanks to a better outlook on the eastern frontier, Langle de Cary received the 21st Corps from the Vosges on September 9, and on the 8th Sarrail received the 15th Corps from Lorraine, closing with it an alarming gap between the 3rd and 4th Armies. Sarrail then had about ten divisions to the Crown Prince’s twelve; Langle’s force was also slightly outnumbered.
FRONT of the FRENCH 4th ARMY, Evening Sept. 7
On the evening of September 5, Langle’s front stood thus: On his left, the 17th Corps faced the Saxon XIX Corps between the moorland camp of Mailly and the Sommesous–Vitry railway. At his centre, across what may be called the delta of Vitry-le-François, a wide alluvial plain where the merged waters of the Ornain and the Saulx join the Marne, some elements of the 12th Corps and the Colonial Corps stood against the VIII Corps, active and reserve, of the IV Army. Vitry, an important junction of railways, roads, and waterways, is completely dominated by the hills to the north of the delta; and the 12th Corps, to which its defence would have fallen, had been so punished during the retreat that the greater part of it had to be withdrawn to the Aube for reconstitution on the evening of September 5. The Germans, therefore, occupied the town without much difficulty, and rapidly gathered behind it a strong force of artillery. While the French thus lost the cover of the Saulx and the Marne-Rhine Canal, they could still fall back upon the St. Dizier Canal and the Marne. The centre front, at the beginning of the battle, ran from the Mailly hills at Humbauville, through the villages of Huiron, Frignicourt, Vauclerc, and Favresse, to Blesmes railway junction. On Langle’s right, the 2nd Corps had passed the Saulx and its tributary the Ornain, and the Marne-Rhine Canal, leaving only advanced posts on the north of the valley, toward Revigny. To it were opposed Duke Albrecht’s VIII Reserve and XVIII Active Corps. The German programme was to break through by Vitry and Revigny into the upper valleys of the Seine, Aube, Marne, and Ornain. Langle’s orders were to try to make headway northward, in co-ordination with Sarrail’s attack toward the west. In fact, he was barely able to hold his ground until successes on either side relieved the pressure.
Happily, the German Command had not discovered the weakness of the junction between Foch’s and Langle’s forces; and the Saxons did not at first prove formidable. The 17th Corps was, therefore, able on September 6 to make a short advance west of Courdemanges, nearly to the railway. At the centre, the remaining battalions of the 12th Corps and Lefebvre’s Colonials were attacked violently in the morning. Huiron and Courdemanges, at the foot of the hills, were lost, but retaken during the evening. The three delta hamlets of Frignicourt, Vauclerc, and Ecriennes were also lost, the last two to IV Army regulars who had crossed the St. Dizier road and canal. On the right, the enemy forced the Marne-Rhine canal west of Le Buisson; and for a moment there was a danger of the Colonials being cut off from the 2nd Corps. To fill the breach, General Gerard transferred a brigade of the 4th Division from Pargny to near Favresse. Perhaps because of the consequent weakness of the right of the 2nd Corps, it could not hold the line of the canal from Le Buisson to Etrepy; and Von Tchenk’s XVIII Corps entered Alliancelles, 5 miles west of Revigny, and crossed the Ornain, in the afternoon. Reinforced by his Reserve, Tchenk pushed his advance on the following day, September 7, seizing Etrepy village, where the Saulx and Ornain join across the Rhine canal, at dawn, and Sermaize a few hours later.
Langle was here faced with a grave danger. His centre was still holding pretty well: Huiron was again lost, but the Colonials had recovered Ecriennes. On his left, the 17th Corps slightly improved its position, albeit the hazardous thinness of this part of the French front could not be much longer concealed. It was for his wings, therefore, that he was most anxious; and thither the two promised corps of reinforcements, the 15th and 21st, were directed. The 15th reached the right, to prolong Sarrail’s line, just in time. The enemy had, at a heavy cost, passed the Saulx-Ornain valley, with its many lesser water-courses, and had reached the edge of the wooded plateau of Trois-Fontaines, beyond which, ten miles south of Sermaize, lay the important town of St. Dizier. To break through thus far would be to cut off Sarrail at Bar-le-Duc from Langle at Vitry-le-François; it would be the doom of Verdun, and probably of the French centre. The greatness of the stake, the bitterness of the disappointment, afford the only explanation of the abnormal savagery shown by the Crown Prince’s troops in this region.
On September 8, the fighting reached its fiercest intensity. Tchenk pressed furiously his attack against and around Pargny, which his men entered at 5 p.m., after suffering heavy losses. Maurupt was also taken, but Gerard quickly recaptured it. The crisis, though not the struggle, was over with the arrival of the 15th Corps between Couvonges and Mognéville, threatening Tchenk’s left flank if he should attempt any farther advance. At the centre, a reconstituted half of the 12th Corps and the Colonial Corps were engaged in desperate combats. Courdemanges, Ecriennes, and Mont Moret fell in the morning; but the hill was retaken at nightfall. Several times driven out of Favresse, a brigade of the 2nd Corps finally held the village, and arrested the progress of the VIII Reserve Corps towards Blesmes railway junction. With constant violence of give and take, these positions were little changed on the following day. On the left, two regiments of the 17th Corps, pending the arrival of the other half of the 12th (23rd Division), bore throughout the 8th the onset of a fresh Saxon Division (xxiii of the XII Reserve Corps) to the west of Humbauville; while the remainder of the 17th Corps fell back a little before the XIX Corps, but advanced anew in the afternoon. In the evening, the balance was more than restored by the appearance of Baquet’s Division of the 21st Corps at the extreme left of the army, which next day (September 9) drove the Saxon right back in disorder toward Sommesous, liberating Humbauville, and enabling the 17th Corps also to gain ground. The other Division of the 21st Corps (43rd) had now reached the scene; and, on the 10th, Langle was able to make a strong offensive on this side, in association with Foch’s pursuit of the retreating Saxons.
II. Sarrail Holds the Meuse Salient
The French 3rd Army, when Sarrail took over its command from Ruffey on August 30, was a thing of shreds and patches. The 42nd Division of Sarrail’s own 6th Corps was being sent to Foch, leaving behind two other divisions, and a brigade of a third which had been broken up. The 4th Corps was about to leave for Paris, to take part in the battle of the Ourcq. There remained the 5th and the diminished 6th Corps, General Paul Durand’s Group of Divisions of Reserve (67, 75, and 65), formerly under Maunoury, the 72nd Reserve Division, forming part of the garrison of Verdun, and the 7th Cavalry Division. Verdun depending directly upon General Headquarters, Coutanceau and Heymann, the governor and the divisionaire, were not subject to Sarrail’s orders; but they co-operated admirably. Yet another southron, Sarrail was fifty-eight years old, a tall, slight figure, with (at that time) short white beard and moustache, blue eyes, and a gentle manner bespeaking the scholar and thinker rather than the man of action he proved himself to be. After service in Tunis and with the Foreign Legion, he had been advanced by Generals André and Picquart, and rose by steady stages from colonel in 1905 to corps commander. Across the mists of more painful days, I recall the strong impression he made upon me when I first met him at Verdun in December 1914.
From near the frontier, the 3rd Army had fallen back, at the end of August, westward to the Meuse between Stenay and Vilosnes, leaving the reserve group and garrison troops to make a thin line of defence on the east of the river, just beyond the radius of the entrenched camp and the edge of the Meuse Heights from Ornes to Vigneulles. “Entrenched camp” is the conventional name; but there were no serious entrenchments in those days, and scarcely any, as I can testify, three months later. The forts and thickly-wooded hills were sufficient, with the field army free, to determine the German Grand Staff to leave Verdun, as it was leaving Paris, aside. The French, however, could yet have no certainty on this score. During the first days of September, the 5th and 6th Corps pivoted around the west of Verdun; and, when they had completed the semicircle, the problem had to be faced. The hazard of the old fortress was no mere matter of sentiment. Its fall would mean the loss of all it could contribute to the contemplated attack on the enemy’s flank, and of a great strength of artillery and munitions that could not be removed, as well as of a formidable position. On the other hand, there lay Joffre’s plan, and the reasoning that had saved the British Army from internment at Maubeuge. The Generalissimo’s orders were express: the 3rd Army must keep its liberty, and must, accordingly, retire to the north of Bar-le-Duc, and possibly as far as Joinville. It was not only Verdun, but his power of threatening the German flank, that Sarrail hoped to save. He resolved, therefore, to give ground as slowly as possible, keeping his right in touch with the fortress to the last moment, and to risk, up to a certain point, a breach of contact with de Langle de Cary. At daybreak on September 6, his forces were ranged over the broadly-rolling fields and moorlands, facing westward, as follows: