ARTOIS - Aubers 1915
- by Pierre Grande Guerre
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- 09 May, 2019
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Year of visit: 2005, 2006, 2010, 2014
On the right side of the street, you will find the relics of this observation post, set back from the street in someone’s backyard.
The engineers of the Bavarian 7th Pioniere Kompanie constructed this concrete observation tower in 1916. The inhabitants of Aubers nicknamed this bunker “Le Kaiser”. Legend has it that the Kaiser himself or Kronprinz Wilhelm (“Little Willie”) visited this bunker. Hence this nickname, “Le Kaiser”. |
From the village we continue southward to return to the D 41. We turn left and continue northward until the Rue de Leval. On the east side of the road stands, among others, this multi-purpose bunker.
Before we continue our route, I shall briefly explain in the frame below the Battle of Aubers Ridge of 9 May 1915.
The Battle of Aubers Ridge - 9 May - 1915
The Battle of Aubers Ridge was a one day British offensive on the Western Front on 9 May 1915. The battle was part of the British contribution to the Second Battle of Artois, from 9 May to 18 June 1915. During the Great War there were three Battles of Artois.
The Second Battle of Artois
During the Second Battle of Artois five Army Corps of the 10th Army of Général d'Urbal launched an offensive at Notre Dame de Lorette and Vimy Ridge. Crown Prince Rupprecht Von Bayern's 6th Army defended this front sector.
The French Commander-in-Chief, Général Joffre, requested support for his Artois offensive from British units under General Sir John French, Commander of the British Expeditionary Force.
The Battle of Aubers Ridge, 9 May - 1915
The German defence
After the Battle of Neuve Chapelle the units of the 6th Bavarian Reserve Division were constantly busy to improve their positions with mined-out dug-outs in the lower parts of the landscape and reinforcing the houses of the villages on the hills.
The barbed wire entanglements were doubled, sometimes tripled. The Bavarians extended the first defence line of ground level breastworks with sentry-posts.
Some 2.5 – 4 km. behind the first line the Bavarians positioned on Aubers Ridge 12 four-gun field batteries and several heavy batteries, including ten heavy mortars, "Ladungswerfer". A second line of gun positions lay about 2.5 km. behind the forward battery positions. (See also my Illies Photo Impression).
The British Battle Order and Objective
The British attacked this same area two months earlier during the Battle of Neuve Chapelle. During this 9 May 1915 battle the units of the Indian Corps played again an important role near Neuve Chapelle.
1st Wing Royal Flying Corps
Four days before the attack, three squadrons of 1st Wing Royal Flying Corps were attached to the First Army of General French to fly defensive patrols and to deter enemy reconnaissance. During the attack the squadrons were to conduct artillery observation and reconnaissance sorties. The squadrons were meant also to bomb enemy rear areas, railway junctions and bridges.
Royal Engineers Tunnelling Companies
Before the battle started, General French did not possess sufficient intelligence about the recently reinforced German positions. Some historians state that French neglected the bits of available intelligence.
Preliminary Artillery Bombardment
The British preliminary bombardment started at 5.00 a.m. The duration of only 40 minutes and the weight of the bombardment were completely insufficient to destroy the German wire and breastwork defences. Because of the ammunition shortage after Neuve Chapelle, which caused the “Shell Crisis”, the British artillery equipment and ammunition were still in poor condition: they failed to destroy the first line machine-guns. German artillery and free movement of reserves were not hindered by the artillery.
Infantry Attack
Although surprise was intended by such a short bombardment, none was achieved during the infantry attack. A complicated trench lay-out and traffic jams at jump-off points behind the British front line impeded easy movement of reinforcements and the transport of wounded men. British rifle ammunition was in poor condition, a result of faulty manufacture.
During the advance and the combats it had become impossible for the soldiers to see where the other British troops were on the battlefield. Accurate close-support artillery fire was impossible. The German machine-gun fire and the field artillery caused much confusion among the British troops. Enfilading machine-gun fire mowed down the British at knee height over the wide No Man’s Land along the Layes brook; there were many victims, dead or badly wounded.
Casualties
At the end of the day this battle was a complete disaster for the British army! There was no ground won at all and no tactical advantage gained! Historians estimate that the British counted 11,619 casualties (dead, wounded, M.I.A., P.O.W.). The Bavarian opponents counted only 902 casualties!
The Aftermath
The Battle of Aubers Ridge did not have any positive effect on the French Second Battle of Artois. On 18 June 1915 the Second Battle of Artois came to an end. The French conquered Notre Dame de Lorette, Ablain St. Nazaire, and Neuville St. Vaast. Souchez and Vimy, including the lower grounds around, would stay in German possession until 9 April 1917.
About the German period photos of the ruins of Aubers
Before the residents of Aubers could start rebuilding their village, they had to blow up many of the German bunkers themselves, using the gunpowder of the abundant live artillery ammunition, left on the battlefield. The debris was used for filling the trenches and the reconstruction of the roads. Living for years in temporary barracks, the population of Aubers would take ten years to rebuild their village.
(Source on the fate of Aubers village: Cercle Historique d'Aubers: "Aubers - Visions du Passé")
After the Battle of Neuve Chapelle and the Battle of Aubers Ridge, Aubers would be also a part of the battlefield during the Battle of Bois-Grenier and Piètre (25 September 1915), a northern attack and component of the Battle of Loos. The next year, in the summer of 1916, these German defence lines and the villages of Aubers and neighbouring Fromelles would be again the centre point of another large British offensive. Later, in the next photo impression, we will focus on the battlefield of Fromelles and the Battle of Fromelles (19-20 July 1916). For the fifth time Aubers would be a part of the battlefield in 1918 during the Battle of the Lys (7-29 April 1918) until its liberation in October 1918. |
From the Rue Basse we make a short detour via the D 141 north-ward, where we turn left into the Rue de Leval.
From the fish pond parking we return to the T-junction of the unpaved road of the Rue Neuve to continue our route southward.
Aubers 1918
This concrete observation tower is some 30 m. behind the farmhouse. The rear side ...
... and the front side of the tower. Notice the shell impact on the peep hole!
Continue to the next chapter: "Fromelles and the Battle of Fromelles - July 1916".
Inleiding: Franz Von Papen & Werner Horn; schaker en pion
Onlangs stuitte ik in een oud boek (1) van 1919 op een opmerkelijk verhaal over een Duitse Luitenant, die in begin februari 1915 een half geslaagde bomaanslag pleegt op een spoorbrug over een grensrivier tussen de Verenigde Staten en Canada. Ook al staat de bekentenis van de dader, Werner Horn, deels in het boek te lezen, de naam van zijn opdrachtgever zal Horn blijven verzwijgen. Na wat verder zoeken vond ik ook de naam van Horn’s opdrachtgever, Franz von Papen, een van de aangeklaagden van het latere Neurenberg Proces in 1946.
In een Grote Oorlog als de Eerste Wereldoorlog is Horn’s aanslag op de brug uiteraard slechts een bescheiden wapenfeit. Toch vermoed ik dat dit relatief onbekende verhaal, dat de geschiedenis is ingegaan als de “ Vanceboro International Bridge Bombing ”, nog interessante kanten kent. Het is onder andere een spionageverhaal over hoe in een groter plan een sluwe schaker zijn naïeve pion offert.
Beknopte situatieschets Canada en de Verenigde Staten in 1915
This trip we start at the Léomont near Vitrimont and we will with some exceptions concentrate on the Battle of Lorraine of August-September 1914 in the area, called, the “Trouée de Charmes”, the Gap of Charmes.
After the Léomont battlefield we continue our explorations to Friscati hill and its Nécropole Nationale. Next we pay a visit to the battlefield of la Tombe to go on to the Château de Lunéville. There we cross the Vezouze to move on southward to the Bayon Nécropole Nationale. At Bayon we cross the Moselle to pass Charmes for the panorama over the battlefield from the Haut du Mont. North-west of Charmes we will visit the British Military Cemetery containing 1918 war victims. From Charmes we go northward to the battlefield of the First French Victory of the Great War, the Battle of Rozelieures of 25 August 1914. North of Rozelieures we will visit the village of Gerbéviller. From there we make a jump northward to visit the ruins of Fort de Manonviller to finish with an interesting French Dressing Station bunker, west of Domjevin.
During this visit, we try to focus on the day that the momentum of the battle switched from the French side to the advantage of the Bavarian side: the day of 20 August 1914, when the Bavarians rapidly re-conquered the territory around Morhange , being also the day of the start of their rather successful “Schlacht in Lothringen”.
We will visit beautiful landscapes of the "Parc Naturel Régional de Lorraine", memorials, ossuaries, and cemeteries. Sometimes we will divert to other periods of the Great War, honouring Russian and Romanian soldiers, who died in this sector. We start our route at the border village of Manhoué, and via Frémery, Oron, Chicourt, Morhange, Riche, Conthil, Lidrezing, Dieuze, Vergaville, Bidestroff, Cutting, Bisping we will finish in Nomeny and Mailly-sur-Seille, where the Germans halted their advance on 20 August 1914, and where they constructed from 1915 some interesting bunkers.
