First Battle of Artois

Battle during the First World War

50°30′N 02°30′E / 50.500°N 2.500°E / 50.500; 2.500Result IndecisiveBelligerents  France
 United Kingdom  German EmpireCommanders and leaders Joseph Joffre Erich von Falkenhayn
Rupprecht of Bavaria

• v
• t
• e

Western Front

1914

• Moresnet
• Invasion of Belgium
  • Liège
  • Dinant
  • Namur
• Frontiers
  • Lorraine
  • Ardennes
  • Charleroi
  • Mons
  • Trouée de Charmes
• Great Retreat
  • Le Cateau
  • Étreux
  • 1st St. Quentin
• Maubeuge
• Grand Couronné
• 1st Marne
• 1st Aisne
• Antwerp
• Race to the Sea
  • Yser
  • 1st Ypres
• Winter actions
• 1st Artois

1915

• 1st Champagne
• Hartmannswillerkopf
• Neuve Chapelle
• 2nd Ypres
• 2nd Artois
  • Hébuterne
• 2nd Champagne
• Loos
• 3rd Artois
• Gas: Wieltje

1916

• The Bluff
• Hohenzollern Redoubt
• St Eloi
• Hulluch
• Wulverghem
• Kink Salient
• Vimy Ridge 1916
• Mont Sorrel
• Verdun
• Boar's Head
• 1st Somme
• Fromelles

1917

• Ancre
• Alberich
• Nivelle offensive
  • Arras
  • Vimy
  • 2nd Aisne
  • The Hills
• Messines
• Passchendaele
• La Malmaison
• Cambrai

1918

• German spring offensive
  • Michael
  • The Lys
  • 3rd Aisne
  • Belleau Wood
  • 2nd Marne
• Soissons
• Amiens
• Ailette
• 2nd Somme
• Saint-Mihiel
• St Quentin Canal
• Meuse-Argonne
• 5th Ypres
• 2nd Cambrai
• Courtrai
• Sambre
• Lys and Escaut

---

Associated articles

• 1914 Christmas truce
• French Army mutinies
• Western Front tactics, 1917

The First Battle of Artois (17 December 1914 – 13 January 1915) was fought during the First World War between the French and German armies on the Western Front. The battle was the first offensive move on the Western Front by either side after the end of the First Battle of Ypres in November 1914. The French attack failed to break the stalemate.

Background

During what became known as the Race to the Sea the Battle of Arras (1–4 October) had been fought, after which local operations, particularly on the Lorette Spur, continued during the First Battle of Flanders to the north.

Subsequent operations

In May 1915, the Tenth Army conducted an offensive known as the Second Battle of Artois. The Third Battle of Artois, sometimes called the Artois–Loos Offensive, took place from 25 September to 15 October 1915.^[1]

Footnotes

References

Further reading

• Boff, J. (2018). Haig's Enemy: Crown Prince Rupprecht and Germany's War on the Western Front (1st ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-967046-8.
• Clayton, A. (2003). Paths of Glory: The French Army 1914–18. London: Cassell. ISBN 978-0-304-35949-3.
• Edmonds, J. E.; Wynne, G. C. (1995) [1927]. Military Operations France and Belgium, 1915: Winter 1914–15 Battle of Neuve Chapelle: Battles of Ypres. History of the Great War Based on Official Documents by Direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Vol. I (Imperial War Museum and Battery Press ed.). London: Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-89839-218-0.
• Haeften, Hans von, ed. (1932). Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918: Militärischen Operationen zu Lande, Achter Band: Die Operationen des Jahres 1915: Die Ereignisse im Westen im Frühjahr im Sommer, im Osten vom Frühjahr bis zum Jahresschluß [The World War 1914 to 1918, Military Land Operations Volume Eight: The Operations in the Year 1915: The Events in the West from the Spring into the Summer and in the East from the Summer to the Year's end] (in German). Vol. VIII (online scan ed.). Berlin: Verlag Ernst Siegfried Mittler und Sohn. OCLC 838300036. Retrieved 25 November 2013 – via Die digitale landesbibliotek Oberösterreich (The Upper Austrian Provincial Library).
• Hoeppner, E. (1994) [1921]. Deutschlands Krieg in der Luft: ein Rückblick auf die Entwicklung und die Leistungen unserer Heeres-Luftstreitkräfte im Weltkriege [Germany's War in the Air: the Development and Operations of German Military Aviation in the World War] (in German) (trans. Battery Press ed.). Leipzig: K.F. Koehler. ISBN 978-0-89839-195-4.
• Humphries, M. O.; Maker, J., eds. (2010). Germany's Western Front, 1915: Translations from the German Official History of the Great War. Vol. II. Waterloo Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. ISBN 978-1-55458-259-4.
• Krause, J. (2013). Early Trench Tactics in the French Army: the Second Battle of Artois, May–June 1915 (1st ed.). Farnham: Ashgate. ISBN 978-1-40945-500-4.
• Sheldon, J. (2008). The German Army on Vimy Ridge 1914–1917. Barnsley: Pen & Sword. ISBN 978-1-84415-680-1.
• Sheldon, J. (2012). The German Army on the Western Front, 1915. Barnsley: Pen & Sword. ISBN 978-1-84884-466-7.
• Wynne, G. C. (1976) [1939]. If Germany Attacks: The Battle in Depth in the West (Greenwood Press, NY ed.). London: Faber & Faber. ISBN 978-0-8371-5029-1.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to First Battle of Artois.