Nivelle’s failure was no greater than that of others,
indeed rather less. He took more ground than Joffre did in his offensives or
than Haig did at Arras. But Nivelle had promised more. Instead, he had carried
the exhausted French army beyond breaking point.
(A.J.P. Taylor)
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the Nivelle Offensive
was that, despite its failure, there were so few consequences for its
instigator, Nivelle himself. Yes, his career as a commander was over, and for a
man who was so ambitious and had such tremendous self-belief this must have
been devastating, but, as was the case with so many failed First World War
commanders, there would be no court-martial or further sanction.
There was, however, a Commission of Enquiry, which met in a
series of sessions from August to October 1917. Its brief was to ‘study the
conditions in which the offensive of 16–23 April took place in the valley of
the Aisne and to determine the role of the general officers who exercised
command’. It was an investigative commission only and had no power to impose
any sanctions. It was headed by General Brugère and the other two members were
Generals Foch and Gouraud. None of these officers had served under Nivelle
during the offensive and were deemed suitable to carry out the inquiry due to
their seniority. Nivelle did not attend all the sessions and submitted some of
his testimony in a series of memoranda. Generals Micheler, Mazel and Mangin
also attended to give evidence. Painlevé was deeply disappointed with the remit
of the commission and later dismissed its report as mere ‘rose water’.
Some time was spent considering Nivelle’s overall
principles, with Foch expanding on how Nivelle’s concepts were flawed and how
continuing the Somme offensive might have been more fruitful, perhaps even
resulting in victory in 1917. The testimonies of Nivelle’s subordinate
commanders followed a pattern. Micheler, Mangin and Mazel all confessed to
having had doubts about the plan and its operational security but they had
ultimately felt obliged to follow orders. Mangin, now thoroughly disillusioned
with his former chief, referred to Nivelle’s Napoleonic attitude, while Mazel
was described as ‘cold and reserved’ throughout the proceedings. Pétain, who
had initially not been invited to attend, also obtained a hearing, during which
he trotted out his previous criticisms. It seems that he was making an effort
to disassociate himself from all blame, although it can be argued that he
should have been more forceful in his opposition in March and April.
The commission also sought out the report prepared in early
1917 by Nivelle’s former chief of operations, Colonel Renouard. This report had
contained pessimistic predictions regarding the offensive’s likelihood of
success and several staff officers had read it. Interestingly, the members of
the commission found that the report had been removed from the files.
The commission’s final thirty-page report is an excellent
source for historians as it unpacks the development of Nivelle’s plan
throughout its span. The role of the subordinate generals is also outlined and
some, such as Mangin, are given credit for their performance. General Duchêne
could not be criticised, it was stated, as his army’s offensive had never truly
got under way. Ultimate responsibility rested, the report concluded, with
Nivelle.
Other aspects of the plan also drew severe criticism. The
presiding generals concluded that the logistical measures necessary to maintain
the artillery supply, and hence the barrage, had not been put in place. The
medical services were singled out for particular criticism as they had
inadequate personnel in place to evacuate wounded from the battlefield and then
too few field hospitals and transport facilities.
Further points were also discussed that contributed to the
offensive’s failure. These included:
• inadequate artillery preparation;
• poor performance by the tanks;
• weather;
• lack of operational security;
• the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line;
and
• the availability of German reserves.
Mention was also made of the activities of ‘defeatist’ and
pacifist elements within France. The report made positive mention of the
‘magnificent élan’ and performance of the troops. The message was clear: the
cause of the defeat lay not with the troops themselves but with their senior
commanders. It was perhaps the commission’s president, General Brugère, who
best summed up the main problem in a letter to Poincaré, in which he stated
that Nivelle ‘had not been up to’ the demands of senior command.
Paradoxically, the Germans also formed an investigative
group to examine the French attack. It reached many of the same conclusions as
the French inquiry. The Germans paid special attention to the deployment of the
tank force, commenting, ‘We can only conclude that the main striking force of
an offensive resides in tanks and it is a question of developing the other arms
in such a way that they can keep up with them.’ The German general staff would
pay much attention to tank actions during the First World War as they developed
new operational doctrines during the interwar years. This process would
ultimately produce the tactical methods of ‘Blitzkrieg’.
The issue of casualties was a major feature of the French
inquiry. In the offensive’s early phases losses were being estimated at around
96,000 in total, killed, wounded or missing. It is now clear that these initial
calculations were underestimated. During the worst phase of the army mutinies
the losses were deliberately downplayed in the hope of minimising the public
and political outcry. During wartime it was also difficult to get accurate
casualty numbers due to various battlefield factors and the enormous pressures
faced by administrative and medical staff. However, it would appear that there
were some attempts to conceal the extent of the casualties. For example,
casualties from the Russian brigades were not initially factored in, while
lightly wounded who returned to their units were also not counted. Most modern
accounts give the figure of 134,000 casualties, which includes 100,000 wounded,
30,000 killed and 4,000 missing or taken prisoner. A post-war study by the 1er
Bureau of the GQG calculated the numbers to be much higher, and factored in
losses for the whole of the operation from 16 April to 10 May and also included
those who suffered light wounds. This gave significantly higher totals of
48,000 dead, 120,000 wounded and 4,500 taken prisoner or missing. The Canadian
historian G.W.L. Nicholson calculated as many as 187,000 losses in total. Such
casualty rates represented the worst losses since November 1914. The debate
about the final casualty figures still continues. Due to the fact the GQG
withheld the casualty figures at the time, the idea that the true total was
much higher has endured. Some French sources claim 200,000–250,000 men killed.
Can the Nivelle Offensive be considered anything other than
a failure? In the light of such casualty figures it is obvious, by any sensible
criteria, that it was a costly failure. Yet at the time there were attempts to
cast it in a more positive light. Estimates of the numbers of German casualties
vary but some sources claim as many as 163,000 total casualties, including more
than 28,000 taken prisoner. More than 180 German artillery pieces and over 400
machine guns (some sources say 1,000) had been captured, along with 149
Minenwerfer and much other equipment. Some territorial gains had been made and
key terrain features captured, while the Sixth Army’s advance was one of the
biggest French advances since the war had settled into trench warfare in 1914.
The army was firmly rooted on the Chemin des Dames and these new positions
would facilitate further actions in the summer of 1917. In the wider context of
the French army’s experiences in the First World War, this could be cast in a
positive light. The wasteful offensives of 1915 had, for example, achieved less
for similarly high casualties.
The key issue that made Nivelle’s failure so disastrous in
1917 was the timing of it. The French army was on the brink of exhaustion at
the beginning of the offensive and was then pushed beyond endurance to breaking
point. And the suffering and sacrifice did not bring the promised victory. Such
failures had been absorbed by the army and the French nation in 1914, 1915 and
1916, but by 1917 there was simply no room for further failure.
The aftermath of the events of 1917 also demonstrates that
the ties binding the French government, army and people together in the war
effort were in a critical state after this failure. In his classic study of
military strategy, On War, Carl von Clausewitz developed the concept of the
‘trinity of war’: the synergetic relationship between government, people and
army that is necessary if a nation is to successfully conduct a modern war.
This principle was developed by later strategic theorists
during the twentieth century and it remains largely true today. Alexandr
Svechin, writing in the 1920s in the context of First World War and the recent
Russian revolution and civil war, summed up this principle simply by stating
that ‘war may be waged only by the will of a united people’. It is glaringly
apparent that, at the time of the Nivelle Offensive, this ‘trinity of war’ had
broken down in France. The relationship between the government and the military
commanders was dysfunctional. The politicians were trying to exert more control
over the military but their efforts were often ill-considered and largely
ineffectual. Also, there was a lack of consistency; Painlevé found his efforts
thwarted by colleagues within government, including Premier Ribot, who believed
in Nivelle and his plans.
Within the military, the subordinate commanders never united
in a concerted effort to oust Nivelle, despite their misgivings about him and
his plans. He had his critics, yet the tendency was for generals to air their
grievances privately to the politicians and the press while failing to present
a united front at crucial meetings in order to have Nivelle removed. A greater
loyalty to their own profession and the principles of command did not allow
senior generals to unite and demand Nivelle’s removal. Svechin later summed up
the dysfunctional nature of the French political–military relationship during
the run-up to the offensive:
Officially the operation was greatly approved and
everyone glorified the successes that would be achieved but then wrote
confidential letters to influential politicians asking them to keep the army
from launching an operation that had absolutely no chance of success. However,
they did not have the civic courage to repeat these doubts in front of Nivelle
at a special meeting called by Minister Painlevé.
The mutinies that broke out in the wake of the failed
offensive are ample proof that the rank and file of the French army had lost
faith in their senior commanders. In this fractured relationship, command and
control systems and military discipline broke down. The French public were also
in a state of discontent with the politicians – all politicians, regardless of
faction or party – and with how the war was being run. In the spring and early
summer of 1917 this discontent erupted in strikes and protests that broke out
across France. The French people sympathised with the poilus in the trenches
and supported their mutinies as they had lost faith in the government and the
military leaders. Ultimately, all the links within the crucial ‘trinity of war’
had broken down. By June 1917 France had ceased to function as a united nation
at war.
In a wider context, the Briand government had also allowed
itself to be drawn into a damaging political contest between British
politicians, in particular Lloyd George, and senior British commanders. It
could be argued that, like a contagion, the dysfunctional aspects of the French
government and military also affected the political–military relationship of
the British.
Alongside these wider ramifications, debate has continued as
to why the offensive failed. The 1917 inquiry identified many of the key
issues, which can be summed up as a combination of failings in leadership,
choice of terrain, planning and preparation. Also, Nivelle had allowed himself
to be drawn into what would now be referred to as ‘mirror-imaging’ –
effectively, he expected the Germans to conform to his plans as to how the
offensive would unfold. As A.J.P. Taylor put it, ‘the Germans did not conform
to Nivelle’s requirements’.
Perhaps inevitably, Nivelle himself has remained the focus
of criticism. Yet even if one accepts that he was ultimately responsible for
the failure, further questions remain as we are faced with a general who was
demonstrably intelligent but who nevertheless acted in a seemingly
irresponsible manner. Using modern ‘Principles of War’ criteria to examine the
offensive, it can be shown that, in some respects, Nivelle can be considered to
have performed well. The concept of ‘Principles of War’ has been in circulation
since classical times and by the First World War had been codified by many
armies. While there are variations in criteria in different nations, the modern
US scheme identifies nine main principles:
Principles of war
Mass
Concentrate combat power at the decisive place and time
Objective
Direct every military operation towards a clearly defined,
decisive and attainable objective
Offensive
Seize, retain and exploit the initiative
Surprise
Strike the enemy at a time, at a place, or in a manner for
which he is unprepared
Economy of force
Allocate minimum essential combat power to secondary efforts
Manoeuvre
Place the enemy in a position of disadvantage through the
flexible application of combat power
Unity of command
For every objective, ensure unity of effort under one
responsible commander
Security
Never permit the enemy to acquire an unexpected advantage
Simplicity
Prepare clear, uncomplicated plans and clear, concise orders
to ensure thorough understanding
It is possible to assess Nivelle’s plan using these
criteria. With respect to ‘Mass’, Nivelle had assembled a very large force and
in that respect he scores well. Also, it is clear that he thought that he was
fulfilling other criteria such as ‘Objective’, ‘Initiative’, ‘Manoeuvre’ and
‘Economy of Force’. In reality, any objective analysis of these principles at
the time should have made it clear to him that he was not planning
comprehensively to fulfil these requirements. For example, his objective was
the German reserve armies and their artillery, and while that may have seemed
clear enough to Nivelle, he paid too little attention to the defences and
forces that the French formations needed to fight through to reach this
objective. Also, as the offensive stalled, new objectives in the shape of key
terrain features began to dominate the battle in a classic example of ‘mission
creep’. This in turn affected the ‘Economy of Force’ principle as French
formations became bogged down in these secondary fights.
It is possible to disassemble Nivelle’s plan using other
criteria to illustrate how operational realities contradicted elements of his
plan. While he was confident that he was seizing the initiative and was
convinced of the primacy of the offensive, he was not assessing the opposition
or the battlespace correctly or objectively. His over-controlled approach to
his staff and his intolerance of dissent exacerbated this lack of objectivity.
The principle of ‘Surprise’, in a First World War context,
was simply not achievable for Nivelle due to the long preparatory barrage. In
terms of ‘Security’, his plan was dangerously compromised owing to his own
indiscretions and those of others, and also through the capture by the Germans
of operational plans. Nivelle’s difficulties with his subordinate commanders
should have indicated that he was far from achieving ‘Unity of Command’.
So, although Nivelle may not have assessed his situation
using such precise criteria, it is still somewhat perplexing that he did not
reflect on the viability of his plans at some point in an objective manner,
especially given the increasing level of dissent among his army group
commanders. It is difficult to explain. To an observer, it seems to be an
example of what Norman Dixon, in his classic book On the Psychology of Military
Incompetence (London, 1975), referred to as ‘obsessional neurosis’. As
Nivelle’s plans advanced, he increasingly identified with them and became
intolerant of dissent. His profound confidence and self-belief meant that he
could not assess his own plans objectively, and his efforts to convince
politicians and generals only served to increase his belief in his own
abilities. As the offensive neared, he became increasingly inclined to assess
intelligence and reach conclusions that fitted his own plans, and these
assessments ran counter to the actual implications of the information being
presented. While Nivelle had never been inclined to factor in others’ opinions
and assessments of his plan, by March 1917 it would seem that he had ceased to
heed the opinions of his subordinate commanders. The one exception to this was,
of course, Colonel d’Alançon, who was similarly obsessed with carrying out the
plan. Equally, his close association with Mangin did not result in an objective
assessment of the military situation. Mangin’s ‘can-do’ attitude and his
indifference to casualties only facilitated the process. Nivelle’s mindset was
neatly summed up by the historian Anthony Clayton:
The undoubted virtues he had shown before 1917 turned to
touchy, rigid, and over-controlled behaviour when under the stress of Supreme
Command, with consequent errors of judgement, rejection of unpalatable
information, stereotyping of outgroups, an authoritarianism based on a wish for
showy assertion and, when failure became evident, scape-goating.
Yet was Nivelle deserving of all the blame for this
disaster? He was the architect of a military failure of vast proportions, but
it could also be argued that the conduct of the politicians and also his
subordinate commanders enabled his flawed military decision-making process. At
a political level it is obvious that officials of both the Briand and Ribot
governments had profound misgivings, yet they failed to remove Nivelle. This is
particularly true in the case of Painlevé, who as Minister for War never
believed in Nivelle’s plan and yet, despite the fact that he sought the opinion
of dissenting generals such as Pétain and Micheler, could not follow-through on
plans to remove him. Accounts of the succession of meetings called to discuss
the plan would make for comical reading, had this political indecision and lack
of willpower not resulted in such tragic circumstances. The manner in which the
subordinate commanders voiced their dissent also ensured that the plan went
ahead. While they shared their doubts privately with politicians, especially
Painlevé, there was a distinct lack of willingness to push the point forcefully
at the various key meetings. Even Pétain would not openly support the
last-minute attempt to oust Nivelle in April. Norman Dixon refers to this as ‘a
terrible crippling obedience’. Similar tendencies had been seen during the
Boulanger and Dreyfus affairs: under pressure from politicians, the press or
the public, senior commanders closed ranks. In this case, while senior commanders
might have opposed Nivelle’s plans, their loyalties to the army and their
brother generals meant that they did not push the point as strongly as they
should have done.
Ultimately the committee of inquiry would treat Nivelle
quite lightly, perhaps due to the politicians and senior commanders being aware
of their shared responsibility. An unpacking of the whole affair in an inquiry
would have been messy indeed and no one would have emerged unsullied. For
Nivelle, the sanction was reasonably light. In December 1917 he was appointed
as commander-in-chief in North Africa and this role removed him from the
Western Front for the remainder of the war. In July 1919 he was not invited to
the official victory parade in Paris but remained in Algeria, presiding over
victory celebrations there. Yet after the war he gradually returned to favour.
He remained in touch with David Lloyd George and, in a somewhat surreal aside,
the pair later exchanged photographs. Despite the events of 1917 and their
consequences, the two men still seemed to share a level of regard for each
other. The Australian historian Elizabeth Greenhalgh also noticed a peculiar
entry in the index to Lloyd George’s memoirs in which Nivelle is described as
‘unfortunate as Generalissimo’. This was an understatement indeed.
Nivelle was subsequently given two military commands within
post-war France and in March 1920 was appointed as a member of the war
committee (conseil superior de guerre). Due to his command of English, he was
sent to America in 1920 as part of the French delegation to the tercentenary
celebrations to commemorate the arrival of the Mayflower in America. During
this tour he was well-received by the American public. In December 1920 Nivelle
was awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d’Honneur.
Despite the interest of French scholars in Nivelle, he
remains an oddly opaque figure. Denis Rolland, the premier French historian of
the First World War, subtitled his biography of Nivelle ‘L’inconnu de Chemin
des Dames’ (‘The unknown of the Chemin des Dames’). This can be interpreted in
various ways, yet it could be argued that Rolland has hit on one of the central
paradoxes about Nivelle. At a certain level we know much about him – the
formulation of his plan, his interactions with politicians and fellow-generals.
Yet Nivelle ‘the man’ remains a total mystery. Behind the overconfident
bluster, it is extremely hard to get a sense of the man or to hear his ‘voice’.
Accounts by third parties are largely unsympathetic and, although much of his correspondence
survives in various archives, he never wrote a volume of memoirs. We are left
considering a figure who showed promise and considerable ability in 1916 but
who went on to plan what was arguably France’s worst military disaster of the
war. Surviving accounts of planning meetings suggest an over-confident general
prone to bombastic outbursts and implausible promises. Yet he managed to
convince a succession of political and military leaders of the soundness of his
plans for a considerable period. It seems that Nivelle will remain a somewhat
mysterious figure.
Nivelle died on 22 March 1924. In June 1931 his ashes were
placed in the governor’s crypt in Les Invalides in Paris. This commemorative
ceremony for Nivelle and fifteen other marshals, generals and admirals included
both Catholic and Protestant religious services, a military parade and a 75-gun
salute and concluded with an address by the then Minister of War, André
Maginot. Considering the damage caused by the Nivelle Offensive to the French
army and indeed to France itself, this rehabilitation of Nivelle was generous.
However, he has yet to be commemorated with a statue in France and, given the
painful associations with his period as commander-in-chief, it seems unlikely
that this will change.
The figure perhaps best placed to shed real light on
Nivelle, his close associate Colonel d’Alançon, died in September 1917. A
bitterly disappointed man, d’Alançon had left the GQG along with Nivelle and
returned home on sick leave. A few months later he was dead. Like Nivelle, he
remains a largely silent figure. His impact on his brother staff officers was
mixed. Perhaps Jean de Pierrefeu best summed up d’Alançon’s complex character:
Of all the actors in this war of position he was, in my
eyes, the most original. He was a romantic figure, consumed with ambition,
hardly to be measured by our ordinary standards. This silent man, for long
modest and retiring, suddenly resolved to tempt Fortune with a spirit and a
will worthy of the days when adventurers carved out kingdoms for themselves. By
his strength of will, his inspired enthusiasm, his facility in dealing with
great events, he always reminded me of a Napoleon devoid of genius.
General Mangin remained remarkably tight-lipped about
Nivelle after 1917, at least in public. Yet in many ways he fared better than
his former commander. Despite his reputation as ‘the Butcher’ among French
troops, Mangin returned to service in 1918 and took command of the Tenth Army.
He later played a significant role in the Second Battle of the Marne (15 July–6
August 1918) and received a measure of political and public approval for his
performance in the final campaigns of the First World War. His attitude
remained grimly realistic. He could perhaps be given credit for summing up the
battlefield experience of so many First World War generals when he stated:
‘Whatever you do, you lose a lot of men.’ Following the war, Mangin’s Tenth
Army occupied the Rhineland, where he created some controversy owing to his
attempts to encourage the inhabitants to create a ‘Rhenish Republic’ separate
from Germany. He also angered local mayors by pressuring them to establish
official brothels for the use of his troops. Mangin died suddenly in Paris in
March 1925, apparently the result of acute appendicitis combined with a stroke,
although some alleged that he had been poisoned. He was buried in Les
Invalides. When German troops entered Paris in 1940 Hitler ordered that his
statue be destroyed. In 1957 it was replaced by a new statue.
It is worth considering for just a moment some of the
potential outcomes of the events in the summer of 1917. While the practice of
engaging in counterfactual history is often problematic, if not a complete
waste of time, it is interesting to reflect on the possible further
ramifications of Nivelle’s failure in 1917. This reverse pushed the army into a
state of open mutiny and it ceased to function effectively. The collapse in
military morale coincided with a period of public disillusionment and political
turmoil. To suggest that France was in a state of near-collapse and as a result
was close to dropping out of the war is not mere idle supposition. Indeed,
Field Marshal Haig wrote of the possibility of France ‘falling out’ during the
height of the crisis in 1917. The greatest fear of the Ribot government was
that revolution would break out in France as it had done in Russia. This would
in all probability have taken France out of the war and left Britain and
Belgium to continue the fight alone in Europe while awaiting American support.
In turn, the Americans would not have been in a position to provide meaningful
support until 1918. Would such a strategic situation have forced the Allies
into a negotiated peace with Germany and Austro-Hungary? Peace, yes, but on the
terms of the Central Powers?
At the very least it can be seen that the French army’s
collapse came at a crucial moment in the wider strategic context. By May 1917
Russia’s ability to assist in the war effort was looking increasingly doubtful.
The October Revolution would move Russia towards a separate peace with Germany
and Austro-Hungary. Despite British and French efforts to keep Russia in the
war, this would become a reality with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March
1918. By 1917 Italy was also in a state of near-collapse, while Romania had
already dropped out of the war. The year 1917 had opened with a spirit of
Allied optimism, but by the summer and autumn it was becoming increasingly
obvious that there would be no Allied victory yet. The Nivelle Offensive was
one of a series of Allied setbacks that would continue until the end of the
year, with the British army suffering its own martyrdom at Passchendaele.
Rather than emerging victorious, for the Allies 1917 became a period of grimly
hanging on until the Americans could arrive in force and until war industry
could provide more tanks, aircraft and other military materiel.
For France, the losses incurred during the offensive were
significant, and it could be argued that in the final analysis they were also
unnecessary. It was, quite simply, an offensive that should not have gone
ahead. In this, it was in keeping with several other ill-conceived Allied
efforts during the war. It added yet another large contingent to France’s
growing total of war casualties. By the end of the war France had suffered more
than 1.3 million fatal casualties. More than 3.2 million soldiers had been
wounded, with more than a million of them permanently disabled. More than
600,000 French soldiers were taken prisoner, some of who would return home and
decrease the numbers of ‘missing’. Thousands had been classed as missing, many
of whom were, of course, dead. This pushed the total of fatal casualties
higher. It is unlikely that the true number of casualties will ever be
accurately calculated as proper figures were not kept during the war. Also,
many of the wounded died from their injuries after the parliamentary report on
casualties was completed in the summer of 1919 and so were not included in the
figures. Whichever figure one chooses, the scale of French losses is
depressingly large. After the war a French officer calculated that a formation
of troops equalling the number of French war dead would take eleven days and
nights to march past the Arc de Triomphe in Paris in parade formation.
This number of casualties obviously had a major impact on
France in the years after the First World War. In demographic terms, it
resulted in a collapse in both marriage and birth rates. In the years up to
1914 France had been concerned that German births would ensure that the French
would be outstripped in manpower terms. This now became an absolute reality. In
military terms, it translated into a defensive mindset and later fostered the
development of the Maginot system of fortifications. In any future war France
would need to rely for its defence on a series of fortifications, on a grander
and more modernised scale than the Verdun forts. From the 1930s it was also
envisaged that this system of fortifications would be backed up by a scheme for
mobile defence using tanks. While the development and basic wisdom of the Maginot
scheme are still much debated, the impulse that drove it had a certain clear
logic. France expected another war and from the 1920s found itself increasingly
isolated and devoid of immediate allies. It seemed that it would face a future
German attack alone, at a time when its supplies of manpower were finite. The
Maginot plan, and a programme for acquiring allies in Eastern Europe, seemed
like sensible policies. The manpower issue also resulted in a fall in the size
of the French labour force, with corresponding falls in industrial production.
This was particularly true in respect of iron and steel production, which had
knock-on effects for weapons production.
The whole defence issue would remain a contentious subject
for inter-war French governments, played out in national debates and contests
between the right-wing Bloc National and the leftist Cartel des Gauches. The
Poincaré government of 1922–24 took a hard-line stance regarding German war
reparations and sent more than 40,000 troops to occupy the Ruhr in the hope of
forcing payment. This resulted in the Dawes Plan, which made provision for
phased payments by Germany. In 1924 a moderate socialist government was elected
but proved to be disorganised and riven by internal factions. Poincaré was returned
to office in 1926 and pursued a radical economic policy before retiring from
politics in 1929. The post-war years saw much political turmoil in France, and
in the early 1930s the factions of the extreme left and right flourished due to
the difficulties of the Depression. This coincided with hugely differing views
between political parties and factions as to how to approach strategic and
defence issues. The short life of the leftist Popular Front government of 1936
was dominated by economic and labour issues, while its policy with regard to
the civil war then raging in Spain served to further illustrate the fractured
nature of French politics and society. The Daladier government of 1938
instigated new armaments programmes and also tried to accelerate existing ones
but France still struggled to keep pace with German military expansion.
The political and economic turmoil of the 1920s and 1930s
ensured that a long-term, coherent strategic policy was impossible. It should
also be remembered that these events took place in a country that had been
ravaged by war. Millions of francs needed to be spent on reconstruction owing
to the fact that so much French territory had been devastated between 1914 and
1918. The evidence of war was apparent to all in the shape of destroyed towns
and villages, ruined farms, the shell-damaged landscape and the dangers of
unexploded ordnance. This damage needed to be repaired, and agriculture and
industry needed to be re-established. Many people were unwilling even to
imagine that another war was possible. Getting over the ‘Grande Guerre’ and
trying to repair France would occupy not only the next few years but the next
few decades.
Alongside the physical damage wrought on France, the human
damage was also obvious to all. A whole generation had suffered in the war, and
France had become a country with hundreds of thousands of widows and orphans.
The war wounded, many of them showing evidence of terrible wounds, became a
feature of French society. While most towns and villages soon had their own war
memorials, they also had a grim reminder of the war in the shape of veterans
who were limbless, sightless or otherwise maimed.
The war had created a scar across the French landscape and a
wound deep within the psyche of the French people. The desperate years of
1914–1918 had been marked by grim defence against a series of German
offensives. Equally costly had been the many futile offensives launched by
French generals themselves. Indeed, the Russian strategist A.A. Svechin later
singled out the French offensive strategy on the Western Front for particular
criticism. During 1915 and 1916, Svechin argued, alternative strategies could
have been pursued in Italy and the East, in what he referred to as the
‘Paris–Salonika–Vienna–Berlin logic of attrition’. Ultimately, the French
allowed operational and tactical interests to supersede strategic imperatives.
All the Allies were complicit in this to some degree but France, with the
largest Allied army on the Western Front, had the most to lose by being drawn
into this cycle of pointless and futile offensive actions.
Within the catalogue of failed French offensives, the
Nivelle Offensive holds a special (but unenviable) place owing to its
costliness and sheer futility. Quite apart from the dashed expectations of the
French nation, the timing of the disaster caused huge concern. It seemed
inconceivable, at this late point in the war, that senior generals could still
plan and execute such disastrous attacks. Had no lessons been learned since
1914? One of the positive dividends of the failure of the Nivelle Offensive was
the very clear signal sent to the army commanders by the government, the public
and the soldiers themselves that this type of offensive had to stop. The crisis
of 1917 signalled an end to a certain type of generalship. While there would be
later failures and reverses, the strategy of limited offensives initiated by
Pétain would become the norm for the French army for the remainder of the war.
Nivelle’s offensive marked the end of a particular, brutal learning curve.
Since the end of the war in 1918 generations of French
scholars have studied the ‘Grande Guerre’ and its impact on France. They
include figures such as Pierre Renouvin, Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, Jean-Jacques
Becker, Denis Rolland, Guy Pedroncini, Nicholas Offenstadt and many others.
Non-French scholars, such as Robert M. Doughty, Elizabeth Greenhalgh, Ian
Sumner and Anthony Clayton, have also made the French army during the war the
focus of their particular attention. While the Nivelle Offensive is not
explored in huge depth in every case, a common feature is that it is singled
out as a particular example of poor generalship resulting in needless losses.
The legacy of the Nivelle Offensive for France has been long
and difficult. In the run-up to the centenary of the offensive in 2017 it will
be fascinating to see how these painful events will be commemorated. In recent
years efforts have been made to focus on the plight of individual soldiers, and
to commemorate those involved in the army mutinies. The centenary will no doubt
expose all the difficulties associated with commemorating lives lost in a
military failure. For France, the Nivelle Offensive remains the epitome of
military futility – a doomed plan driven by an overly ambitious and flawed
general.
