Chemin des Dames – Fighting in the Area of the Damenweg 1914-1918
Chemin des Dames – General
While the term “Chemin des Dames” is familiar to most people interested in military history, unlike battlefields such as the one at Verdun, on the Somme, or near Ypres, pinpointing its location is difficult, and knowledge of specific military operations remains vague at best. Sites of memory such as the former battlefield of Verdun quickly became after World War I the epitome of the suffering and dying of the ordinary soldier, over time turning into museum and multimedia memorials for the horrors of the First World War, objects of school and university learning, and hallmarks of reconciliation between nations.
Conversely, the events of the war on the Chemin des Dames were quickly pushed out of the historical perspective by the French after the end of the First World War, although fighting took place there that was just as intense and correspondingly many soldiers died as in the other major battles along the Western Front. The reasons for this were the mutinies at the end of the “Nivelle Offensive” unleashed in the spring of 1917, in which entire front-line units of the French army rebelled against the strict service regulations and the absurdity of mass dying. These events brought France’s political and military system to the verge of collapse. There were hundreds of death sentences against mostly young soldiers, of which ultimately only a few were carried out.
To this day, these events trigger shame and controversial debates in France. Although the French National Assembly decided in 2021 to rehabilitate the soldiers who had been shot mostly for trivial reasons or solely for deterrence, implementation is proving difficult. The proceedings still concern only individual candidates selected on the initiative of relatives or historians, who are then rather secretly reburied in military cemeteries under the cross inscription “Mort pour la France”. Until then, this “privilege” had been denied them.
Songs with a pacifist background such as the infamous “La Chanson de Craonne” or the US war film “Paths of Glory” starring Kirk Douglas remained banned in France until the mid-1970s. The historical and social handling of the wartime events of the spring of 1917 at the Chemin des Dames has not yet been definitively clarified for the French to this day.
Chemin des Dames – Naming
Various myths surround the origin of the name “Chemin des Dames”. Common to all theories is that initially the road running there, today’s D18CD, was what gave the name, and not the ridge between the cities of Soissons in the west, Laon in the north, and Reims in the southeast, which is now geographically designated as such. Only from the late 19th century onwards did the street name become common, first as “Route des Dames” and later as “Chemin des Dames”, although it is said to date back to the reign of Louis XV (*1710 – †1774).
According to all theories, Château de la Bôve, located north of Bouconville-Vauclair, played a decisive role. Frequently and even in the German Wikipedia, it is erroneously reported that the estate was a hunting lodge of the French Bourbon emperors. While hunting parties of the royal entourage took place in the extensive forests around the castle, the noble ladies supposedly strolled on the ridge between the towns of Craonne in the east and Vaudesson in the west. Therefore, the road received the name “Chemin des Dames”.
In fact, the name goes back to two daughters of King Louis XV, Marie Adélaïde and Victoire de Bourbon. In her youth, the former had a lady-in-waiting named Françoise de Châlus, later the Duchesse de Narbonne-Lara (* 1734; † 1821). After Adelaïde had elevated her to her *dame d’honneur*, Françoise de Châlus left Versailles and acquired la Bôve Château, where she lived from then on.
To enable Adélaïde and her sister Victoire, both of whom lived unmarried at the French court and were commonly titled “les Dames de France”, to visit Château de la Bôve, the state Corps des Ponts et Chaussées was summarily instructed to improve an existing path starting from the road between Soissons and Laon (today’s N 2) near an inn that still existed at the time named “l’Ange-Gardien” towards Craonne, and at Hurtebise Ferme a branch heading north along Vauclair Abbey to Château de la Bôve. This resulted in the name “Route des Dames” or later “Chemin des Dames” for today’s D18CD.
Such extravagant spending by the absolutist ruling class was the trigger for the French Revolution that began shortly thereafter.
Chemin des Dames – Geographical and Geological
Running in an east-west direction and towering over the surrounding terrain by about 100 meters, the central ridge of the Chemin des Dames was the site of various military conflicts during both World Wars and even before. To the north, the terrain slopes down to the Ailette valley, and very steeply to the south into the Aisne valley. From the southern direction, the high plateau can only be reached via the sometimes deep valley incisions; from the north, an ascent is possible, but very arduous. Until modern times, there was no route crossing the ridge in a north-south direction that would have been suitable for larger troop movements or the transport of heavy military equipment.
Geologically, the ridge has a uniform, horizontal structure. This facilitated the construction of fire trenches, dugouts, and above all larger gallery and tunnel systems for the soldiers. Starting from the valley floor (about 100 m above sea level), an approximately 50 m thick sand deposit forms the substructure of the entire ridge. This is capped at the top by a greensand layer (glauconite). Above this, limestone deposits of varying density are found with a thickness of about 30 m. Surrounded by mostly hard, tabular layers, an approximately 10 m thick calcareous sandstone layer is enclosed within it, in which the area’s many sandstone quarries used for building materials have been established since the early Middle Ages, including the well-known and touristically developed “Drachenhöhle” (“Caverne du Dragon”). The upper boundary is formed by an up to 8 m thick clay layer. The remains of larger gallery and tunnel systems, constructed during the war and frequently still extant, lie in the area of the sand layer directly beneath the solid limestone deposit, which was used as a stable ceiling structure. From east to west, the strata dip noticeably. The lower edge of the limestone and thus also the majority of the military remnants from the First World War are found in the east (Winterberg/Plateau de Californie) at about 170 m, in the center (Cerny-en-Laonnois) at about 155 m, and in the west (Fort de la Malmaison) at about 140 m above sea level
Chemin des Dames – Battle of Craonne 1814
In the era of contemporary history, the Chemin des Dames has entered the focus of military history through only a single event: the “Battle of Craonne” fought in early March 1814. Following the campaign against Russia, which ended catastrophically for the French, the power structures in Europe created by Napoleon Bonaparte collapsed. This was followed by the Wars of Liberation, which culminated in a severe defeat for the French at the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig. The defeated troops of Napoleon retreated across the Rhine. However, the French emperor managed to form a new military force from the meager remnants of his former army in a short time and opposed the initially hesitant coalition of Russian, Austrian, and Prussian troops in several battles on French soil.
A final battle that ended successfully for the French took place on March 6 and 7, 1814, on the eastern foothills of the Chemin des Dames, near the village of Craonne. The fighting was triggered by the attempt of the Silesian Army, which was under the command of the Prussian Generalfeldmarschall (field marshal) Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, after capturing the city of Soissons and crossing the Aisne River there, to unite with the two advancing from the Netherlands Wintzingerode Corps and von Bühlow in order to then advance together on the French capital Paris.
Napoleon had divided his army. One half was to recapture Soissons, while with the other the Emperor intended to bypass Blücher’s forces to the east, cut them off from their rear communications to the Netherlands, and then strike them in the flank and rear. When Blücher recognized this plan and sought to give battle in the flat plain between Corbény and the Aisne, Napoleon’s troops had already crossed the river via the bridge at Berry-au-Bac, which had been seized by surprise, and occupied the villages of Craonne, Corbeny, and Bouconville. Consequently, the only possible battlefield remaining was the treeless high plateau between Craonne and Cerny-en-Laonnois to the west. There, the infantry of the Russian corps of Wintzingerode under the command of Count Vorontsov had already taken up positions.
Blücher expected an advance of the Napoleonic troops via Craonne onto the plateau and then through the bottleneck, only a few hundred meters wide, near the Hurtebise Farm. Here, Woronzow’s infantry, with artillery support and supposedly protected by the steep slopes on either side, was to confront the French frontally. The cavalry, largely held back, was to outflank the French north of the Chemin des Dames under the command of the Russian general Ferdinand Freiherr von Wintzingerode with about 10,000 men and 60 guns and then fall upon the enemy’s rear.
Due to inadequate orders and poor leadership by Wintzingerode, the mounted units did not advance as planned. A French corps under the command of Marshal Michel Ney succeeded, at the cost of heavy losses, in capturing the small village of Ailles at the northern foot of the plateau, ascending it after several failed attempts, and establishing itself at the top in the left flank of the Russian infantry.
Blücher had considered carrying out the flanking maneuver after all, but was reluctantly forced to give the order to retreat due to the interim French superiority and the threatening situation. The fighting ended with heavy losses for both sides. Russians and Prussians lost about 6,000 men, while Napoléon’s troops lost approximately 5,000 soldiers. Thus, the Battle of Craonne was to remain the most costly in casualties of the entire winter campaign.
Blücher now concentrated his army around the fortress city of Laon and awaited the renewed attack of the French emperor there. Although the field marshal fell into a severe depression as a result of excessive hardships and probably also corresponding alcohol consumption, and was no longer able to exercise command of the army until the end of the campaign, the numerical superiority of the assembled coalition troops meant that Napoléon was no longer able to achieve a decisive success in his attack or in the subsequent engagements. Following the lost Battle of Paris, the French emperor abdicated on April 12, 1814, and went into the exile imposed upon him on the island of Elba.
Immediately south of today’s D18CD, approximately near the village of Craonelle, there is a stone sculpture of Napoleon, which was inaugurated in 1974 in memory of the Battle of Craonne at the former site of the Vauclerc Mill. Napoleon used the formerly stone building as an observation post. The mill was completely destroyed in October 1914, during the heavy fighting at the beginning of the First World War. Near the Hurtebise Ferme can also be found “Monument des Marie-Louise”, a bronze monument erected in 1927 in place of an obelisk destroyed in September 1914 to commemorate the bravery of the young French recruits, who were generally referred to by the name of the French Empress. The monument created by Maxime Real del Sarte bears the dates 1814 and 1914 and depicts a guardsman from the Napoleonic Wars on the left and a French *poilu* from the First World War on the right, who together hold aloft a laurel wreath. It thus also commemorates the heavy fighting of the First World War between 1914 and 1918.
Chemin des Dames – First Battle of the Aisne 1914/1915
Turning Point of the War 1916/1917
The battle for the Lorrainian city of Verdun, designated by the Germans as “Operation Gericht”, ended on December 19, 1916, with a major French offensive. Even though German troops, especially in the initial phase, were able to achieve major successes and almost force the French to abandon the eastern bank of the Meuse River, by the summer of 1916 the attack had bogged down to such an extent that all offensive efforts were gradually halted. By the end of December 1916, German troops had been thrown back by the French to their starting positions at the beginning of the attack. Both sides suffered a total of about 700,000 casualties in the fighting. Already in November 1916, the British and French had had to break off the relief offensive on the Somme, which had begun in the summer of 1916 at the height of the Verdun fighting. Regardless of notable German defensive successes, even significantly higher losses had been recorded there for both sides, so that in the West active warfare was temporarily out of the question for the German army.
On the Eastern Front, Romania had emerged as another wartime adversary. Following Russian successes in the first Brusilov Offensive, Romanian King Ferdinand I declared war on Austria-Hungary on August 27, 1916. Although the Romanian army possessed a considerable force of more than 500,000 men, it had only about 500 modern guns and virtually no motorized vehicles. After minor initial successes, the 9. deutsche Armee (9th German Army) under the command of the former Chief of the Supreme Army Command (OHL) Erich von Falkenhayn halted the Romanian advance. On December 6, 1916, German troops entered Bucharest. The Romanian army was annihilated. This initially prevented further Russian offensives. The German victory fundamentally changed the balance of power on the Eastern Front. The Russian February Revolution, supported by the German Empire both propagandistically and financially, led to the abdication of Tsar Nicholas in March 1917 and, later that year, to final political and military destabilization. Ultimately, the Russian October Revolution brought about the armistice concluded in December 1917 with the German Empire and its allies.
At the turn of the year 1916/1917, Germany stood deep in enemy territory on all fronts, although England and France were now clearly superior both economically and militarily, also due to the massive financial and material support from the USA. Meanwhile, the naval blockade by the English, ongoing since 1914, massively exacerbated the famine at home as well as the military supply situation. Based on the previous defensive successes on the Somme and the foreseeable decision of the war in the East, many representatives from politics and the military leadership nonetheless believed they were in a favorable strategic position. However, the Entente powers felt similarly for themselves, bolstered by the morally significant success of the French at Verdun and the hope for an early entry of the USA into the war.
In this emotional stalemate, temporary peace efforts on the German side had to fail, regardless of the huge losses and damages from the previous battles, despite hesitant support from the new American President Woodrow Wilson. France and Italy based the settlement of their massive war debts on the principle “Germany will pay!”. Both countries made unacceptable demands, such as, among other things, the return of all territories annexed by Germany since 1870, the division of Austria-Hungary into nation-states, and the cession of large Turkish border regions to Greece.
To be sure, the German military leadership was aware of its purely numerical inferiority. It was clear to all those responsible that further major battles like those on the Somme could not be endured again. Nevertheless, alongside the foreseeable release of larger troop contingents in the East, two essential military-tactical options fueled the hope for ultimate success: unrestricted submarine warfare and front shortenings, above all through the withdrawal of the German positions to the so-called “Siegfried Line” prepared since the autumn of 1916. Added to this were fundamental changes and the standardization of the defense strategy on the basis of universally valid regulations, the drafting of which had already begun in 1916. In addition to a depth structuring of the position system and the massive use of machine guns, the new tactic was based on an elastic and thus unit-sparing warfare. According to the forecast of the Naval Leadership, the German submarine weapon was in any case to succeed within half a year in cutting off England from supplies from the USA and torpedoing it to the negotiating table. Thus, a decision in the war—be it even through negotiations—was to become possible even before the entry of the USA into the war, expected due to the rigorous use of the submarine weapon, could impact the course of the war.
The complete content of the original surviving order of the Commanding General of the General Command z.b.V. No. 65 (Group Sissonne), Eberhardt von Schmettow, dated May 6, 1917, is reproduced opposite. The commander of Reserve-Infanterie-Regiments Nr. 111 (111th Reserve Infantry Regiment) (part of the 28. Reserve-Division (28th Reserve Division)) is requested to report on the combat activity on the Winterberg on May 4 and 5, 1917. The unusually harsh phrasing clearly reveals the critical attitude of the corps leadership regarding the negative course of the fighting and the presumed responsibility of the regiment.
G R O U P S I S S O N N E
H.Q., May 6, 1917.
Dept. Ia No. 1242 Personal!
The Res. Inf. Regt. 111 was driven from the Winterberg on May 4. As far as is known here, the attacker consisted of 2 battalions of the French 36th Division. –
The commander of the regiment is to report briefly and as soon as possible through official channels on the combat activity of the regiment on the 4th of this month and on the morning of the 5th. Particular attention is to be paid to what measures were taken by the regiment to dispute the enemy’s success. (Immediate counterattacks and their result). Situation sketches, strengths, and casualties are to be attached. Superiors are to state their position.
I expect the regimental commander to weld his regiment back together with the utmost speed and energy into a combat-ready unit; the re-employment of the regiment in the coming days cannot be dispensed with. The 28th Reserve Division is requested to support the commander in this through active care.
The Commanding General.
signed v. Schmettow
Excursion: Winterberg Tunnel – Myths and Reality of a Discovery
were AI-edited (notice pursuant to Art. 50 Regulation (EU) 2024/1689).