During World War I, France was one of the Triple Entente powers allied against the Central Powers. Although fighting occurred worldwide, the bulk of the French Army's operations occurred in Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Alsace-Lorraine along what came to be known as the Western Front, which consisted mainly of trench warfare. During the four-year conflict, French forces inflicted nearly three million casualties on the German Army, more than any other Allied army.
In the early periods of the conflict, the French Army was neither as strong numerically nor as well endowed with heavy guns as was the German Army.
By the later stages of the war, the French Army had been described as “the most modern army in the world,” as it fielded the most tanks and aeroplanes of any Allied army, vast parks of modern heavy artillery employing barrage tactics, and well-equipped modern infantry specialists skilled in fire-and-movement tactics in cooperation with the supporting arms.Michel Goya, La Chair et l'acier: l'armee franc¸aise et l'invention de la guerre moderne, 1914–1918 (Paris: Talandier 2004), 9.
France had lost nearly 1.4 million men killed or missing in action, while another four million had been wounded. Yet, after so much effort and sacrifice, and despite the staggering human cost, French families continued to send their sons into the army. Of those conscripted, the share of young men refusing to serve declined from 2.59 percent in 1915, to 1.08 percent in 1916, to 0.88 percent in 1918. France, which began the war with an antiquated industrial base, went on to become the arsenal of the Entente. With production rates continuously increasing, French industry supplied weapons or munitions to all the allies at one time or another, but it provided the Americans the most—more than three-quarters of all the tanks, field artillery, and airplanes used by the Doughboys in France.
Background
France had been the major power in Europe for most of the Early Modern Era: Louis XIV, in the seventeenth century, and Napoleon I in the nineteenth, had extended French power over most of Europe through skillful diplomacy and military prowess. The Treaty of Vienna in 1815 confirmed France as a European power broker. By the early 1850s, Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck started a system of alliances designed to assert Prussian dominance over Central Europe. Bismarck's diplomatic maneuvering, and France's maladroit response to such crises as the Ems Dispatch and the Hohenzollern Candidature led to the French declaration of war in 1870. France's subsequent defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, including the loss of its army and the capture of its emperor at Sedan, the loss of territory, including Alsace-Lorraine, and the payment of heavy indemnities, left the French seething and placed the reacquisition of lost territory as a primary goal at the end of the 19th century; the defeat also ended French preeminence in Europe. Following German Unification (1871), Bismarck attempted to isolate France diplomatically by befriending Austria-Hungary, Russia, Britain, and Italy.
After 1870, the European powers began gaining settlements in Africa, with colonialism on that continent hitting its peak between 1895 and 1905 (Scramble for Africa). However, colonial disputes were only a minor cause of World War I, as most had been settled by 1914. Economic rivalry was not only a source for some of the colonial conflicts but also a minor cause for the start of World War I. For France, the rivalry was mostly with the rapidly industrializing Germany, which had seized the coal-rich region of Alsace-Lorraine in 1870, and later struggled with France over mineral-rich Morocco.
Another cause of World War I was growing militarism which led to an arms race between the powers. As a result of the arms race, all European powers were ready for war and had time tables that would send millions of reserves into combat in a matter of days.
France was bound by treaty to defend Russia (Franco-Russian Alliance). Austria-Hungary had declared war on Serbia due to the Black Hand's assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, which used it as a pretext for a war with Serbia that many in the Austrian and Hungarian governments had long advocated. France was brought into the war by a German declaration of war on 3 August 1914.
The pre-war army and mobilization
In common with most other continental European powers, the French Army was organized on the basis of universal conscription. Each year, the "class" of men turning twenty in the upcoming year would be inducted into the French Army and spend three years in active service. After leaving active service they would progress through various stages of reserves, each of which involved a lower degree of commitment. Active Army (20–23) Reserve of the Active Army (24–34) Territorial Army (35–41) Reserve of the Territorial Army (42–48)
The peacetime army consisted of 173 infantry regiments, 79 cavalry regiments, and 87 artillery regiments. All were substantially under strength and would be filled out on mobilization by the first three classes of the Reserve (that is, men between 24 and 26). Each regiment would also leave behind a cadre of training personnel to conduct refresher courses for the older reservists, who were organized into 201 Reserve Regiments and 145 Territorial Regiments. Above the regimental level, France was divided into 22 Military Regions, each of which would become an Army Corps on mobilization.
At the apex of the French Army was the General Staff, since 1911 under the leadership of General Joseph Joffre. The General Staff was responsible for drawing up the plan for mobilization, known as Plan XVII. Using the railroad network, the Army would be shifted from their peacetime garrisons throughout France to the eastern border with Germany.
The order for mobilization was given on 1 August 1914, the same day that Germany declared war on Russia. Immediately called to their regiments were the classes of 1896 to 1910, comprising almost three million reservists of 24 to 38 years old.
Organization during the war
Upon mobilization, Joffre became Commander-in-Chief of the French Army. Most of his forces were concentrated in the northeast of France, both to attack Alsace-Lorraine and to meet the expected German offensive through the Low Countries. First Army (7th, 8th, 13th, 14th, and 21st Army Corps), with the objective of capturing Mulhouse and Sarrebourg. Second Army (9th, 15th, 16th, 18th and 20th Army Corps), with the objective of capturing Morhange. Third Army (4th, 5th and 6th Army Corps), defending the region around Metz. Fourth Army (12th, 17th and Colonial Army Corps) held in reserve around the Forest of Argonne Fifth Army (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 10th and 11th Army Corps), defending the Ardennes.
Over the course of the First World War another five field armies would be raised. The war scare led to another 2.9 million men being mobilized in the summer of 1914 and the costly battles on the Western Front forced France to conscript men up to the age of 45. This was done by the mobilization in 1914 of the Territorial Army and its reserves, comprising men who had completed their peacetime service with the active and reserve armies (ages 20–34).pages 215, 217 and 218, Vol. XXX, Encyclopædia Britannica, 12th Edition, 1922
In June 1915, the Allied countries met in the first inter-Allied conference. Britain, France, Belgium, Italy, Serbia and Russia agreed to coordinate their attacks but the attempts were frustrated by German offensives on the Eastern Front and spoiling offensives at Ypres and in the hills west of Verdun.
By 1918, towards the end of the war, the composition and structure of the French army had changed. Forty percent of all French soldiers on the Western Front were operating artillery and 850,000 French troops were infantry in 1918, compared to 1.5 million in 1915. Causes for the drop in infantry include increased machine gun, armored car and tank usage, as well as the increasing significance of the French air force, the Service Aéronautique. At the end of the war on 11 November 1918, the French had called up 8,817,000 men, including 900,000 colonial troops. The French army suffered around 6 million casualties, including 1.4 million dead and 4.2 million wounded, roughly 71% of those who fought. Out of the one million French infantrymen who died in the war, more than half died between the outbreak of war and November 1915.
Commanders-in-Chief
The Chief of the General Staff and Commander-in-Chief at the time was Joseph Joffre, a former engineer officer who had served in West Africa. He was appointed in 1911 during the Agadir Crisis. He played a significant role in the development and subsequent failure of France's mobilisation and deployment plan against Germany, Plan XVII. While earning praise for his role in slowing the German advance, especially in the decisive Battle of the Marne, his refusal to accept negative news in the later months caused numerous strategic errors, leading to the loss of as many as 300 000 men in the opening months of the war. By 1915, confidence in Joffre was quickly dropping, however he was appointed generalissimo on 2 December. Following the heavy losses at the Battle of Verdun and the Somme, and the defeat of Romania, Joffre was replaced by Robert Nivelle and effectively relieved of his duties on 12 December 1916. Due to his popularity, it was not presented to the public as a dismissal and he became the first Marshal under the Third Republic.
Robert Nivelle, who began the war as a regimental colonel, was appointed Commander-in-Chief in December 1916, following Joffre's fall from grace. The decision to promote Nivelle was due to several factors, including his identity as a Protestant, his battlefield successes at Verdun, his ability to speak fluent English and his belief in his ability to break the deadlock. Having previously served in an artillery regiment, he championed the creeping barrage as a key to French success. In 1917, he and Douglas Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force, drew up plans for an offensive, known as the Nivelle offensive. The main part of the offensive, the Second Battle of the Aisne, was largely unsuccessful, extremely costly in terms of manpower and led directly to the 1917 French Army mutinies. As a result of his failures, Nivelle was urged to resign. On 15 May 1917, Philippe Pétain was appointed to replace him, though Nivelle refused to leave until 19 May.
Philippe Pétain was made Commander-in-Chief on 15 May 1917, after a few weeks as Army Chief of Staff. He is credited with resolving the French Army mutinies that had begun during that period. He had asked for moderation in dealing with the mutiny and, against military tradition, tried to replace the military hierarchy with a system based on mutual trust. He also rejected large-scale attacks until more allied soldiers arrived, and improved the living conditions of front-line soldiers, increasing fresh food and rest times. A cautious commander and trusted by troops, Petain stuck to a defensive strategy, with limited attacks. Due to his success in defending against German attacks during the Second Battle of the Marne, he was awarded the Médaille militaire, France's third highest military honour. Following the end of the war on 19 November 1918, Pétain was promoted to Marshal of France. Due to his role during the Battle of Verdun, French Army mutinies and reputation as a "soldier's soldier," he was considered a French hero, until his collaboration with Nazi Germany during the Second World War, for which he was tried and convicted.
Western Front 1914 Battle of the Frontiers