What was the Battle of Arras in 1917?
The Battle of Arras was a British offensive on the Western Front from 9 April, Easter Monday, to 16 May 1917, fought mainly by General Allenby's Third Army to support the French Nivelle offensive further south. It opened with great success, including the Canadian capture of Vimy Ridge, but slowed into heavy fighting around Monchy-le-Preux, the Scarpe and Bullecourt. The Western Front Association calls it the most costly British offensive of the war in terms of daily losses.1
The Official History called Easter Monday 1917 one of the great days of the war, the most formidable and most successful British offensive launched up to then. Within days the advance stalled, and the five weeks that followed, around Monchy-le-Preux, along the Scarpe and at Bullecourt, made Arras the British offensive with the highest daily rate of loss of the whole war.2
Why Arras
In early 1917 the town of Arras, between the Ypres salient and the Somme, became the launch point of the British share of the Allied plan for the spring. The aim was to break through the German lines and draw German reserves north, away from the great French offensive under General Nivelle. In March the Germans had pulled back to the Hindenburg Line, a shorter and more strongly fortified front, and the British and Empire forces followed them up. More than 400,000 men gathered around Arras, from Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.3
An army underground
Arras had an unusual asset: the old chalk quarries beneath its streets. New Zealand tunnelers, many of them former miners, linked them into some 20 kilometers of tunnels that brought troops unseen to within meters of the German front line. The Wellington Quarry alone sheltered 24,000 men.4
Easter Monday
At 5:30 a.m. on 9 April, under a cold gray sky, the attack began. Thousands of men came out of the tunnels and trenches, the Germans were caught off guard, and ground was taken faster than expected. North of Arras the Canadian Corps, its four divisions fighting together for the first time, stormed Vimy Ridge and held it by 12 April, at a cost of more than 10,000 casualties.5
The success was not followed up. The Western Front Association suggests that surprise or the fog of war meant the gains of 9 April were not pressed on 10 April, when the German line was disjointed and in places broken, and that the main body of the cavalry was held too far back to exploit the gap. The Germans used the 48 hours to reorganize and reinforced the key village of Monchy-le-Preux with the 3rd Bavarian Division.6
Monchy-le-Preux
Monchy stood on high ground about five miles south-east of Arras and gave observation over the battlefield for miles around. On 11 April the infantry of the 15th (Scottish) and 37th Divisions reached the village by 7:30 a.m., and at 8:30 the 8th Cavalry Brigade, the 10th Hussars and the Essex Yeomanry, with the 3rd Dragoon Guards to the south, came forward at the gallop. An infantry officer watching in a lull of the snowstorm thought it was a real cavalry charge.7
The horsemen reached the village and held it, but German shells fell on the crowded streets, killing men and many horses; an officer was detailed to shoot wounded horses. Lance Corporal Harold Mugford won the Victoria Cross for keeping his machine gun in action after both his legs were broken, and the brigade commander, Brigadier General Charles Bulkeley-Johnson, was killed by a sniper while going forward to see for himself. On 23 April the Germans tried to retake Monchy, and the Royal Newfoundland Regiment held it.8
Bullecourt
To the south, the British attacked Bullecourt, a fortified village in the Hindenburg Line, on 11 April with the 4th Australian and 62nd British Divisions. The Australian War Memorial calls the attack hastily planned and a disaster: the supporting tanks broke down or were destroyed, and the Australians who broke into the German line were cut off and forced back. The 4th and 12th Brigades lost over 3,300 men, and 1,170 Australians were taken prisoner, the most captured in a single engagement in the war.9
A second attack from 3 to 17 May by the 2nd Australian and 62nd British Divisions broke into the line and then faced a week and a half of German counter-attacks. The Germans finally abandoned the ruins after 15 May. The AWM counts 7,482 Australian casualties from three divisions, for a place of little strategic importance.10
The cost
The offensive lasted 39 days. Artois 14-18 puts the losses at about 150,000 killed, wounded or missing, for an advance of nearly 10 kilometers. In the air, April 1917 became known as Bloody April for the heavy losses among British aircrews. As the Western Front Association notes, the later stages of the battle are far less well known than its first day.11
Notes
A number in the text points to a note; each note names the works that paragraph draws on, listed in full under Sources.
- Western Front Association, “The Cavalry at Monchy-le-Preux”; Artois 14-18, “The Battle of Arras”. ↩
- Western Front Association, “The Cavalry at Monchy-le-Preux”. ↩
- Artois 14-18, “The Battle of Arras”; Australian War Memorial, “First Battle of Bullecourt”. ↩
- Artois 14-18, “The Battle of Arras”. ↩
- Artois 14-18, “The Battle of Arras”. ↩
- Western Front Association, “The Cavalry at Monchy-le-Preux”. ↩
- Western Front Association, “The Cavalry at Monchy-le-Preux”. ↩
- Western Front Association, “The Cavalry at Monchy-le-Preux”. ↩
- Australian War Memorial, “First Battle of Bullecourt”. ↩
- Australian War Memorial, “Second Battle of Bullecourt”. ↩
- Artois 14-18, “The Battle of Arras”; Western Front Association, “The Cavalry at Monchy-le-Preux”. ↩
Sources
- Western Front Association, “The Cavalry at Monchy-le-Preux”
- Artois 14-18 (Pas-de-Calais remembrance trail), “The Battle of Arras”
- Australian War Memorial, “First Battle of Bullecourt”
- Australian War Memorial, “Second Battle of Bullecourt”
