page_title: Second Battle of Artois
section_title: Air operations
hierarchical_section_title: Second Battle of Artois / Battle / Air operations
caption_attribution_description: Fokker Eindecker E.I
context_page_description: The Second Battle of Artois from 9 May to 18 June 1915, took place on the Western Front during the First World War. A German-held salient from Reims to Amiens had been formed in 1914 which menaced communications between Paris and the unoccupied parts of northern France. A reciprocal French advance eastwards in Artois could cut the rail lines supplying the German armies between Arras and Reims. French operations in Artois, Champagne and Alsace from November–December 1914, led General Joseph Joffre, Generalissimo and head of Grand Quartier Général, to continue the offensive in Champagne against the German southern rail supply route and to plan an offensive in Artois against the lines from Germany supplying the German armies in the north.
  Field Marshal Sir John French, commander of the British Expeditionary Force, co-operated with the French strategy to capture Vimy Ridge by planning British attacks against Aubers Ridge. The attacks would confront the German 6th Army with a joint offensive, on a 70 mi front, eastwards into the Douai plain, where an advance of 10–15 mi would cut the railways supplying the German armies as far south as Reims.
context_section_description: On 11 March, Major Hermann von der Lieth-Thomsen was appointed Chef des Feldflugwesens (Chief of Field Air Forces) and began to increase the size of Die Fliegertruppen des deutschen Kaiserreiches (Imperial German Flying Corps), with the formation of five new air units in Germany to provide replacements and expedite the introduction of the new Fokker E.I aircraft. New links between air units and the army were created, by the appointment of a staff officer for aviation to each army and in April, armed C-class aircraft began to reach front-line units. Reconnaissance aircraft detected increased movement behind the French Tenth Army front and more C-class aircraft were sent to the 6th Army, from the armies in quiet areas of the Western Front. Early on 9 May, French aircraft bombed the 6th Army headquarters at La Madeleine en Lille and railway stations in the town, with little effect. By 19 May, German aircraft reinforcements could make reconnaissance flights behind the French front and reported massive concentrations of artillery and the assembly of troops at the Doullens railway station, which were interpreted as signs of another big French offensive.
caption: Fokker Eindecker I
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