page_title: Battle of La Malmaison
section_title: Nivelle Offensive
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of La Malmaison / Background / Strategic developments / Nivelle Offensive
caption_attribution_description: English: Hindenburg line on the Western Front before the Battle of Arras in April 1917, shown in solid red. Dotted red line shows frontline as it was before the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line in February 1917.
context_page_description: The Battle of La Malmaison from 23 to 27 October, was the final French action of the 1917 campaign in the First World War, which had begun with the Nivelle Offensive. The French captured the village and fort of La Malmaison and took control of the Chemin des Dames ridge. The German 7th Army had discovered French preparations for the attack and also identified the date and time. Boehn chose to defend the front positions, rather than treat them as an advanced zone and to conduct the main defence north of the Oise–Aisne Canal. The German artillery was outnumbered three-to-one and on the front of the 14th Division, 32 German batteries were confronted by 125 French, which silenced most of the German guns before the attack. Gas from French bombardments on low-lying land near the Oise–Aisne Canal in the Ailette valley, became so dense that it was impossible to carry ammunition and supplies forward or to remove the wounded.
  Battalions from specialist German counter-attack divisions had been distributed along the front line and were caught in the French bombardments, German infantry shelters having been identified by French air reconnaissance and systematically destroyed.
context_section_description: General Robert Nivelle replaced Joseph Joffre as French Commander-in-Chief in December 1916, after the costly fighting at Verdun and the Somme. Nivelle claimed that a massive barrage on German lines could bring French victory in 48 hours and avoid the costly battles of attrition, grignotage (nibbling) fought in 1916. The French offensive began on 16 April 1917, after support from the France Prime Minister, despite the doubts of other politicians, Pétain, Micheler, other senior army commanders and the British. The Nivelle offensive involved c. 1.2 million French and British troops and 7,000 artillery pieces on fronts between Reims and Roye, after preliminary offensives at Arras and St. Quentin. The principal effort was an attack on the German positions along the Chemin des Dames ridge, in the Second Battle of the Aisne to rupture the German defences in 48 hours, bring about a battle of manoeuvre and defeat decisively the German armies in France.
  From February–March 1917, the German armies in the Noyon and Bapaume salients retired to a new line of fortifications, the Siegfriedstellung (Hindenburg Line) across the base of the salients, from Neuville Vitasse near Arras, through St. Quentin and Laon to the Aisne east of Soissons, ending at Cerny en Laonnois on the Chemin-des-Dames ridge, although the withdrawal to the last part of the line did not take place. The new fortifications were intended to be precautionary, (Sicherheitskoeffizient) built to be used as rallying-positions Eventual-Stellungen (similar to ones built on the Russian front) to shorten the Western Front, economise on troops and create reserves. The Siegfriedstellung had the potential to release the greatest number of troops and construction began on 27 September 1916.
  The French Third Army began the offensive against German observation points at St. Quentin from 1 to 13 April, which took some of the German defences in front of the Siegfriedstellung. On 9 April, the British Third Army began the Battle of Arras from Croisilles to Ecurie, against Observation Ridge, north of the Arras–Cambrai road and towards Feuchy and the German second and third lines. The British attack either side of the Scarpe river penetrated 6,000 yd (3.4 mi; 5.5 km), the furthest advance achieved since the beginning of trench warfare. Most of the objectives were reached by the evening of 10 April, except for the line between Wancourt and Feuchy around Neuville-Vitasse. The First Army attacked from Ecurie north of the Scarpe to Vimy Ridge, which fell at about 1:00 p.m., in a 4,000 yd (2.3 mi; 3.7 km) advance. By 16 May, the British had captured 254 German guns but had not broken through.
caption: German withdrawal from the Bapaume and Noyon Salients.
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