page_title: Second Battle of the Aisne
section_title: Subsequent operations
hierarchical_section_title: Second Battle of the Aisne / Aftermath / Subsequent operations
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of battle of la Malmaison and German withdrawal from Chemin des Dames, November 1917
context_page_description: The Second Battle of the Aisne was the main part of the Nivelle Offensive, a Franco-British attempt to inflict a decisive defeat on the German armies in France. The Entente strategy was to conduct offensives from north to south, beginning with an attack by the British Expeditionary Force then the main attack by two French army groups on the Aisne. General Robert Nivelle planned the offensive in December 1916, after he replaced Joseph Joffre as Commander-in-Chief of the French Army.
  The objective of the attack on the Aisne was to capture the prominent 80-kilometre-long, east–west ridge of the Chemin des Dames, 110 km north-east of Paris and then advance northwards to capture the city of Laon. When the French armies met the British advancing from the Arras front, the Germans would be pursued towards Belgium and the German frontier. The offensive began on 9 April, when the British began the Battle of Arras. On 16 April, the Groupe d'armées de Reserve attacked the Chemin des Dames and the next day, the Fourth Army, part of Groupe d'armées de Centre, near Reims to the south-east, began the Battle of the Hills.
context_section_description: The Battle of La Malmaison (Bataille de la Malmaison) (23–27 October) led to the capture of the village and fort of La Malmaison and control of the Chemin des Dames ridge. The 7th Army commander Boehn, was not able to establish a defence in depth along the Chemin-de-Dames, because the ridge was a hog's back and the only alternative was to retire north of the Canal de l'Oise à l'Aisne. The German artillery was outnumbered about 3:1 and on the front of the 14th Division 32 German batteries were bombarded by 125 French artillery batteries. Much of the German artillery was silenced before the French attack. Gas bombardments in the Ailette valley became so dense that the carriage of ammunition and supplies to the front was made impossible.
  From 24–25 October the XXI and XIV corps advanced rapidly and the I Cavalry Corps was brought forward into the XIV Corps area, in case the Germans collapsed. On 25 October the French captured the village and forest of Pinon and closed up to the line of the Canal de l'Oise à l'Aisne. In four days the attack had advanced 6 mi (9.7 km) and forced the Germans from the narrow plateau of the Chemin des Dames, back to the north bank of the Ailette Valley. The French took 11,157 prisoners, 200 guns and 220 heavy mortars. French losses were 2,241 men killed, 8,162 wounded and 1,460 missing from 23–26 October, 10 percent of the casualties of the attacks during the Nivelle Offensive.
caption: German retreat from the Chemin des Dames, November 1917
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