Landships II

Bonjour James,

On Gallica in pdf "Les Armées Françaises dans la Guerre Guerre" :

    http://pages14-18.mesdiscussions.net/pages1418/annonces-pages-bibliophile/francaise-grande-guerre-sujet_5611_1.htm

• Tome VI L'hiver 1917-1918 - l'offensive allemande (1er novembre 1917-3 avril 1918).
• Tome VII La campagne offensive de 1918 et la marche au Rhin (18 juillet 1918-28 juin 1918).

Bonne lecture

James H wrote:

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Can anyone recommend a good work on the Battle of Soissons, July 18 - 26, 1918? The more I read about it, the more interesting it becomes. Quite a few sources describe it as the true turning point on the Western Front, but things are a bit more complicated than that.

Jones, Rarey, & Icks, and our own Tim Gale give very full accounts of the tank actions, but not IMO of the general scope of the battle - casualties, prisoners, equipment captured, ground gained, and so on. Various accounts say that it was considered the turning point by Foch, Pershing, Haig, and Ludendorff, as well as the German Chancellor von Hertling. Since there was no significant British involvement, there doesn't seem to be a decent British account, but, surprisingly, nor have I been able to find a truly comprehensive French one. That puts us in the not very familiar position of finding that the best English language accounts are American; in fact, the only dedicated book on the battle seems to be Soissons, 1918 by Johnson & Hillman, but that comes at a price. The battle attracts the attention of American writers because it was the first significant American involvement, so they explore it in some depth. On the other hand, some concentrate on the US contribution to the extent that you could be forgiven for thinking that no one else was involved.

At this point, we turn to the magnificent Wikipedia, and find the relevant article to be a piece of utter fantasy. Until recently it declared that Soissons was a battle between German and American troops (including "Buffalo Soldiers") and that the Germans deployed 230 tanks during the engagement. Astoundingly, French Wikipedia carries a direct translation of the English version, and German Wikipedia hasn't got an article at all.

So can anyone suggest a decent potted account?

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 I have Soissons, 1918. It's an infantry-focused book that almost completely ignores tanks. Has information about stuff like problems with supply, with orders, etc. Specific informations like casualties and prisoners are very uneven. Sometimes they are there but are mostly absent. Where and when seems to be pretty detailed with mentioned actions being accompanied by time. Sometimes also times of decisions, times of orders being received, etc.

It's almost exclusively about two American divisions and a Maroccan division that was in their sector.

This is very informative. "The Defeat of the German Army; Tanks and anti-Tank Measures in the 

Defensive Battle Betwee

 Soissons and Reims, July to August 1918."

http://edoc.hu-berlin.de/dissertationen/fasse-alexander-2007-06-21/HTML/chapter11.html

It's in German, and there's a lot of it, but worth wading through if your German is up to it.