Guderian Panzers
18
All that the French had achieved in concrete terms was to capture 2,000 prisoners and some equipment (though no artillery), together with trenches and positions which measured seven kilometres in breadth and at most half a kilometre in depth. French losses totalled 1,646 officers and 91,786 men (Les Armees Francaises, 11,481), as opposed to 1,100 officers and 45,000 men lost on the German side. The Germans had taken about 2,700 prisoners. The German positions had been furnished with only a few dugouts and they lacked tactical depth, but they had been held substantially intact against a more than two-fold superiority, thanks to the courage of the troops, the effectiveness of the machine-guns and artillery, and the inexhaustible activity of the engineers. All of this was in despite of the unprecedented outlay of enemy artillery and ammunition - the thunderous 'drum fire' which was to reverberate throughout every battle from now until the end of the war. Both sides claim victory in the winter battle in Champagne, the first 'artillery battle' of the war. Closer investigation shows that the French had to pay an excessive price for insignificant gains in terrain. The Germans had scanty reserves and feeble artillery with which to hold their ground, which happened to be vital for the stability of their entire Western Front. They nevertheless fulfilled this responsibility in an outstanding way, and we must pay due tribute to Third Army. The battle demonstrated that the French, for all their undoubted courage and double superiorities in numbers and ammunition, were unable to break through positions which the Germans certainly defended with great obstinacy, but which were not particularly strong in themselves. The reason, once again, was that the defenders always had the time to seal off the locations of the break-ins before the attacking troops, advancing step by step, could exploit their initial successes. The generals now had to ask themselves, how could they attack with any reasonable chance of success in the future? The obvious thing was to augment the resources already available to the offensive: extend the frontage of the assault so as to pin down more of the defenders at a time, and eliminate local activity on the flanks; one could also build up the quantity of guns and ammunition in the hope of annihilating the defences and obstacles and crippling the enemy artillery. But novel weapons opened the prospect of something altogether more effective - and poison gas, aircraft and armoured vehicles were already within the grasp of the technology (5f the time. The Western Front, the most important theatre of the war, appeared to be condemned to deadlock, yet it might prove possible to bring off a major success even here, if some way could be found of employing the new devices - by themselves, or at least in association with one another and with the older weapons - en masse and with the advantage of surprise. Surprise in any event seemed a worthwhile objective, because it might enable one to anticipate countermeasures, secure concentrations en masse and enable one's mobile forces to follow up any successes. These desiderata were easy to outline on paper, but less easy to put into effect among the realities of the battlefield. As things turned out, the real or supposed needs of the moment often led to the forces being thrown into action too soon; sheer impatience sometimes led to miscalculations of this kind, and sometimes also a feeling of distrust towards such new and unproven weapons. Since surprise can have a dramatic impact in warfare, it will be rewarding to investigate how the new weapons in question were actually employed, and what kind of impression they made on the enemy. Our inquiry will also show whether the belligerents did any better by employing the conventional alternative - a quantitive increase in the older generation of weapons.