The photographed French soldiers were all from the 65th Infantry Regiment; Colonel Xavier Desgrées du Loû holding the flag, with his nephew Yves Desgrées du Loû and a Lieutenant Lerbet behind him.
All men were killed in the attack that ensued. The soldier on the left, Captain de Corta, was seriously wounded but survived.
Today 107 years ago, on September 25, 1915, the Second Battle of Champagne began on the Western Front.
In 1915, the Allies enjoyed a numerical superiority in troops on the Western Front. Seeking to exploit this and decisively break the trench stalemate, ejecting the Germans from France, the Allies planned offensives along the front.
The main assault would be launched in Champagne by the French, who would also attack further north in Artois, being supported by a British assault at Loos-en-Gohelle, also in Artois.
On September 21, 1915, the French began a 4-day-long artillery bombardment of the German trenches in Champagne. The Germans had anticipated the French assault, having been able to watch the French preparations from their high ground in Champagne and Artois. Though the French artillery still broke the German defenses in several places.
On September 25, 1915, the French Infantry attacked in Champagne and Artois. The British also attacked at Loos on the same day. Despite heavy rains, the French advanced and managed to take 14,000 prisoners before being halted.
But the French suffered staggering casualties themselves to German machine-guns and artillery, suffering a mind-boggling 23,567 combined deaths in Champagne and Artois on September 25.
The next day on September 26, the French renewed their assault and met stiffened German resistance, encountering lines of barbed wire not destroyed by artillery.
On September 27, the French captured some positions and managed to take 2,000 prisoners, but failed to break through the German lines. German reinforcements arrived, and counter-attacks regained some lost ground.
On October 1, the French suspended the offensive for the time being, as they’d expended their ammunition and had suffered staggering losses. It was clear that a breakthrough in Champagne was unrealistic.
The French resumed the offensive on October, and both the French and Germans suffered thousands of casualties. The French took a few key positions, but their progress soon bogged down against determined German resistance.
The Second Battle of Champagne continued for a month until the French called off their offensive for good on November 6, 1915.
In the Second Battle of Champagne, the French had advanced a mere 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) along the front for the cost of a staggering 180,000 casualties, with potentially upwards of 80,000 deaths (27,851 official deaths and 53,658 missing or taken prisoner after the battle).
The Germans had suffered 81,000 casualties, among 14,000 deaths and 8,000 missing, with an additional 17,400 – 25,000 taken prisoner by the French.
The combined offensive of the Second Battle of Champagne, Third Battle of Artois, and Battle of Loos was the last great Allied attempt to break through the trench stalemate in 1915, as the Western Front on 1916 would be characterized by bloody attritional warfare on even larger scales.
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