L'Empereur est mort: A French AAR

[stnylan]

That was a rather bad outcome for France - shockingly so in fact.

How will France deal with this - bureaucratic heads rolling is one thing, but it is the army which needs to adapt.

 

[Mat Man]

A horrible defeat with the destruction of a large portion of the Continental French army quickly turns an offensive war into a defensive struggle. And with your only opponent so far being the South German Federation, you'd struggle even harder against the Tripartines. One can only wonder if Tripartine forces have already completely occupied the Southern Slavs and are at the gates of Kiev like Russian high command predicted. I anticipate seeing the battle that will turn Canrobert into a hero.

 

[Specialist290]

As I was reading this update a rather vivid mental image popped into my head -- a period political cartoon with caricatures of Briand and Vaillant dressed in neoclassical Romanesque garb, with Briand weeping and crying out "Vaillant! Give me back my legions!"

 

[stnylan]

As I was reading this update a rather vivid mental image popped into my head -- a period political cartoon with caricatures of Briand and Vaillant dressed in neoclassical Romanesque garb, with Briand weeping and crying out "Vaillant! Give me back my legions!"

That is a very potent image, I rather fear I will hear Brian Blessed crying that for at least a week.

 

[The Number 9]

A crushing defeat for the French Republic. It will be difficult to recover from this.
But, France is never as dangerous as when she is pinned down. Now, there must be a reaction.

And let's see how this evolve politically. Some might take their chances with this fragile republic.

 

[Idhrendur]

Gas defense can take a long while to pop. It can make things very hairy.

 

[Andreios II]

Yowch! What a way for the Army to come crashing down to earth after years of great victories and colonial successes. Whatever happens in this war, reform of the whole army structure is due.

It's really interesting to see how Great Power politics have evolved with the absence of the German Kaiserreich. Surely they must be tempted to get in the game and bash Austria, or are they in such disarray that they can't face the Triple Monarchy?

For everyone's sake I hope white peace is agreed soon, before more unrest occurs! What's Britain's view of the war? Can't imagine they want a totally dominant Austria...

 

[Nikolai]

Did really a force four to five times larger lose so badly?

 

[Director]

That was... bad. It does point up the incredible shift in military power from the offensive to the defensive, and you can use that - if you can draw the enemy forward onto your prepared positions (bait), then reinforce your stack and crush them (and switch). The loss of manpower is serious, the loss of formations might be crippling. I wish you - and your France - the best of luck in getting past this.

Poor Italy...

@stnylan - if Brian Blessed whispered it, my ears would be ringing for days LOL.

 

[volksmarschall]

Damn RNG! Damn dice! Your generals have obviously ceased offering up your their sacrifice to RNGesus.

 

[RossN]

Marshal August Canrobert, Commander-in-Chief of the French Army, 1908 to 1911.​

Part Sixty Eight - Battle for the Rhine Part Two


General August Canrobert, the hero of the Mitteleuropan War bore scant resemblance to Achille Boué de Lapeyrère his predecessor as Commander-in-Chief of the French Army. Canrobert was born in 1852 near Strasbourg, the son of a successful lawyer. His mother was a native German speaker, though her family had been French citizens since the late 17th century. The young Canrobert grew up in relative bourgeoisie comfort but had little interest in legal affairs and joined the Army in 1873. His Alsatian accent, his Protestantism and his urban middle class origins marked him out among an officer corps of conservative, Catholic leanings. The shock of the 1875 Revolution turned the consensus of French life upside down and politicised the young Canobert, then serving as a lieutenant of the artillery in Algeria: "all at once I felt my felt the unthinking royalism of my schooling and youth fall away... overnight I became the most patriotic of republicans."

Canrobert's republican sympathies and later his support for Laïcité made him part of a small, if growing, collection of mostly young Army officers that also included the likes of Adolphe de Gaulle and Joseph Gallieni. The Army 'republicans' were overwhelmingly middle class and urban, liberal rather than socialist and if a majority were at least nominally Catholic their ranks were disproportionately Protestant or Jewish. Many, among them Canorobert, joined the Freemasons. During the extraordinarily tense times of the Dreyfus Affair he had expressed his sympathies for the captain. It was during the Dreyfus Affair that Canrobert first met his future Minister of War Georges Clemenceau. The two men agreed on many political matters though Canrobert thought M. Clemenceau too far to the left and disagreed with him on Russia. When it came to personality the gap was wider. Canrobert was an urbane and affable man, able to win friends even with his starkest opponents whose smile hid a keen intellect. Clemenceau was tough minded and fiery, with a personal disregard of danger. During the war he would make many trips to the front, greatly impressing the soldiers but to the chagrin of Canrobert who dreaded what sort of politician they would force upon him should Clemenceau be killed!

Despite his republicanism and his support for Laïcité Canrobert had been shocked and angered by the Affaire des Fiches and wrote to Boué de Lapeyrère, offering his resignation as someone who had, albeit unwittingly, benefited from General Louis André's disgraceful behavior. Though they disagreed profoundly on politics Boué de Lapeyrère refused the resignation on the grounds that Canrobert had no knowledge of the deception and his own merit would have seen promotion in any event. Deeply touched Canrobert would remain loyal to his 'chief', penning a sympathetic biography of the late marshal in 1913.

Canrobert had already won the first victory of the war at Freiburg but after the battle of Karlsruhe he had pulled most of his Fourth Army back across the Rhine, judging he no longer had the manpower to hold the city. Indeed the South German inflicted a stinging defeat on General Édouard Bugeuad at the Second Battle of Freiburg (9 December 1907) [1]. Bugeuad's defeat left the South Germans with a route into France proper and they began their offensive on Saint Stephen's Day.

The Battle of Colmar, 26 December 1907 to 1 January 1908.

​

Canorobert's defense of Colmar was remarkable, not because it broke the back of the South German Army (it did not), but because he was able to marshal one at all given the post-Karlsruhe chaos of the French Army. Aside from poison gas the French at Colmar suffered the indignity of being bombarded by their own artillery pieces; the South Germans had captured hundreds of intact 75mm's and their ammunition at Karlsruhe. Despite this, Canrobert, an officer with a natural eye for efficiency and considered an expert in the school of defence managed to cobble together a disparate force capable of pushing the South Germans back across the Rhine.

Victory at Colmar halted the South German advance in the south but in the north the story was very different. Originally the Second Army had been in place here but that force had all but disintegrated in the wake of Karlsruhe and was in throes of a reorganisation. Here, with the French at their weakest the South Germans struck in force. On 31 January the entire 19e division d'infanterie under General Léopold Boulanger (a younger cousin of the famed former War Minister) surrendered to the South Germans at Kaiserslautern.

The Battle of Kaiserslautern, 31 January 1908.

​

Kaiserslautern was a direct result of the defeat at Karlsruhe where the collapse of the French in the centre and north of the front had left Boulanger stranded in a pocket rapidly surrounded by the South Germans. Even without the chaos in Paris, where M. Clemenceau had just assumed the War Department it is doubtful the French had the resources to save him in time. As if the news was not grim enough on 6 February Marshal Boué de Lapeyrère finally passed away, victim to the illness that had been labouring him for months, hastened by the strain imposed by Karlsruhe. As early as the end of December it had become clear he would likely not recover and the dying man recommended that Canrobert succeed him. Clemenceau, M. Briand and President Millerand agreed and Canrobert found himself made a Marshal of France and promoted to Commander-in-Chief.

Few generals might have faced a more thankless promotion. The South Germans had been pushed back at Colmar but Rheinland and the French Palatinate were all but defenceless and for much of the rest of the war would see a South German military presence [2]. In a move that proved controversial Canrobert refused to transfer his limited resources to the north, insisting to Clemenceau that, at least as far as France was concerned, the war would be won or lost in the centre and the south. Canrobert therefore concentrated his forces in Alsace.

Canrobert would blamed by some for sacrificing Rheinland and the French Palatinate and accused of favouring his own birthplace. This was unfair. The main thrust of the South German offensive was in Alsace and if the enemy broke through there the war would be lost no matter how many soldiers were in Rheinland. Soon after succeeding Boué de Lapeyrère he pointed out the great sacrifice of men and treasure that had been sent to aid an Italy only weeks from collapse. That was not a mistake a weakened France could afford to repeat.

Just over a month after Kaiserslautern Canrobert's strategy would be put to the test at Metz where the South German offensive was stalled and then at Strasbourg where Canrobert encircled much of the surviving South German Army.

The Battles of Metz & Strasbourg, March 1908.
​

The two battles of Metz and Strasbourg, fought between 8 and 21 March broke the South German Army. Neither won the war and there would be many bloody battles ahead to dislodge the South Germans from Rheinland but after Strasbourg France was essentially continually on the offensive once more. Only the collapse of Italy that same month and the consequent stiffening of the South Germans with the Hapsburg reserves would keep Munich in the war throughout 1908. On the other hand had Canrobert not won his victories it is probable than the Italian rout would have persuaded the shaking French government to come terms. In truth France was almost the only power among the anti-Hapsburg coalition that was enjoying much success in 1908.

The reasons for the turn around in French fortunes were in many ways simply down to the much greater size and resilience of France as compared with the South German Federation. At the beginning of the war France, with her great overseas commitments in Africa and Asia and the sharply reduced military budgets of the Socialist government had only enjoyed a modest majority in front line superiority along the Rhine. The South German standing army was, in proportion to the South German population, far larger than their French enemies. However, the longer the war continued the greater the odds shifted in the French favour as her pool of reservists dwarfed that of her foe. Every month more and more French reservists reached the front lines while the South German forces had already passed their peak.

This is not to minimize how great a disaster Karlsruhe was for the French. Vast quantities of material had been lost along with thousands of professional officers and non-commissioned officers. None of these things could be easily replaced. A tiny handful of the estimated seventy five thousand French soldiers captured during the war would escape from the prisoner of war camps established in Bavaria but even this slim stream dried up after April 1908 when the vast majority of French prisoners were transferred to Bohemia, as far from the front lines as possible.

Marshal Canrobert, as he now was, could not conjure experienced men out of thin air but he, working closely with Clemenceau, sought to at least keep the Army efficient. The artillery corps was reorganised to communicate better with the infantry. Hardest hit by the changes in organisation were the cavalry. The French cavalry were the proudest in Europe and throughout the 19th century they had been vital in many hard fought victories. However in the age of the machine gun, poison gas and bolt-action service rifles they were increasingly vulnerable compared to the damage they could achieve. To their chagrin the hussars and cuirassiers were often ordered to play a diminished role in front line fighting, though the dragoons continued to see much service.

The French army airship La République.
​

Though the horse mounted soldiers remained in their role as scouts Canrobert briefly pondered a greater reliance on aircraft to take up this function. Unfortunately, the aeroplanes available in 1908 were woefully inadequate to the task. Slow, flimsy and short ranged they were exceptionally vulnerable to ground fire. "The aeroplane may be an asset in war... but the time is not yet," Canrobert concluded in a June 1908 report to Clemenceau. In fact, though not widely known at the time the brilliant young aviator Louis Blériot, was even then hard at work building a superior aeroplane. Unfortunately Blériot revolutionary monoplanes would not truly become available until after the end of the war [3].

The perceived inefficiency of the aeroplane led the French Army to reconsider the role of the airship. At the start of the war France had one operational military airship (La République) but as one of his last acts as Minister for War Théophile Delcassé had ordered an additional three to be built. Clemenceau would prove far more doubtful about the actual use of the airships.

However Clemenceau had other things on his mind, as did Briand and the rest of the government. France was facing a constitutionally required election in October 1908.


Footnotes:

[1] Bugeuad's troops had retreated from Karlsruhe and I was unable to get them out in time.

[2] In game terms the French Palatinate is Saarbrücken and Kreuznach. French owned Rheinland consists on the old Kingdom of Rhineland and Luxembourg.

[3] I did get the 'Blériot crosses the English Channel' event as early as March 1908 over a year ahead of his equivalent in our time but unfortunately game mechanics mean that I can't build military unit aeroplanes until 1914.

 

[RossN]

My apologies for how long this took to update. I had been hoping to have this up at the end of last week but I wasn't able to.

~~~~~

Bored Student1414: The next update will focus on the election and 1909 and I hope to touch on other aspects like Russia there.

J_Master: They are an actual satellite of the Tripartite Monarchy, not just in their sphere. Which makes wars with Austria utterly exhausting as you can see!

loup99: Yes, the political situation is very fraught right now as you can probably imagine. This is a grueling war for all involved (and frustrating on a personal level since there is so little action at sea and I had begun to build dreadnoughts.)

guillec87: Well the war is not yet over!

stnylan: Indeed. Unfortunately my most serious deficiency - a lack of protection against poison gas - will not be remedied until after the war.

Mat Man: Oddly despite being a satellite I think the South German Federation has the highest Military technology of the combatants. Unfortunately the Tripartite forces proper are only very slightly behind me and more than a match for Italy or Russia (at least without my aid.)

Specialist290: Hah! That is a great image, especially with the I, Claudius casting stnylan suggested!

The Number 9: In some respects the period immediately before the war might have seen the republic at the least fragile she has ever been. Admittedly the war is an immense strain on the country.

Idhrendur: Very true.

Andreios II: I'll try and cover the foreign reaction in the next (politically orientated) update.

Nikolai: Yes. I suffered a perfect storm of negative attack modifiers thanks to terrain and fortifications, a better general for them (at least defensively), their having poison gas and some truly abyssmal rolling.

Director: I believe I've survived the worst but the worst was far worse than I feared!

volksmarschall: Hah! I'll tell the quartermasters more sacrifices!

 

[Mat Man]

I see that France is in the position the Union was in the American Civil War, with the deciding factor not being battles won but overwhelming the enemy with superior manpower reserves. I imagine that the SGF is as militarily powerful as it is because the Tripartines specifically designed the country to be a march against the French and the NGF. And the zeal of the South Germans to fight coming from the idea that it's the final struggle against the French to unify all Germans. It's good that the war is turning back into French favor, but what you mentioned about France being the only member of the Anti-Hapsburg facing success makes me worried about Russia and her Balkan buddies.

 

[Bored Student1414]

Do you hear, in the countryside, the roar of those ferocious soldiers?​

Marshal Canrobert has salvaged the situation and saved France from brink of defeat but the war goes on. I am concerned that you really have not fought the actual forces of the Hapsburg empire much in the narrative so far. I fear that the SGF is only a warm-up. The SGF used their initial advantage well but they lack the resources to defeat France in the long run. Pity about your battleships but Austria never had much of a navy. Out of universe, you knew the SGF would fight but did you think the SGF would be so damaging to the French army before the war?
I have no idea who will win the election although I doubt the socialists (both pro and antiwar together) will keep a majority. Will the anti-war socialists increase in popularity or be blamed for France's dire situation?

 

[guillec87]

it seems the war would last a few more years...

 

[Badesumofu]

I must say, my jaw dropped when I saw that battle screen from the poison gas engagement. You wrote it very well, setting up that the earlier loss was due to a lack of artillery. Then introduce the major battle - the artillery is in place - the force looks good - and then the result. Wow.

Just as an aside, isn't in interesting how the PDS games can actually make us feel nationalistic sentiments towards nations that we have little or no real-world connection to. I have been to France and I did (and do) adore the place, I love to cook and eat French food, but that's as far as my connection to France goes in reality. But because I tend to play France in EU and Vicky I find myself experiencing the stirrings of nationalism even though intellectually I generally think that nationalism is a bad and unhelpful thing.

 

[stnylan]

I wonder if he will go into politics with such a resounding success in this war.

 

[Nikolai]

I wonder if he will go into politics with such a resounding success in this war.

He sure seems to amass the clout required in this war.

 

[Idhrendur]

Well, it seems you're holding at least. Hopefully it'll be enough to win it. Maybe gas defense will even pop, which could turn things around!

 

[Specialist290]

I wonder if he will go into politics with such a resounding success in this war.

He sure seems to amass the clout required in this war.

Thirding this; Canrobert is basically the savior of France at this hour, in fact if not by acclamation. He'd have to be a second Cincinnatus to resist the temptation of a political career in post-war France.