Second Battle of the Aisne 1917
![From the History Department of the US Military Academy West Point - [1]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aisne_Front_1917-Guignicourt.jpg){kind=link}
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Year | 1917 | Wikidata P580 (start time) |
|---|---|---|
| Era | World War I era (1914–1918) | derived from year |
| Location | France | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Western Front | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | Charles Mangin, Denis Auguste Duchêne, Erich Ludendorff, François Anthoine, French Third Republic, Fritz von Below, Georges Louis Humbert, German Empire, Joseph Alfred Micheler, Karl von Einem, Max von Boehn, Olivier Mazel, Robert Nivelle, Russian Empire, Wilhelm, German Crown Prince | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 49.4000, 3.6000 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Second Battle of the Aisne (Bataille du Chemin des Dames or Seconde bataille de l'Aisne, 16 April – mid-May 1917) 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 (BEF) 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 km (50 mi), east–west ridge of the Chemin des Dames, 110 km (68 mi) 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 (GAR, Reserve Army Group) attacked the Chemin des Dames and the next day, the Fourth Army, part of Groupe d'armées de Centre (GAC, Central Army Group), near Reims to the south-east, began the Battle of the Hills.
The Chemin des Dames ridge had been quarried for stone for centuries, leaving a warren of caves and tunnels which were used as shelters by German troops to escape the French bombardment.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Second Battle of the Aisne (revision 1375347839), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
Nearby battles
- First Battle of the Aisne 1914 · 6 km
- Third Battle of the Aisne 1918 · 10 km
- Battle of Craonne 1814 · 10 km
- Battle of La Malmaison 1917 · 11 km
- Battle of Fismes and Fismette 1918 · 12 km
- Siege of Laon (741) 741 · 18 km
Other battles of the Western Front
- Battle of Mont Sorrel 1916
- Battle of Thiepval Ridge 1916
- Battle of Verdun 1916
- Battle of the Somme 1916
- Hohenzollern Redoubt action, 2–18 March 1916 1916
- Battle of Arras (1917) 1917
- Battle of Cambrai (1917) 1917
- Battle of Messines (1917) 1917
- Battle of Passchendaele 1917
- Battle of the Hills 1917
All 48 battles of the Western Front →
Browse more: battles in France · Europe · World War I era battles