The Battle of the Aisne

The First Battle of the Aisne

From 12th September 1914 the German Army began to “dig in” on the high ground of the Chemin des Dames ridge on the north bank of the river Aisne. The Germans dug defensive trenches with the intention of securing the position and preventing any further possibility of withdrawal. This battlefield area witnessed the beginnings of entrenched positions and the change from a mobile war to a static deadlock between the opposing forces. From this date the entrenchments would gradually spread along the whole length of the Western Front, would become deeper and more impregnable and would characterize the siege warfare fighting of the Western Front for the following three and a half years.






Aerial view of the part of the battlefield where Lt Birch was killed. The Chemin Des Dames is the road running from left to right towards the top of the picture. Lt Birch's section was advancing roughly towards the position marked "A".

During the First Battle of the Aisne (12th - 15th September 1914) the German right wing could not be dislodged by the Allied forces of the French Sixth Army, the British Expeditionary Force and the French Fifth Army. The consequence of the Germans establishing entrenched positions on the Chemin des Dames ridge was that the Allied armies were unsuccessful in making a frontal assault on it. They were, therefore, compelled to look for open ground on either flank of the German position. A French assault on the German First Army's exposed right flank (i.e. the northern flank) caused the Germans to move their Seventh Army from Alsace to protect this exposed right/northern flank.