In August, 1914, in spite of their success on the Meuse, the French
Third and Fourth Armies were ordered by Joffre to make a general retreat
towards the south. The Third Army, under Sarrail, pivoting on its right,
now rested on Verdun. Facing it was the German Vth Army, under the Crown
Prince.
The German forces, following the retreat of the French Armies, slipped
in on either side of the thick woods of the Argonne, along the Valleys
of the Aisne and the Aire.
On September 5, under Joffre’s orders, the retreat came to an end, and
the great battle, which was to save France, began. After six days of
violent fighting (see Part III--The Revigny Pass--of the Battle of the
Marne, 1914), the Crown Prince’s troops, under pressure of the French
Third Army, retreated along both flanks of the Argonne; but during the
latter half of September, they came to a stand, after reaching and
consolidating the following positions: on the east, Montfaucon,
commanding the ground between the Aire and the Meuse; Montblainville and
Varennes, commanding the Valley of the Aire; on the west, Binarville,
Servon, and Vienne-le-Château, commanding the Valley of the Aisne. A
fierce and prolonged battle then began. The French troops, held on the
flanks, pushed on into the forest, in an endeavour to cut the enemy’s
transverse lines of communication, which consisted of two main roads
from east to west (see map, p. 8).
(1) The main road from Varennes to Vienne-le-Château, _via_ the
Four-de-Paris, where a road running north-south branches, crossing at
Les Islettes, the “National Road,” and the railway from
Châlons-sur-Marne to Verdun, via Sainte-Menehould.
(2) The wide forest road which, two or three kilometres to the north,
runs almost parallel to the first road, from Montblainville to
Servon-Melzicourt, _via_ Bagatelle, and across the Bois de la Gruerie.
The Germans, on their part, made every effort to maintain their lines of
communication. Moreover, they had not given up the hope of encircling
and taking Verdun. Through the transverse valleys of the Aire and the
Aisne, and the central passage of the Biesme, they threatened to cut the
Châlons-Verdun Railway, and thereby separate the Army of Champagne from
that of Verdun. The importance of the Argonne position thus becomes
evident, and explains the fury of the fighting which took place there.