Thread: Years Ago Today. Tags: None. Flying Officer Kyte said: Originally Posted by Hedeby. Hedeby said: Originally Posted by Flying Officer Kyte. Sorry to hear of your incapacity Major Hedeby. I trust you are suitably recovered, and don't require a Blighty. Good to have you back. Never Knowingly Undergunned!!
October 23rd Looks like a quiet day all round with many of the usual feeds coming back empty - so lets see what we can find A German division is heavily gassed and routed. The French captured the village and fort of La Malmaison and took control of the Chemin des Dames ridge. The German 7th Army General Max von Boehn had discovered French preparations for the attack and also identified the date and time. Boehn chose to defend the front positions, rather than treat them as an advanced zone and to conduct the main defence north of the OiseβAisne Canal.
The German artillery was outnumbered three-to-one and on the front of the 14th Division, 32 German batteries were confronted by French, which silenced most of the German guns before the attack. Gas from French bombardments on low-lying land near the OiseβAisne Canal in the Ailette valley, became so dense that it was impossible to carry ammunition and supplies forward or to remove the wounded.
Battalions from specialist German counter-attack divisions Eingreifdivisionen had been distributed along the front line and were caught in the French bombardments, German infantry shelters having been identified by French air reconnaissance and systematically destroyed. Zero hour had been set for a. The French infantry advanced behind an elaborate creeping barrage but the earlier zero hour meant that the attack began in the dark.
Rain began to fall at a. Fifteen tanks were immobilised crossing no man's land or in the German front line but the 21 remaining tanks and the infantry reached the German second position according to plan. The fort was in the northern angle between the Chemin-des-Dames and the SoissonsβLaon road. The fortress casemates were tested with high explosives in and found to be insufficiently robust.
