French headstones in the military corner of the cemetery of the village of Ostel, France. The village was recaptured by French forces in the Second Battle of the Aisne. The headstones date from April and May, 1917. © 2014 by John M. Shea
"The Germans abandoned a large area on 18 April: they left the Aisne valley, which was no longer of any use to them, moving back to Chemin des Dames. Before leaving the villages they burnt them down: Vailly, Aisy, Sancy, Jouy, the Rochefort farm. Occasionally the retreat was interrupted by fierce counter-attacks, as at Mont Sapin in the morning of 18 April. German prisoners taken nearby, at the Grinons, said they had been ordered to fall back on the Siegfried Stellung, i.e. on the ridge of Chemin des Dames. The news that part of the battle ground had been evacuated brought some relief at the GQG: 'Hope came back on the evening of 18 April. The Mangin army was looking at an enemy who was shunning them; the Mitry corps sent a series of telegrams telling of the capture of guns and large quantities of equipment. We had taken Ostel, Braye-en-Laonnais, Nanteuil-la-Fosse and our troops were moving on,' Jean de Pierrefeu wrote."
From its beginning on April 16, 1917, Robert Nivelle's offensive, the Second Battle of the Aisne, looked like failure. The attack to seize the heights of Chemin des Dames and move past the ridge to Laon and beyond was the French component of his spring offensive, one that began with the British attack at Arras that opened on April 9. If French 'hope came back' on April 18, it was after the bitter disappointment and failure of the previous two days. GQG was Grand quartier général, French general headquarters. The Siegfried Stellung was the Hindenburg Line, a zone of four heavily reinforced defensive lines.
The 1917 Spring Offensives: Arras, Vimy, Chemin des Dames by Yves Buffetaut, page 166, publisher: Histoire et Collections, publication date: 1997
1917-04-18, 1917, April, Second Battle of the Aisne, Nivelle Offensive, Mangin, Ostel
