Schematic plan · World War I

First Battle of Champagne

15 February 1915
France
Victory for Germany

All battles The event in the chronicle Wikipedia

A schematic plan, generated from the statistics of the CAA Database of Battles: the armies' size and width, the hours of fighting, the plan of attack and the outcome are as recorded; the ground and the positions are not.

France (Fr 4th Army, 163,182 men under Gen Langle de Cary) attacked Germany (Ger 3rd Army, 85,220 men under Gen Hausen) in France. The CAA Database of Battles records 696 hours of fighting on a front of 17 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that Germany held. Losses: France 42,820 (26%), Germany 23,050 (27%).

This plan is generated from those figures. It shows the shape of the battle the database describes: the size and width of the armies, the plan of attack and the outcome. It does not show where the units actually stood.

The armies

France

Gen Langle de Cary

Unit	Arm	Men
France left wing	Infantry	35,999
France centre	Infantry	47,999
France right wing	Infantry	35,999
France reserve	Infantry	29,999
France artillery (879 guns)	Artillery	13,185
Gen Langle de Cary	Commander	—
In this plan		163,181

Germany

Gen Hausen

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	18,761
Germany centre	Infantry	25,014
Germany right wing	Infantry	18,761
Germany reserve	Infantry	15,634
Germany artillery (470 guns)	Artillery	7,050
Gen Hausen	Commander	—
In this plan		85,220

What the sources report

	France	Germany
Strength, this plan	163,182	85,220
Losses, this plan	42,820	23,050

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 289, “Eastern Champagne”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 696 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Flat, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 17 km (attacker), 17 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Franceattacker	163,182	42,820	0	879	Frontal attack; Repulse; Stalemate
Germanydefender	85,220	23,050	0	470	Defensive plan; Stalemate

Attacker’s advantages none recorded

CDB90 (US Army Concepts Analysis Agency, 1990), tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold; data under ODC-BY 1.0.

Notes

On this reconstruction

Generated automatically from the statistics in CDB90. Frontages, depths, distances, the order of events and the terrain are schematic: they follow the recorded strengths, front widths, hours of fighting, tactical plan and outcome, not maps or accounts of the battle. The sources give no hours; the timing is conjectural.

Sources

US Army Concepts Analysis Agency; tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold, CAA Database of Battles (CDB90), no. 289 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, First Battle of Champagne · CC-BY-SA-4.0

Facts gathered from Wikidata (CC0), Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) and Wikimedia Commons (licence per file); the plan and its text are timeastra’s own.