Schematic plan · World War I

Battle of Festubert

16 May 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.

Great Britain (Br 1st Army(-), 90,365 men under Gen Haig) attacked Germany (Ger 6th Army(-), 30,000 men under Cr Pr Rupprecht) in France. The CAA Database of Battles records 240 hours of fighting on a front of 6 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that Germany held. Losses: Great Britain 16,648 (18%), Germany 5,000 (17%).

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

Great Britain

Gen Haig

Unit	Arm	Men
Great Britain left wing	Infantry	20,129
Great Britain centre	Infantry	26,838
Great Britain right wing	Infantry	20,129
Great Britain reserve	Infantry	16,774
Great Britain artillery (433 guns)	Artillery	6,495
Gen Haig	Commander	—
In this plan		90,365

Germany

Cr Pr Rupprecht

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	7,200
Germany centre	Infantry	9,600
Germany right wing	Infantry	7,200
Germany reserve	Infantry	6,000
Cr Pr Rupprecht	Commander	—
In this plan		30,000

What the sources report

	Great Britain	Germany
Strength, this plan	90,365	30,000
Losses, this plan	16,648	5,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 292, “Festubert”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 240 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Flat, Mixed
Weather: Wet, Light precipitation, Temperate, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 6 km (attacker), 6 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Great Britainattacker	90,365	16,648	0	433	Frontal attack; Penetration; Stalemate
Germanydefender	30,000	5,000	0	—	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Penetration; 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. 292 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Festubert · 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.