Schematic plan · World War I (Western Front 1918)

Battle of Champagne-Marne

15 July 1918
France
Victory for France

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.

Germany (Ger 7th, 1st & 3rd Armies, 400,000 men under Cr Pr Wilhelm) attacked France (Fr 6th, 9th, 5th & 4th Armies, 450,000 men under Gen Franchet D'esperey) in France. The CAA Database of Battles records 48 hours of fighting on a front of 105 km, a double envelopment against fortified defense, and that France held. Losses: Germany 100,000 (25%), France 40,000 (9%).

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

Germany

Cr Pr Wilhelm

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	81,576
Germany centre	Infantry	108,768
Germany right wing	Infantry	81,576
Germany reserve	Infantry	67,980
Germany artillery (4,500 guns)	Artillery	60,000
Germany armour (20 tanks)	Armour	100
Cr Pr Wilhelm	Commander	—
In this plan		400,000

France

Gen Franchet D'esperey

Unit	Arm	Men
France left wing	Infantry	91,800
France centre	Infantry	122,400
France right wing	Infantry	91,800
France reserve	Infantry	76,500
France artillery (4,500 guns)	Artillery	67,500
Gen Franchet D'esperey	Commander	—
In this plan		450,000

What the sources report

	Germany	France
Strength, this plan	400,000	450,000
Losses, this plan	100,000	40,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 351, “Champagne-Marne”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 48 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 105 km (attacker), 105 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Germanyattacker	400,000	100,000	0	4,500	Double envelopment; Penetration; Repulse; Stalemate
Francedefender	450,000	40,000	0	4,500	Defensive plan; Stalemate

Attacker’s advantages momentum +1 · initiative +1 · air superiority +1

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. 351 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.

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.