The attack began on the morning of April 16. In a matter of minutes,
Nivelle's plans proved faulty. As at the Somme, machine guns and machine
gunners survived the bombardment and cut down the attacking forces. More
and more French troops were sent forward—Nivelle's plan had called for
fresh forces to pass through the ranks of those who had exhausted themselves
in the first attack—and newcomers and the day's veterans were
packed together.
As Petain had predicted, the French lacked enough heavy guns (would
even twice as many have been enough for a full-fledged breakthrough?) to
bombard all of the enemy's positions in the attack zone. Bad weather made
it impossible for airplanes to direct artillery fire. The rolling barrage,
designed to strike the areas directly in front of the attacking infantry, was
transformed into random firing. In the end, the French attackers barely
penetrated the German defenses.
This futile battle at the Chemin des Dames brought nothing of what
Nivelle had pledged. The promise of winning a decisive victory sank
without a trace into no man's land. So too did Nivelle's pledge to break the
fighting off in forty-eight hours. His scattered forces, many of them placed
in perilous positions along the front, could not simply pull back. And the
fighting went on.
World History
