© Nationaal Archief
Flemish troops
The First Army would join the advance to the north of Ypres. Pétain was thereby violating his own defensive doctrine, but a large-scale military operation outside France might take the pressure off his vacillating troops. Pétain wanted more than anything to keep up appearances in the face of his allies. The six divisions he contributed were carefully chosen and far from typical of prevailing French military morale.
France’s 29th and 133rd Infantry Divisions were fresh. They had been in the Nieuwpoort sector since early 1917 and had therefore been spared the bloodbath in Champagne. The 1st, 2nd, 51st and 162nd Infantry Divisions were withdrawn from Chemin des Dames for the purpose. The latter were playing a home game, since they were made up mostly of Flemish regiments recruited in the areas around Cambrai, Arras, Saint-Omer, Dunkirk, Bethune, Lille and Valenciennes.
© Musée Albert Kahn'Le Chef'
Their commander was carefully chosen too. Fifty-seven-year-old General François Anthoine was a confidante of Pétain and known as an Anglophile, a rare quality in a French officer. He was stocky. His dark eyes contrasted with a blonde moustache. An artillery officer, he was affable and a good speaker who could set others at ease. But he had a dark side. Anthoine was a calculating man, who might suddenly turn in on himself. He was highly demanding and ran a tight ship. Order was essential and Anthoine was untroubled by an execution or two when deemed necessary. According to Pétain, he was the ideal person to keep the grumbling poilus in line.
In Flanders
With summer apparently arriving in full force, in mid-June 1917 Anthoine installed his staff in Rexpoëde, on the Franco-Belgian border. The headquarters was in the local park, surrounded by lime and plane trees. These were hot, sunny days. The sunlight played through the foliage and only the occasional cloud cast a shadow across the fields. The officers were almost in holiday mood, a feeling that stood in stark contrast to what was to come.
While the staff settled in, the troops moved into quarters in villages with splendid names like Killem, Warhem, Quaëdypre or Crochte. Their positions, some thirty kilometres to the east, covered a 6.7-kilometre front, from Noordschote to Boezinge. During the offensive, the attack would take place along a front no more than 2.45 km wide, and on that narrow line were 893 precisely aimed gun barrels, including twenty railway guns to take out pillboxes. In other words, there was one artillery piece for every 2.5 metres of front line.
On the other side, huddled under the threat of hundreds of muzzles, lay troops of the 19th Landwehr Division. They were mostly Saxons. Men with families. Two thirds of them were older than forty. They were backed up by the Prussian 80th Reserve Division.
© Ministère de la CultureThe artillery would have difficulty locating the greying men. The German lines were thinly manned and many troops were concealed in an unknown number of pillboxes dotted about between the lines. In their small sector alone, the French had identified a hundred pillboxes and blockhouses. It has been estimated that at least as many reinforced positions were hidden by the folds in the landscape. They could be located only once the firing started.