Hindenburg Line

In December 1916, the Germans attempted to negotiate peace with the Allies, declaring themselves the victors, but, in correspondence with the United States, then still a neutral party, the Allies rejected the offer soundly. This German poster from January 1917 quotes a speech by Kaiser Wilhelm II lambasting them for their decision.

The Hindenburg Line was a vast system of defences in northeastern France during World War I. It was constructed by the Germans (using Russian PoWs as labour) during the winter of 1916–17. The line stretched from Lens to beyond Verdun. A portion of the line was known as the Siegfried Line, not to be confused with the better known Siegfried Line of the Second World War.

Background

The decision to build the line was made by Field-Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff, who had taken over command of Germany's war effort in August 1916, during the final stages of the First Battle of the Somme. The Hindenburg Line was built across a salient in the German front, so that by withdrawing to these fortifications the German army was shortening its front. The length of the front was reduced by 50 kilometres (31 mi) and enabled the Germans to release 13 divisions for service in reserve.

The withdrawal to the line began in February 1917 and the territory between the old front and the new line was devastated by the German army.

Description

Aerial perspective map showing location of the various systems

The Hindenburg Line at Bullecourt seen from the air in 1920

The fortifications included concrete bunkers and machine gun emplacements, heavy belts of barbed wire, tunnels for moving troops, deep trenches, dug-outs and command posts. At a distance of one kilometre or just over a half-mile in front of the fortifications was a thinly-held outpost line, which would serve a purpose comparable to skirmishers: slowing down and disrupting an enemy advance. In addition, villages (called "Outpost Villages") immediately in front of the outpost line were sometimes fortified and used to reinforce the main defenses.

The line was subdivided into five areas, named from north to south:.

• Wotan Stellung - from near Lille to St Quentin
• Siegfried Stellung (Note that this differs from the Siegfried Line, built along the German border with France prior to World War II) - from near Arras to St Quentin
• Alberich Stellung
• Brunhilde Stellung - the northern portion of the "Hunding Stellung", and went from near Craonne to near Reims
• Kriemhilde Stellung - the southern portion of the "Hunding Stellung", and went from near Reims to near Verdun

(Note: That there was an extension of the "Hunding Stellung" further south from Verdun to Metz, called the "Michel Stellung".)

Of these areas, the Siegfried Stellung was considered the strongest.

The German command believed the new line was impregnable. However it was temporarily broken through in the Battle of Cambrai in 1917 by British and Canadian forces including tanks, and was successfully permanently breached in a number of locations during the Allied Hundred Days Offensive in September 1918.

See also

• Battle of Cambrai - for the first (temporarily) successful attack of the Wotan Stellung in November 1917
• Second Battle of Bullecourt - Where the British 5th Army (using Australian and British troops, of the 2nd and 62nd Divisions.) nearly penetrated the Siegfried Stellung in May 1917
• Battle of the Drocourt-Quéant Switch - breaking a switch line of the Siegfried Stellung in front of the Wotan Line in September 1918
• Battle of St Quentin Canal - a 30-mile break (by British, Australian and American troops) in the Siegfried Stellung around the village of Bellicourt in late September 1918
• Battle of Cambrai (1918) - Canadian troops (continuing after breaking the Siegfried Stellung at the Battle of the Drocourt-Quéant Switch) breaking the Wotan Stellung at the 2nd Battle of Cambrai in October 1918
• Meuse-Argonne Offensive - American and French troops breaking the Kriemhilde Stellung in late October 1918

External links

• The Hindenburg Line: The Apotheosis of German Fortifications on the Western Front in the Great War
• Sir Raymond Edward Priestley, Breaking the Hindenburg line : the story of the 46th (North Midland) Division / with an introduction by G. F. Boyd (1919)
• An interpretation of the Bullecourt photograph.
• Yockelson, Mitchell A. (2008-05-30). Borrowed Soldiers: Americans under British Command, 1918. Foreword by John S. D. Eisenhower. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0806139197.