The French Army on the Western Front

Abstract

This chapter investigates the case of the French Army on the Western Front. It argues that the French Army was arguably the most decentralized and adaptive army on the Western Front. French infantry units experimented sooner and more aggressively than their British and German counterparts. The chapter then analyses the army's assault tactics and elastic defenses, as well as the army's moderately decentralized command and control for most of the war. The chapter also discusses French Army's high command — the Grand Quartier Général (GQG). It recounts how the GQG struggled to isolate, identify, and promote the sort of assault, combined-arms, and defensive tactics needed. The chapter highlights two factors to take into account when testing assessment, command, and training (ACT) theory against the French Army. First, political and strategic imperatives limited the army's doctrinal options. Second, is that the French Army occupies a blind spot in the English-language military historiography on tactical change during the First World War.