LOOS

PAS DE CALAIS, FRANCE 25 SEPTEMBER - 13 OCTOBER 1915

- Written by Mark Simner

FOR THE FRENCH, THE OCCUPATION OF THEIR SOIL BY THE ENEMY WAS NOTHING LESS THAN A NATIONAL DISGRACE

Fought from late September into early October 1915, the Battle of Loos is considered the first large British offensive of the First World War. It saw the first mass deployment of Secretary of State for War Herbert Kitchener's New Armies and the first use of poison gas by the British. Nevertheless, Loos formed only part of a much larger French attack in what became known as the Third Battle of Artois. Although the British made some initial gains, the offensive was ultimately contained by the Germans. It resulted in 60,000 British casualties and contributed to the replacement of Sir John French with Douglas Haig as Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force.

BACKGROUND

By 1915, the war on the Western Front had developed into the stalemate of trench warfare that came to characterise the First World War. The Germans, now on the defensive, held their lines on Belgian and French territory. For the French, the occupation of their soil by the enemy was nothing less than a national disgrace. Several operations had been launched by the Allied powers during the first half of the year in an attempt to break the deadlock, but all had failed.

In the Autumn of 1915, French Commander-in-Chief Joseph Joffre planned another offensive. This would include major operations in the regions of Champagne (Second Battle of Champagne) and Artois (Third Battle of Artois). The French expected the British to support the latter, in what became the Battle of Loos. The battlefield of Loos lies between the canal at La Bassée and the Lens-Noeux-les-Mines railway to the south. It was the heart of industrial northeastern France, an area of heavy coal mining dominated by slagheaps, collieries and industrial buildings.