Grand Quartier Général (1914–1919)
Grand Quartier Général | |
---|---|
![]() Minister for War Alexandre Millerand arriving at the Chantilly Grand Quartier Général building in February 1915 | |
Active | 2 August 1914 | –20 October 1919
Country | France |
Branch | French Army |
Role | General headquarters |
Nickname(s) | GQG or Grand QG |
Commanders | |
1914–1916 | Joseph Joffre |
1916–1917 | Robert Nivelle |
1917–1919 | Philippe Pétain |
The Grand Quartier Général (abbreviated to GQG or Grand QG in spoken French) was the
GQG was commanded by the chief of staff, assisted by a varying number of subordinate generals, and had representatives to the French government and president. The headquarters of GQG was originally at
GQG was organised into a complex series of departments and bureaux that changed frequently throughout the war. This structure has been criticised by historians for failing to encourage co-operation between departments and for widespread infighting. There were also concerns about the autonomy and power vested in GQG. French policy, laid down in 1913, had been for the two most important field armies, the north and north-east, to retain operational independence. GQG, under Joffre, assumed control of these armies in December 1915 and retained them until his replacement by Nivelle when the Minister of War, Joseph Gallieni, raised concerns that the pre-war policy was being violated. GQG failed accurately to assess German casualties, basing military operations on wildly optimistic assessments of the weakness of German units and reserves.
Origins and structure
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/33/Portrait_of_Joseph_Joffre.jpg/220px-Portrait_of_Joseph_Joffre.jpg)
The Grand Quartier Général had its origins in the reforms instituted by France after their defeat in the
The chief of staff was assisted by an état-major-général, who ran the GQG general staff of around 50 officers and saw that the commander-in-chief's orders were carried out and two aides-majors with responsibilities for the individual departments of GQG.[4][5] GQG was originally organised into four bureaux (or departments). The First Bureau was responsible for organization, personnel and equipment; the Second Bureau for intelligence, information and political affairs; the Third Bureau for the planning of military operations and the Fourth Bureau (sometimes called the Direction de l'Arrière - Directorate of the Rear [lines]) for transport, communication and supply.[4][6]
The Third Bureau was considered by far the most powerful as it had control of active military operations. Its staff consisted mainly of liaison officers, embedded with individual unit headquarters. Though these officers were junior in rank to the generals commanding the armies, they held significant power over their careers through the reports made on their operations to GQG. One officer from the Third Bureau liaised with the French government and another with the president and they were said to wield "considerable political power".[7] The Fourth Bureau had a wide remit, with responsibility for the management of military railways, motor vehicles, water transport, financial offices, post offices and telegraphy and its chief was sometimes called the directeur de l'arrière (director of the rear [lines]).[4] In addition GQG was responsible for co-ordination with allied armies.[5]
First World War
Activation of GQG
The French Chief of Staff, General
Upon activation the major-général of GQG was General
The GQG established its physical headquarters at
GQG during the war
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/45/6_september_1914_gqg_joffre.jpg/220px-6_september_1914_gqg_joffre.jpg)
GQG played a key role at the start of the war. Due to illness Belin had delegated much of his role to Berthelot, further increasing the power of his influential Third Bureau.[5] The officers in that department, particularly the recent staff college graduates who were known as the Young Turks, favoured strong offensive action.[7] Having failed to initially perceive the German advance through Belgium, it was these officers who were key in persuading Joffre to attack the exposed German right flank during the Great Retreat from Mons.[7][17] As a result of the German advances in late 1914, GQG was forced to relocate its headquarters progressively westwards. It moved to Bar-sur-Aube on 31 August, Châtillon-sur-Seine on 6 September, Romilly-sur-Seine on 28 September 1914 and, on 29 November, to Chantilly, within the Paris metropolitan area, where it was to remain for the next few years. This location was suited to GQG operations due to its proximity to the seat of government and the ministries in Paris.[4]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cc/Romilly-sur-Seine_-_Plaque_commemorating_Joffre%27s_medalling.jpg/220px-Romilly-sur-Seine_-_Plaque_commemorating_Joffre%27s_medalling.jpg)
Joffre found his new command difficult; while he was able to dismiss army commanders at will (he limogered 54 generals by the time of the First Battle of the Marne) he seemed unable to remove officers from GQG. The reasons for Joffre's lack of action are unknown but historian Alistair Horne speculated that it was due to the vast power granted to the GQG staff or to Joffre's desire not to be upstaged by his staff. The GQG officers, isolated from the direct effects of the war, engaged in intrigue on a grand scale and there was little co-operation between the rival departments. The Second Bureau was often incapable of estimating the strength of the German forces committed to action.[12] At the start of the war it took until 24 August for the Second Bureau to realise that each German army corps deployed alongside a correspondingly numbered reserve corps, effectively doubling the strength of that corps in the field.[17] Throughout the war it maintained an inadequate means of calculating German casualty figures, simply assuming that for each two Frenchmen killed in battle three Germans must have fallen. In reality the figures were almost the reverse. By means of such estimations they calculated that Germany would run out of manpower reserves by early 1916. Thus the Third Bureau found itself directing French generals to undertake military operations based on wholly inaccurate assessments of the strength of opposing units.[12]
French set-backs in 1915 forced Joffre to reorganise GQG—on 11 December he replaced Belin with General Noël de Castelnau—and expand its remit.[4][12] Three entirely new bureaus were formed, that of the North Army (Armée du Nord), the North-East Army (Armée du Nord-Est) and for external theatres of war bringing GQG direct control of French armies in the field. Two major-générals were appointed, General Maurice Janin for the two army bureaus and General Maurice Pellé for the Bureau for External Theatres of War.[4] The Second Bureau was also reformed with its censorship, counter-espionage and intelligence gathering duties being passed to a new Fifth Bureau; though the Second Bureau retained some of its former intelligence responsibilities.[6]
Despite this reorganisation GQG remained dysfunctional with the Second Bureau, described as "perennial optimists" by Horne, again responsible for providing deceptive assessments of German casualties, at one point in the Battle of Verdun simply adding "a hundred thousand or thereabouts" every fortnight to the figures.[12] The confused responsibility for intelligence between the Second and Fifth Bureaus, the Ministry of the Interior and the police also led to delays in providing intelligence to the armies in the field during the battle.[18] The Third Bureau was responsible for withdrawing two and a half batteries of artillery from the fortresses of Verdun in the months leading up to that close-fought battle, despite receiving requests for reinforcements from the local commander General Frédéric-Georges Herr, who stated he could not hold if attacked in force.[12]
The autonomy and power afforded to GQG worried Minister for War
Nivelle ordered his own reorganisation on 1 January 1917, returning control of external theatres to the Ministry of War.[4] In February the 2nd and 5th Bureaus were re-united, though there remained an informal division and intense rivalry between the officers of the "old" and "new" 2nd Bureau. This division remained until the arrival of Georges Clemenceau as Prime Minister and Minister of War in November 1917.[6]
Nivelle moved the GQG headquarters forward to
At 19.00 on 16 February 1918 the offices of the Third Bureau on Algiers Street in Compiègne were hit by a bomb from a squadron of three German bombers. Serious damage was caused to the building and two officers were killed, Commandant Mathis and Captain Mallet. The dead officers were buried at the Saint-Jacques Church in Compiègne.[19] Fourteen additional officers were injured by flying glass, two of whom were hospitalised.[20]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/P%C3%A9tain_re%C3%A7oit_son_b%C3%A2ton_de_mar%C3%A9chal_%C3%A0_Metz_d%C3%A9cembre_1918.jpg/220px-P%C3%A9tain_re%C3%A7oit_son_b%C3%A2ton_de_mar%C3%A9chal_%C3%A0_Metz_d%C3%A9cembre_1918.jpg)
The GQG headquarters moved further eastwards to
Equivalent bodies in the other nations of the war were the General Headquarters (GHQ) of the British, Italian and American armies, the Oberste Heeresleitung of the German army and the Stavka of the Russian forces.[21] Though one was allowed for in the constitution, the Japanese army did not operate a General Headquarters during the war.[22] After April 1918 all Allied troops on the Western Front were placed under the command of the Grand Quartier Général des Armées Alliées (GQGA), a multi-national general staff that developed from the Supreme War Council. The GQGA was on similar lines to the GQG and came under General Ferdinand Foch, who had overall command of all Allied troops.[23]
Evolution of responsibilities
Responsibility | August 1914 | After 11 December 1915 | 13 December 1916 | 1 January 1917 | February 1917 | After 17 May 1917 | February 1918 | March 1918 | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Organisation, personnel and equipment | 1st Bureau | |||||||||
Information | 2nd Bureau | Bureau for Special Services | ||||||||
Intelligence gathering, censorship and counter-espionage | 2nd Bureau | 5th Bureau | 2nd Bureau | |||||||
Relations with the civil authorities | n/a | Section for Relations with the Civil Authorities | ||||||||
Cryptography | n/a | Bureau for Special Services | 3rd Bureau | |||||||
Military operations | 3rd Bureau | |||||||||
Telegraphy and liaison | n/a | Bureau for Aeronautics, Telegraphy and Liaison | 3rd Bureau | |||||||
Aeronautics | n/a | Bureau for Aeronautics | ||||||||
Anti-aircraft | n/a | Bureau for Aeronautics | ||||||||
Transportation, communication and supply | 4th Bureau - sometimes called the Direction de l'Arrière (Directorate of the Rear) | |||||||||
North Army | Independent | Bureau for the North Army | Independent | |||||||
North-East Army | Independent | Bureau for the North-East Army | Independent | |||||||
External theatres of war | Ministry of War | Bureau for External Theatres of War | Ministry of War | |||||||
Health services | n/a | Bureau for Health Services |
References
- ISBN 0-89839-166-0.
- ISBN 0-618-05686-6.
- OCLC 565328275.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n LaGarde, Lieutenant Benoit. "Grand Quartier Général 1914–1918". Sous-Serie GR 16 NN - Répertoire Numérique Detailleé (in French). Service Historique de Défense. Retrieved 18 January 2013.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7735-3522-0.
- ^ OCLC 1794161. Retrieved 17 March 2013.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7735-3522-0.
- ^ OCLC 565328275.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4058-1252-8.
- ISBN 978-0-7658-0975-9.
- ISBN 1-84119-209-0.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-14-017041-2.
- ^ "Journal de Marche de la Direction L'Arrière du GQG, Page 4" (in French). Secrétariat Général pour l'Administration. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
- ISBN 1-84119-209-0.
- ISBN 1-84119-209-0.
- ^ "Armée de Terre : Inventaire des journaux des marches et opérations des grandes unités" (in French). Secrétariat Général pour l'Administration. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
- ^ ISBN 1-84119-209-0.
- OCLC 1794161. Retrieved 17 March 2013.
- ^ "Journal de Marche de la Direction L'Arriere du GQG, Page 41" (in French). Secrétariat Général pour l'Administration. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
- ^ "Service de Santé en Campagne - Grand Quartier Général, Page 23" (in French). Secrétariat Général pour l'Administration. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
- ISBN 1-85109-420-2.
- ISBN 1-85109-420-2.
- ^ Lagarde, Lieutenant Benoît. "Grand Quartier Général des Armées Alliées, 1914–1918" (PDF). Sous-Serie GR 15 NN - Répertoire Numérique Detaillé (in French). Service Historique de la Défense. Retrieved 5 July 2017.
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