Chantilly Conferences

1st Chantilly Conference July 7, 1915, The first inter-allied military conference of World War I was convened at Chantilly, France shortly after Italy entered the conflict against the Central Powers. Attending were representatives from Britain (including the Commander-in-Chief Sir John French and the Chief of the Imperial General Staff William Robertson), France (Alexandre Millerand, the war minister and Joseph Joffre, the Commander-in-Chief), Belgium, Italy, Serbia and Russia.

Joffre used the conference to advise his allies that only by concerted co-ordinated action would the most favourable conditions for an Allied victory present themselves. However no specific undertakings were agreed as a consequence of the conference. A subsequent conference, similarly convened at Chantilly some five months later, was more specific and ambitious in the clarity of its aims and led to a commitment whereby the other Allies would launch major offensives of their own should a given Allied nation find itself in clear danger from the Central Powers.

2nd Chantilly Conference December 6–8, 1915, was an Allied military planning conference involving military representatives from all Allied powers—French, British, Italian, and Russian—to formulate a coordinated strategy for the upcoming year against the Central Powers in World War I.[1]

The conference was held at the headquarters of the French army commander, General Joseph Joffre in Chantilly.[2] The British representatives were the commander-in-chief Sir John French and Sir Archibald Murray. General Carlo Porro (it) represented Italy.[3]

Marshal Joseph Joffre proposed and his Allied counterparts concurred that the offensives of the allied armies on the Western Front [4] should be delivered simultaneously or close enough in time so that the enemy would be unable to transport reserves from one front to another.".[5][6] Coordinated attacks such as this meant that they should come within a month of each other. These offensives were planned to commence as soon as possible, with local, limited attacks taking place in between them to further enervate the enemy as weather permitted.[7]

References

  1. ↑ 6-8 "Décembre 1915, Chantilly : La Grande Guerre change de rythme". François Cochet. Revue historique des armées.
  2. ↑ Spencer C. Tucker; Priscilla Mary Roberts (2005). World War I: A Student Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. pp. 468–. ISBN 978-1-85109-879-8.
  3. ↑ John R. Schindler (2001). Isonzo: The Forgotten Sacrifice of the Great War. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 129–. ISBN 978-0-275-97204-2.
  4. ↑ Elizabeth Greenhalgh (2009). Victory through Coalition: Britain and France During the First World War. Cambridge University Press. pp. 89–. ISBN 978-1-139-44847-5.
  5. ↑ Roger Chickering; Stig Förster (11 September 2000). Great War, Total War: Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front, 1914-1918. Cambridge University Press. pp. 308–. ISBN 978-0-521-77352-2.
  6. ↑ Daille, Joffre et la guerre d'usure, p. 256
  7. ↑ Keith Neilson (24 April 2014). Strategy and Supply: The Anglo-Russian Alliance 1914-1917. Taylor & Francis. pp. 151–. ISBN 978-1-317-70344-0.
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