Talk:André Sordet

Rank
The article as created listed him as a "general de corps d'armee", a rank which did not exist in WW1 (there was apparently some extra insignia - a stripe on the kepi or something - for corps and army commanders later in the war, but I've never been able to find out what it was).

A quick glance at French wiki says that "general de corps d'armee" was first referred to in a circular about insignia in 1921, and was formally created in 1939. And French generals are always just called "General" anyway - "General de Gaulle" not "General de Brigade de Gaulle".

"cite needed" for his fourth star, if it's to go back in.Paulturtle (talk) 14:04, 17 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the correction; the French Wikipedia article, fr:André Sordet, has him as a Général de division which doesn't sound right for the commander of a corps, so I took an educated guess. Alansplodge (talk) 18:51, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

If you have a look here you can see Joffre (CinC) and Langle de Cary (Army Group Commander) both wearing three stars. In the photo in this article Castelnau appears to be wearing a lot more stars but they are actually cuff buttons, and Joffre often wore the same. I'm ploughing my way through the French generals very slowly (amidst a lot of other writing projects) but I'm not really sure there's much to be said about Sordet: he disappears from the radar after September 1914.Paulturtle (talk) 00:25, 18 January 2016 (UTC) See also, fwiw, footnote 32 on page 61 of "The Greater War", a book cited in this article - Auguste Dubail as commander of First Army in 1914 and another army commander of whom I hadn't heard early in 1916 both listed as "General de Division".Paulturtle (talk) 21:54, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Le Cateau

 * I created this in preparation for an intended overhaul of our rather thin article, Battle of Le Cateau. Sordet's supporting role in the battle was said by Sir John French to have prevented the flank of the British 4th Infantry Division from being turned by the Germans, which would have led to the rout or envelopment of II Corps. This is disputed by senior British officers actually present and it has been suggested that French's exaggeration of Sordet's action was part of an effort to discredit Horace Smith-Dorrien's decision to stand and fight at Le Cateau rather than continue the retreat as French had ordered. Thus Sordet is of some British interest. Do you (or does anybody else) know why and when Sordet lost his command? Was he limogé (sacked)? Alansplodge (talk) 20:23, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Don't worry, I found it myself and have added it to the article. Alansplodge (talk) 22:02, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Cassar's biog of Sir John (pp.122-4) states as fact (sourced to the Official History and to Smith-Dorrien's account) that Sordet's intervention helped 4th Division to pull away. If you recall, Sir John praised the stand at Le Cateau at the time and then whinged about it later, both during the war and in his unreliable memoirs 1914. He later claimed inter alia that he had not been informed at the time about the important role played by Sordet, but in fact Smith-Dorrien had reported on the matter on 29 August. Purely by coincidence, I just ordered a copy of "The Man Who Disobeyed", Beckett's biog of Smith-Dorrien, off Amazon this evening as I've never got round to reading it.

I think the other thing which could do with clarification is the march of Sordet's force - they were in the north at one point, then on 24 August Sir John asked him to cover the British left (Cassar p.116), but Sordet replied that he had to get clearance from his own chain of command. He must have moved over to the British left between then and Le Cateau, but when was he maintaining a link between the BEF and French Fifth Army on the right? German cavalry were pushing into the gap between those two forces at one point. Three of Allenby's five British cavalry brigades were on the left, whilst Gough wandered over to the right to join up with the other brigade there and form his own ad hoc division.Paulturtle (talk) 23:57, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

The map of the battle of Charleroi has him between the BEF and Fifth Army. The map on the Battle of the Marne page has him on the British right for Charleroi/Mons, then the British left at Le Cateau, then once again between the British right and French Fifth Army at the Marne.Paulturtle (talk) 21:23, 19 January 2016 (UTC) (An error on my part - the force between the British right and French Fifth Army at the Marne was Conneau's Paulturtle (talk) 03:52, 23 January 2016 (UTC))

OK, I've tracked down his movements - he stayed on the British left after Le Cateau, linking up with Maunoury's Sixth Army on the left (which originally assembled around Amiens) and then retreating west of Paris rather like the arrows of the direction von Kluck was supposed to have taken in the supposed Schlieffen Plan blueprint reproduced in every schoolboy's history textbook. Then Joffre sacked him. A separate cavalry corps, under Conneau, was put in to link the BEF right (and Gough's ad hoc cavalry division) with Fifth Army, now under Franchet d'Esperey. Will add some stuff shortly.Paulturtle (talk) 10:54, 20 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm still reading The Confusion of Command: The Memoirs of Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas D'Oyly 'Snowball' Snow 1914 -1918 by Dan Snow, in which Lieutenant-General Snow, commander of 4th Division, flatly denies that there was any German attempt to turn the flank of 4th Division or that Sordet did anything to help. According to the notes, Smith-Dorrien described Sordet's action as "late in the day". More research needed. I have found an order-of-battle for Sordet's corp in Home Before the Leaves Fall by Ian Senior, which also has some details of the corps at the Battle of the Ourcq on the day that Sordet was sacked. Alansplodge (talk) 16:55, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

"The Man Who Disobeyed" which arrived today says that Sordet (after causing an hour's delay by passing east-west behind II Corps on the night of 25/6 August, was in position on the west flank but doesn't seem to have done much fighting, if any. It was unclear at the time whether the Germans were turning the left flank, and gunfire could be heard to the left, which was actually d'Amade's middle-aged territorials holding off a German reserve division on Cambrai. The different claims are not incompatible: Sordet may well have served a useful purpose by being there to cover the flank even if his men were not seriously engaged. But then, my understanding is that we now know from German sources that they weren't all that bothered about le Cateau. The claims made by Terraine et al that it was a vigorous "stopping blow" are nonsense. Rather like Rorke's Drift, the men involved fought bravely but as far as the enemy were concerned it was a tiny engagement and they barely noticed.Paulturtle (talk) 03:51, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Point taken, but see Writing the Great War: Sir James Edmonds and the Official Histories, 1915-1948 by Andrew Green (2001), which says of Le Cateau; "Von Kluck, Commander of the German First Army, later admitted that he had been unable to outflank II Corps and that that failure had possibly cost Germany the war." Alansplodge (talk) 16:09, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Sure, but German generals wrote a lot of things like that about every battle from First Marne to Second Marne (inclusive), so it's always been easy for a certain kind of British milhist to pluck comments out of context and repeat them endlessly to paint an exaggerated picture of any given battle. Von Kuhl, who I think was Kluck's chief of staff, was a particular offender in this regard. Most of the stuff I've been refreshing my memory about lately puts a lot more emphasis on the Battle of Guise, where Lanrezac had to be given a direct written order to stand and fight, in taking the heat off the BEF and off Maunoury further in the west.Paulturtle (talk) 04:06, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Horse artillery
Wouldn't Sordet's 75 mm guns be more likely to be the Canon de 75 modèle 1912 Schneider horse artillery, than the Canon de 75 modèle 1897 field guns linked in the article? Alansplodge (talk) 13:59, 25 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Perfectly possible. I don't profess to any expert knowledge of artillery! The book just said they were 75mm.Paulturtle (talk) 03:57, 26 January 2016 (UTC)