Robert Nivelle - Legacy

Legacy

The British Official Historian wrote that the attempt at breakthrough had failed but that the French had gained 'considerable advantages'. "By the 20th of April they had in their hands over 20,000 prisoners and 147 guns; the railway from Soissons to Reims was freed, the enemy had been driven out of the Aisne valley west of the Oise—Aisne Canal; the German second position had been captured south of Juvincourt; and in Champagne some of the most important 'monts' had been taken. The German counter-attacks, successful at the beginning, were becoming less and less so as time went on. In particular, a great effort made on the 19th against the Fourth Army, when three divisions were thrown in between Nauroy and Moronvilliers, failed completely."

Other historians have been less generous about Nivelle's actions during the First World War. Julian Thompson contends that Nivelle was "careless of casualties," that he was a "disastrous choice to succeed Joffre as commander-in-chief," and that the planning for the Nivelle Offensive was "slapdash". In the book World War 1: 1914–1918, the execution of the Nivelle Offensive is considered to have been "murderous." David Stevenson says that the attack on the Chemin des Dames was a "disaster."

Nivelle is also considered positively in some ways. In The Macmillan Dictionary of the First World War, he is described as "a competent tactician as a regimental colonel in 1914", that his creeping barrage tactics were "innovative", and that he was able to galvanize "increasingly pessimistic public opinion in France" in December 1916." J Rickard believes Nivelle's push for a greater development of the tank contributed to its improvement by 1918, and he also says that Nivelle was a "gifted artilleryman".

The Nivelle Offensive is blamed by some historians for starting the French army mutinies of 1917. Tim Travers states that "the heavy French casualties of the Nivelle offensive resulted in French army mutinies", and David Stevenson proposes that "the Nivelle offensive-or more precisely the decision to persist with it-precipitated the French mutinies of May and June ."

Mount Nivelle on the Continental Divide in the Canadian Rockies was named for him in 1918; summits with the names of other French generals are nearby: Cordonnier, Foch, Joffre, Mangin, and Pétain.