Battle of Loos

Battle of Loos
Part of the Western Front of the First World War
Battle of Loos
Date 25 September – 8 October 1915 Location Loos, France 50°27′30″N 02°47′39″E / 50.45833°N 2.79417°E / 50.45833; 2.79417 Result German victory
Belligerents
British Empire  India  United Kingdom	German Empire
Commanders and leaders
John French Douglas Haig	Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria Friedrich Sixt von Armin
Strength
6 divisions	3 divisions
Casualties and losses
59,247	c. 26,000

The Battle of Loos took place from 25 September to 8 October 1915 in France on the Western Front, during the First World War. It was the biggest British attack of 1915, the first time that the British used poison gas and the first mass engagement of New Army units. The French and British tried to break through the German defences in Artois in the north and Champagne at the south end of the Noyon Salient and restore a war of movement.

Despite improved methods, more ammunition, better equipment and gas, the Franco-British attacks were contained by the Germans, except for local losses of ground. The British gas attack failed sufficiently to neutralise the defenders and the artillery bombardment was too short to destroy barbed wire and machine gun nests. German defensive fortifications and tactics could not be overcome by the British who were still assembling a mass army suitable for Western Front conditions.