The battle : Arras, 1917

On April 9<sup>th</sup>, 1917, 5:30 am: the British command, responsible for the military operations in
Artois, launches the Battle of Arras, an offensive without precedent against the German lines, on nearly forty
kilometers in line, Vimy (in the North) with Bullecourt (in the South), via the East of Arras.
On the tactical level, it is a question of seizing all the positions dominating the plain towards Douai. On a
strategic planning, it actually acts of a vast operation of diversion, intended to attract the German troops in
this zone of engagements, to facilitate an offensive of great width of the French troops on Aisne.
To make the lines move to the East of Arras, the British will imagine and implement the most incredible
surprised attack of History, mobilizing more than 24,000 soldiers, in the greatest secrecy of an underground
city arranged for the occasion...
Emerging from oblivion the imaginary testimonies of four anonymous heroes, coming from the four corners of
the earth, Frédéric Logez makes us «live» - with the obsession of historical precision, the sense of staging,
and the emotion of the feature which characterize him - arrangements, strokes of genius, the madness of an
unthinkable battle supposed to put an end to the war...
New Zealand tunnellers, Australian soldiers, Newfoundlanders, Canadian, English, Welsh, Scot, Irish... all
the British universe had met on the Artois soil. The only and last travel for most of them.