| Battle of Laon | |||||||
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| Part of Second World War | |||||||
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 Belgium Czechoslovakia France and her colonial forces United Kingdom
|  Germany
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Laon is the capital city of the Aisne department in Picardy in northern France.
Laon in The War That Came Early
Laon was the site of a fierce battle between the Allies and the Germans during the Battle of France in early 1939. The allied high command packed as many French, British, Czechs, Belgian and African Colonial soldiers as they could into the defences and backed them up with mortars and artillery and heavy machine guns.
Both sides lacked sufficient air support and tanks, resulting in a purely infantry battle. When the Germans attacked, the built-up areas of the town proved impossible to penetrate and they were mauled. They then regrouped and tried again with the same bloody result. After their second defeat, the Germans withdrew to lick their wounds.
This marked the first time in World War II that the German Army had been stopped.
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