The French attack Metz in 1915

[WolfBear]

What if the French, instead of attempting to attack the Germans in the trenches near the Aisne River in 1915, would have instead merely faked preparations for a giant offensive in that direction while actually launching their real attack on Metz that year? Metz was a German fortified city, similar to Verdun in Fance. The logic in having France conquer Metz would be that France could subsequently aim to attack the Rhineland and then completely cut off the German forces in Belgium from those in Germany proper. An attempt at a giant encirclement, if you will. Anyway, just how likely would such a French strategy actually be to succeed (frankly, I suspect not very) and just how likely is a 1915 French offensive in Metz's direction simply likely to be a repeat of a combination of the 1914 Battle of the Frontiers for France and the 1916 Battle of Verdun for Germany?

Any thoughts on this?

 

[PsihoKekec]

Terrain in Metz area favours the defender even more than in the Aisne area of operations and Germans have better fortifications, so likehood of success is even lower.

 

[WolfBear]

Terrain in Metz area favours the defender even more than in the Aisne area of operations and Germans have better fortifications, so likehood of success is even lower.

What about Metz in comparison to Verdun?

 

[sillygoose]

What about Metz in comparison to Verdun?

Verdun had all its guns removed to be modified into field guns since France was so short on heavy artillery, so was basically just a glorified bunker zone that the Germans mostly took anyway in 1916. Metz is much more formidable by this point in the war.