As part of the defensive strategy for the Western Front, five defensive positions were planned to form the basis of the (defensive battle) expected in 1917. A (Flanders Position) from the Belgian coast, along Passchendaele Ridge and behind the Messines salient, to the defences of Lille, the (Wotan Position, known as the Drocourt-Quéant Line to the British) from Lille to Sailly, was to be built behind the 1915 battlefields of Loos, Vimy and Arras and the 1916 battlefield of the Somme. The (Siegfried Position, known to the British as the Hindenburg Line) was to be built across the base of the Noyon Salient, from Neuville Vitasse near Arras, through St Quentin and Laon, the Aisne east of Soissons to Cerny en Laonnois on the Chemin des Dames ridge.