The Battle of Rossignol one of the first battles of the First World War, was part of the Battle of the Frontiers on the Western Front between the German and French armies. To counter the German invasion of Belgium, the French commander-in-chief, General Joseph Joffre, ordered an attack upon the centre of the German front. The attack was to be conducted by the French Fourth Army comprising the Colonial Corps and II Corps. Simultaneously, the German army turned the 5th Army southwards towards the French border. The French Colonial Corps advanced towards Neufchâteau expecting the nearest German forces to be several days march away.

The Battle of the Frontiers comprised battles fought along the eastern frontier of France and in southern Belgium, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War. The battles resolved the military strategies of the French Chief of Staff General Joseph Joffre with Plan XVII and an offensive adaptation of the German Aufmarsch II deployment plan by Helmuth von Moltke the Younger. The German concentration on the right (northern) flank, was to wheel through Belgium and attack the French in the rear.