First Battle of the Marne
The First Battle of the Marne or known in France as the Miracle on the Marne was a battle of the First World War fought from 5 to 12 September 1914. The German army invaded France with a plan for winning the war in 40 days by occupying Paris and destroying the French and British armies. The Germans had initial successes in August. They were victorious in the Battles of Mons and the Frontiers and overran a large area of northern France and Belgium. In what is called the Great Retreat the Germans pursued the retreating French and British forces more than southwards. The French and British halted their retreat in the Marne River valley, while the Germans advanced to from Paris.
With the battlefield reverses of August, Field Marshal John French, commander of the British Expeditionary Force, lost faith in the French and began to plan for a British retreat to port cities on the English Channel for an evacuation to Britain. Joseph Joffre, the French commander, maintained good order in his retreating army and was able to reinforce it with troops from his eastern flank and by integrating military reserve units into the regular army. By early September, the Franco–British forces outnumbered the Germans, who were exhausted after a month-long campaign, had outrun their supply lines and were suffering shortages. On 3 September, the military governor of Paris, Joseph Gallieni, perceived that the German right flank was vulnerable and positioned his forces to attack.
On 4 September Joffre gave the order to begin a counter-offensive. The battle took place between Paris and Verdun, a west-to-east distance of. The point of decision and the most severe fighting was in the western half of that area. By 9 September, the success of the Franco–British left the German 1st and 2nd Armies at risk of encirclement, and they were ordered to retreat to the Aisne River. The German armies ceased their retreat after on a line north of the Aisne River, where they dug in on the heights and fought the First Battle of the Aisne. The German retreat from 9 to 12 September marked the end of the German attempt to defeat France quickly. Both sides next commenced reciprocal operations to envelop the northern flank of their opponent in what became known as the Race to the Sea that culminated in the First Battle of Ypres and led to the bloody four-year long stalemate of trench warfare on the Western Front.
The Battle of the Marne from September 5 to 12 resulted in estimated casualties of 250,000 French, 12,733 British and 298,000 Germans. Holger Herwig called the Battle of the Marne the most important land battle of the 20th century, John J. Tierney, Jr, argued it was the most important battle in history. The battle is described in French folklore as the "miracle on the Marne."
Background
The combatants
Germany declared war on France on 3 August 1914. Both sides expected a short war. Germany faced the spectre of a two-front war, facing Russia in the east and France and Britain in the west. German strategy was to defeat France in six weeks and then turn its attention to Russia. As envisioned by the Schlieffen Plan, the Germans embarked on a rapid, circular, counter-clockwise offensive through Belgium and into France with the objective of capturing Paris and enveloping and destroying the French army east of Paris within their six-week timetable. The German violation of Belgium's neutrality brought the United Kingdom into the war. Britain sent the British Expeditionary Force to France.Germany created seven armies for service on the western front. Three of them on the German right flank would be most involved in the Battle of the Marne. At the beginning of the war, the First Army numbered 320,000 men commanded by Alexander von Kluck; the Second Army had 260,000 men commanded by Karl von Bülow; and the Third Army commanded by Max von Hausen had 180,000 men. These numbers would be depleted by the time of the Marne Battle. The French army stationed on the western front initially consisted of five armies of which the Fourth Army, commanded by Fernand de Langle de Cary, and the Fifth Army, commanded by Charles Lanrezac, on its left flank would be most involved in the Battle of the Marne. Two additional French armies would be created to stem off the German offensive: the 6th Army commanded by Joseph Gallieni, created to protect Paris; and the 9th commanded by Ferdinand Foch. The French armies engaged in the Marne Battle were reinforced by reservists, recruits, and by transfers from other French and colonial armies. French divisions facing the German right wing rose from 17.5 on 23 August to 41 on 6 September, numbering more than 700,000 men. The BEF numbered 130,000 men at the beginning of the war and was commanded by John French.
The Commanders-in-Chief of the armies were a study in contrasts. Moltke, the chief of the German General Staff, remained at his headquarters in Luxembourg throughout the battle. He issued General Directives by way of emissaries from his headquarters, but gave his army commanders wide latitude in their operations. By contrast, the French commander, Joseph Joffre, was a whirlwind of activity. Joffre visited his armies and their commanders frequently, driven by a Grand Prix race car driver. He was ruthless in firing more than 30 French generals who did not meet his standards. John French, the British commander, was intimidated by the casualties suffered by the British in initial battles and thereafter reluctant to engage the Germans, but finally played an important role in the Battle of the Marne.
The strategies of the French and Germans likewise contrasted. The French focused their attention, troops, and defences in eastern France where they believed the Germans would be most dangerous. They were wrong. The Germans mostly stayed on defence in the east, although blunting French attacks. In the east, France had the objective of regaining Alsace–Lorraine which it had lost to Germany in the Franco-German war of 1870. The French did not fortify their northwestern border with Belgium as they did not expect the Germans to attack there and also feared being accused of violating Belgian neutrality—and thereby losing British participation in the war. Germany, however, had no compunctions about violating Belgian neutrality as its objective was to win the war quickly before the United Kingdom could intervene decisively. The French and British were outnumbered in contesting the German offensive through Belgium into France.
The Germans recognized that a long war was not in their interest as the resources of France, the United Kingdom, and Russia were far greater than their own. To win the war with France quickly would even the odds. To historian Herwig, the Schlieffen Plan, the violation of Belgian neutrality, and the German invasion of France in 1914 were "an all-or-nothing throw of the dice, a high-risk operation born of hubris and bordering on recklessness."
The Great Retreat
The Germans and the French had different strategies for what they anticipated would be a short war. France's top priority was to recover Alsace-Lorraine, lost to Germany in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Germany's priority was to defeat France quickly, so that it could turn its attention to the Russians. Both armies at the beginning of the war believed that offence would prevail over defence. The French military philosophy has been characterized as the "cult of the offensive," a belief that elan and cran were the essential elements of military victory. The "most terrible August in the history of the world" proved them wrong as artillery and machine guns triumphed over elan and cran. A French lieutenant named Charles de Gaulle said 'that all the courage in the world cannot prevail against gunfire."August 1914 saw bloody battles, nearly all of which the Germans won, the conquest of most of Belgium by Germany, and the rapid advance of the German armies into France. North and west of Paris, the French and British armies retreated before the German onslaught. East of Paris, the French army launched several offensives into Alsace-Lorraine which failed. France's military Plan XVII anticipated that Germany would concentrate most of its forces in eastern France in Alsace-Lorraine and Joffre clung to that belief, although the commander of the 5th French army, Charles Lanrezac, repeatedly warned him that the Germans were attacking Belgium in numbers exceeding those of his own and the BEF. Retired general Joseph Gallieni also warned Joffre that the German's main effort was in the northwest, not the east.
On 24 August, Joffre finally acknowledged that his northwestern flank was at risk. He abandoned the aggressive Plan XVII and instead proclaimed that the French armies were "forced to take defensive action...to wear down the enemy's strength and resume the offense in due course." The Great Retreat began in which the French 3rd, 4th, and 5th armies and the BEF on the French left began a retreat, mostly walking rather than fighting. The French were followed by the German 1st, 2nd, and 3rd armies. Hundreds of thousands of German, French, and British soldiers marched southeast in summer heat, wearing woollen uniforms and carrying packs, the Germans motivated by the belief that they would soon capture Paris and end the war. German commanders exulted in their victories, but Chief of General Staff Moltke was worried. The Germans were capturing few prisoners and arms, an indication that the French and British were retreating in good order, not in panic.
During the retreat, Joffre bolstered his defences. He created two new armies. The 6th was to defend Paris with Gallieni as the Military Governor and Michel-Joseph Maunoury as the commander of the 6th army. Gallieni demanded not only garrison troops but also a mobile force to confront the advancing Germans. The 9th army headed by Ferdinand Foch was stationed between the third and fourth French armies. Utilizing the extensive French railway system, Joffre transferred men from the two eastern armies to the Marne and integrated semi-trained French reserves into his defence.
Meanwhile, the attacking Germans had outrun their logistics and attrition among its soldiers was high. Kluck's first army had advanced beyond the railhead which supplied it. Sixty per cent of its motor transport had broken down as had fodder wagons carrying hay for horses. Its men had marched since leaving Germany one month earlier, fought several battles, and suffered 20,000 men killed, wounded, and ill. The soldiers were "like living scarecrows."
With every mile marched southward, the Germans were more isolated from the sources of their supplies while the French were closer to theirs.
Demands for more soldiers on other fronts in the war resulted in Moltke reducing the number of German attackers in France by 200,000 or more men in August. He transferred two corps to the eastern front to fight the Russians and assigned another two to besiege Antwerp and Maubeuge. The German 1st and 2nd armies on 1 August had 580,000 soldiers; at the Battle of the Marne they had 372,000. By the eve of the battle, the allied forces between Paris and Verdun numbered 980,000 French and 100,000 British soldiers while the Germans numbered 750,000. The Germans had an advantage in artillery with 3,300 to 3,000 guns.