The Battle of the Marne

by G. H. Perris

II. Kluck plunges South-Eastward

The German Staff had, in fact, no immediate intention of attacking Paris; and Kluck, passing beyond gunrange of the outer forts of the entrenched camp, was racing south-east toward Meaux and Château-Thierry after the British and the French 5th Armies. This unexpected change of direction was only discovered on the afternoon of September 2, and confirmed during the next twenty-four hours by successive cavalry and aviation reports brought in to the headquarters of the British Army, Maunoury’s Army, and the Paris garrison. It had, in fact, begun two days before, though it could not then be considered decisive. No sooner had he occupied Amiens, and crossed the Somme and Avre, than Kluck began to alter his course from south-west to south-east, while Maunoury and the British continued due south (the former two days behind the latter). Thus, while conducting foreguard actions with the British, Kluck increasingly left aside Maunoury, and came into contact with the 5th Army. Under Joffre’s orders, Maunoury continued his direct march on Paris, his last units not leaving Clermont till early on the morning of September 2, whereas the Expeditionary Force had crossed the Aisne on August 30, and traversed Senlis, Crépy, and Villers-Cotterets on the following day, to pass the Marne at and near Meaux. It is true that detachments of the German extreme right got as far afield as Creil, on the evening of September 2, and Chantilly on the following morning, but they were no more than a flank guard. Senlis, on September 2, was the last place occupied in any force, the last scene of fighting, and of assassination, pillage, and incendiarism, on the main road to Paris, 23 miles away. Immediately in front lay the forests of Ermenonville and Chantilly, an uncomfortable country for what had become a mere wing-tip of the invasion.

While Maunoury’s exhausted troops were thus left liberty, behind these woods, to re-form and rest across the north-eastern suburbs of Paris (from Dammartin to the Marne), Kluck’s main body was making south-eastward after the British at a hot pace, at the same time closing up on its left with other forces coming due south from Soissons through Villers-Cotterets. Crépy-en-Valois was occupied by the Germans on September 1, 120,000 troops passing through toward Nanteuil-le-Haudouin and Betz, which were reached on September 3. By the time Gallieni got wind of the new direction, in fact, nearly the whole of Kluck’s Army and Bülow’s right wing were nearing Meaux and Château-Thierry (27 and 54 miles east of Paris). On September 3, the British blew up the Marne bridges behind them, and altered their line of retreat to south-west, reaching quietude and reinforcements on the Seine on September 4. Kluck pursued his south-eastward course, and, having crossed the Marne, Petit Morin, and Grand Morin, established himself, on September 5, with his Staff, in the house of a Dr. Alleaume in the little country town of Coulommiers. “This is the last stage,” he is reported as saying; “the day after to-morrow, we shall leave Coulommiers to enter Paris.”[43] That programme could not be carried out. Three days later, the boaster had fled, and Sir John French was ensconced in Coulommiers Town Hall.

Before we go on to trace the advantage the Allied commanders took of this situation, we may pause to consider two questions which have been, and may yet be, keenly discussed: (1) How came Kluck, reputedly one of the best of living German officers, to perform this evolution across Maunoury’s front, and so to reach a position that was to prove fatal to the whole enterprise? (2) Was the German Staff right in deciding to postpone the attack upon Paris?

It was natural that the problem should at first be posed in this double form, because, when information is scanty, it is easier to criticise an individual commander than a Grand Staff, and because the fate of a capital is more generally interesting than a strategical hypothesis. The most usual reply to the two questions was that, while the commander had made an evident blunder, the Command had only followed the orthodox military rule that no lesser objective should be allowed to interfere with that of breaking the enemy’s main armies, and, the French and British armies being unbroken, it was right not to adventure upon another task, the reduction of a great city which might be obstinately defended, till this was accomplished. That Berlin understood the importance of taking the French capital, and hoped to take it quickly, may be assumed.[44] Among other detailed evidence, the tardiness of a message from Berlin to the Ambassador of the United States (then still neutral) in Paris warning him to prepare for this event,[45] and the fact that the German armies were not at first provided with maps of the region of the capital (see note 2), reinforce the probability that this aim was originally, as after August 29, subordinated to that of a decisive battle.

But the wisdom of the decision has been strongly questioned. “First to beat the enemy army,” says General Cherfils, “is a means to an end, and generally the best. But this means is only a rule generally justified, not at all a principle. The principle of war is higher, and, like other principles, immutable—it is that the aim of war is to impose peace, and to this end to produce on the enemy government or command an effect of decisive demoralisation. We all know that Paris was not defended, and that, if the Germans had pushed right on to the capital with their I Army, nothing would have prevented them from destroying two of the forts, bombarding Paris, and entering the city. I ask if, at that hour, such a disaster would, not have produced an effect of demoralisation equal to the finest victory. The Germans neglected to put in play the terrifying surprise of such a catastrophe. I am sure the Grand Staff must have regretted it.”[46]

More convincing reasons than this may be found for the fact that Kluck was afterwards relegated, first to a lesser command, in which he was wounded, and then to the retired list. It is an exaggeration to speak of the city as “not defended.” The garrison consisted of four Territorial divisions, to which Maunoury could have added on September 5 the nine divisions of his new army. The ring of outer forts, with a circumference of nearly a hundred miles, was too long to be held by such a force; but it was also too long for investment or general attack by the ten or eleven divisions Kluck might have brought up. The German commander would, doubtless, have struck at a short sector; and the question, probably unanswerable, is whether the defenders, in their inadequate trenches connecting the old-fashioned forts, could have prevented him from breaking through, at least until the general battle on the Marne was won. It is highly probable they could have done so. It is certain that Gallieni would have made a spirited and obstinate defence; he had received specific permission to blow up the Seine bridges within the city, if he found it necessary to retire to the south bank. We know, also, that Kluck would have had to wait several days before his heavy artillery could be brought into position. Although the shortest distance between the outer forts and the boundaries of the city is about eight miles, much of Paris might then have been destroyed. But, the Government having gone south, would there have been any “decisive demoralisation”? And what, meanwhile, would have happened to the remaining armies? Assuming that the 6th French Army would have been wholly occupied with Kluck in the Paris area, instead of on the Ourcq, could Bülow, the Saxons, and the Duke of Würtemberg have fulfilled their task on the Marne? Would there not have been a dangerous gap on their right? Kluck would then have found it much more difficult to disentangle himself, and perhaps impossible, in case of a general retreat, to keep touch with his colleagues.

It has been stated, not very convincingly, that, in daring to pronounce against such an adventure, Kluck encountered the opposition of the Emperor and part of the Imperial Staff.[47] Von Bülow testifies that the Staff abandoned the advance on Paris directly after the order was given (p. [69]). The problem which had arisen was of a larger and graver character than that which has excited so much ingenious speculation.