The Battle of the Rivers

by Edmund Dane

Had this force, so reduced, not been able to make a stand along that new line, it must have been destroyed largely through exhaustion and famine. It was saved not, as imagined, chiefly by the defence works thrown up north of the Aisne and across the highlands to the Argonne. It was saved mainly by the tactics and by the energy of General von Kluck.

Rightly described by the British Official Bureau, doubtless on the authority of Sir John French himself, as "bold and skilful," those tactics form one of the outstanding features of the campaign, and they ought justly to be considered among the greatest feats in modern war. They are on the same plane indeed as the strategy and tactics of General Joffre, and these, beyond doubt, rank in point of mastery with the campaign of Napoleon in 1814. In this very area of Champagne on the eve of his fall the military genius of Napoleon was, like lightning in the gloom of tempest, displayed in its greatest splendour. For a thousand years this region of plateaux and rivers has been the arena of events which have shaped the history of Europe.[16] The features it offers for military defence are remarkable. Versed in the campaigns of Napoleon, aware of what have proved to be his mistakes, knowing the country in its every detail, knowing and judging rightly the qualities and capabilities of his troops, General Joffre drew the Germans on step by step to overthrow. The great feature of his plans was that this was meant to be an overthrow which would govern the fortune of the war. In great fact that aim was achieved, but in part also its fulfilment was postponed.

On the retreat of the German armies from the Marne there were, in order to bring about the destruction of those armies as a fighting force, three things which the Allies had to accomplish, and accomplish, if possible, concurrently. The first was to cut the German communications with Luxemburg and Metz by barring the roads and railways across the eastern frontier; the second was to push forward and seize Rheims, and the outlet through the hills north of the Aisne at Berry-au-Bac; the third was to force the troops of von Kluck eastward off their lines of communication along the valley of the Oise, and to do that, if it could be done, south of the Aisne.

All three objectives were of great consequence. The third, however, was the most important of the three.

Of the three, the first, the closing of the eastern frontier, was accomplished in part; the second was so far successful that the French were able to seize Rheims without opposition; the third was not accomplished. Had it been the armies of von Kluck and von Bülow forming the German right must both have been severed from the German line to the east of Rheims, and, with their supplies of food and of munitions cut off, must have been compelled to surrender.

Appreciating the peril, and fully aware that the fate of the whole German force hung upon averting it, General von Kluck acted with resource and energy. Probably no commander ever extricated himself out of a more deadly predicament, and the achievement is all the more notable since he was opposed to skilful generals in command of skilful troops, directed by the greatest strategist of the age. The predicament in which General von Kluck found himself was this. If he opposed a front to the army of General Desperey, formed of the pick of the French regulars, he had on his flank both the British and the troops of General Maunoury. In that case, overwhelming defeat was certain. If on the other hand he formed a front against the troops of General French and General Maunoury, he presented a flank to the 5th French army. Not only in such circumstances was a bad defeat almost equally foregone, but, forming front to a flank and fighting along the lines of his communications, he must, in the event of defeat, retire eastward, abandoning his lines of communication and obstructing the retreat of von Bülow.

As events prove, the measures he adopted were these. He recalled from Amiens the army corps sent to that place to undertake an outflanking movement against the Allied left, and to cut off communication between Paris and Boulogne and Calais. With all haste these troops fell back upon the Oise to secure the German right rear. Coincidently, his two army corps on the Ourcq were ordered to undertake against General Maunoury a vigorous offensive to the west of that river. With the remaining three army corps, which had crossed the Marne, General von Kluck fell back, presenting to the British and to the 5th French army a line protected first by the Grand Morin, and then by the Petit Morin and the Marne. In order to carry out that movement he did not hesitate to sacrifice a considerable part of his cavalry.

The danger-point of this disposition was La Ferté-sous-Jouarre. Into that place, consequently, he threw a strong force with orders to hold it to the last moment. With the rest of his three corps he formed front partly against the British, partly against the left of the army of General Desperey. In these actions, as Mr. Maxwell has pointed out, his troops were swept by the flank attack of part of the 6th French army. There is no doubt they fought, despite cruel losses, with the most stubborn courage. As the 6th French army, who displayed equally unshakable resolution, strove, following the course of the Ourcq, to work round against the German line of retreat, and as their attacks had to be met as well as the attacks of the British, the expedient which the German general resorted to was, as he retired, to hurry divisions of troops successively from the south to the north of his flank defence, and, as the 6th French army moved, to move his flank defence with it. Not only was the object to do that, but there was, at the same time, an effort to press the 6th French army towards the north-west. This, in fact, General von Kluck managed to do. He did it by extending his flank beyond the left of the French army, and making a feint of envelopment. Imagine a row of coins, each coin a division, and a movement of the row by constantly shifting a coin from one end of the row to the other. That will give roughly an idea of what, on the events, appears to have been the expedient.

The success of such a series of movements depended, of course, on their rapidity, and, considering the severe and insistent pressure from the British on the rear of the line, forming an angle with the flank, the movements were carried out with surprising rapidity. The Ourcq, though not a long river, is, like the Marne, deep, and over more than half its length navigable. It flows between plateaux through a narrow valley with steep sides. The crossing of such a stream is no easy feat.