The Battle of the Marne

by G. H. Perris

CHAPTER IV
THE GREAT DILEMMA, PARIS–VERDUN

I. The Government leaves the Capital

Retreat to the Somme was much, to the Marne so much more as was to be appreciated only in the after-years of the war. Retreat to the Seine, besides endangering the venerable fortress and pivotal place of Verdun, left in peril of capture, perhaps of destruction, Paris, the richest and most beautiful city of Continental Europe, the seat of a strongly centralised system of government and many industries, the home of two millions of people, the converging point of the chief national roads and railways. That Government and people accepted such a risk speaks eloquently for the mind that imposed it upon them.

The passionate strain of those few days will ever rest in the memories of those who experienced it. News, vague and unexplained, of the northern invasion had fallen upon us with avalanche swiftness. Paris was almost universally regarded as its immediate objective. On August 27, the Viviani Ministry was reconstructed as an enlarged Government of National Defence, with M. Millerand in M. Messimy’s place at the Ministry of War, M. Delcassé at the Quai d’Orsay, M. Briand at the Ministry of Justice, and the Socialist M. Sembat at the Public Works. The same evening M. Millerand visited the Grand Quartier General at Vitry-le-François. “On the staircase,” he afterwards wrote, “I shook hands with General Maunoury, who was leaving for the north to take command of his new army. The Staff officers were working in tranquillity, silence, and order. The brains of the army functioned freely. General Joffre kept me long in conference. I never found him more calm, more master of himself, more sure of the future. I left him full of respect, admiration, and confidence.”[42] On the same day, General Gallieni was appointed military governor of Paris. Amongst the people of the capital, at least, this step excited keener interest, since it bore directly upon the question that was beginning to be asked on all hands—must we leave, or stay? Gallieni, who, long years before, had been Joffre’s chief in the military organisation of the colony of Madagascar, was, like him, of the type of soldier-administrator. But his temperament spoke of his Corsican origin; and he had asked for, and Joffre had refused him, an army command—circumstances to be remembered when we see him in action. A man of impeccable honesty, emphatic will, and few words, he immediately won the confidence of his men and the population at large, and in the height of the crisis presented a worthy, if somewhat stiff, personification of the new spirit which France began to exhibit before her armies had scored any victory.

On August 29, the French official bulletin (communicated to an anxiously waiting crowd of journalists in a stable-like building beside the Ministry of War, thereafter to be scanned greedily as the pièce de résistance of the world’s press) contained a partial revelation of the whereabouts of the enemy: “The situation from the Somme to the Vosges remains as yesterday.” At the same time, the new Government, in a manifesto to the nation, declared that “our duty is tragic, but simple: to repel the invader, to hold out to the end, to remain masters of our destinies.” This phrase “jusqu’au bout,” repeated by Gallieni a few days later—with its homologues, “jusqu’auboutist,” “jusqu’auboutisme”—was to become for years afterwards a catchword of the general resolve to fight to a victorious finish.

Refugees and wounded soldiers were now streaming into the city from the north, and families from the holiday resorts of the west and south. More than 30,000 fugitives from Belgium and the north of France reached the Nord Station on the 29th. A considerable current had begun to flow outwards, and during the next few days the railways were overwhelmed; but there was at no time real panic among the people of the great city. On Sunday the 30th, the first of a series of aeroplane raids provided a novel boulevard entertainment; the president of the City Council, M. Mithouard, advised residents to send their women and children into the country; and an edict was issued forbidding the papers to publish more than one edition daily. Railways, posts, and telegraphs were working subject to many hours’ delay. The city hospitals were being cleared. Thousands of civilians were helping the garrison to dig trenches, and clear fields of fire. The Bois and neighbouring lands were turned into a vast cattle and sheep farm; and large quantities of wheat were stored against the possibility of a siege.

On the night of the 31st, I received privately the alarming news—only made public on September 3—that the Government had that afternoon decided to abandon the capital. The staffs and papers of the Ministries were already being removed; Ministers themselves, with the President of the Republic, and the Ambassadors, except those of Spain and the United States, started for Bordeaux during the night of September 2. Many of the treasures of the Louvre and other museums and galleries were carried away at the same time. M. Poincaré and all the Ministers signed a lengthy manifesto declaring that they were departing “on the demand of the military authority,” in order to keep in touch with the whole country, after assuring the defence of the city “by all means in their power.” A quarter of the inhabitants of Paris had by now left, or were endeavouring to leave, the city. The remainder, very anxious—for the red-handed enemy was only a day’s march away—but still outwardly calm, preferred to any eloquence of political personages the terse promise of General Gallieni: “I have received the mandate to defend Paris against the invader. This mandate I shall fulfil to the end.” Certainly, the Government was in duty bound to see that it did not fall into the hands of Von Kluck. The utmost that can be said for the popular sentiment of the day is that, having prepared for departure, the chief magistrates of the Republic might perhaps have remained a few hours longer, when they would have discovered that there was no need to move after all.

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.