The Battle of the Marne

by G. H. Perris

The pursuit was not an unbroken course of victory for the invaders. Before the Gap of Charmes, on August 24–26, Castlenau and Dubail administered the first great German set-back of the war. At the same time, the Prince Imperial received a severe check at Etain; and, although Smith-Dorrien’s stand at Le Cateau on August 26 disabled the British Force for some days, it did much to save the Allied left wing. On August 28, the German IV Army was sharply arrested at Novion Porcien; and next day took place the combats of Proyart and Dun-sur-Meuse, and the battle of Guise. In these and many lesser actions, the spirit of the armies was prepared for the hour when the issue should be fairly joined.

The Fabian strategy was soon and progressively justified. Weaknesses inherent in the German plan began to appear. Every day of their unsuccessful chase aggravated the problem of supplying the armies, removed them from their heavy artillery, stretched and thinned their infantry lines, weakened their liaison, bred weariness and doubt (which were too often drowned in drink), while the French, on the contrary, were shortening their communications, and generally pulling themselves together. “It is the old phenomenon of the wearing down of forces in case of an offensive which we here encounter anew,” says Freytag-Loringhoven. Two or three corps had to be left behind to mask Antwerp and to besiege Maubeuge; the Grand Staff could not altogether resist the Russian scare. There was increasing dislocation: in particular, Kluck had got dangerously out of touch with Bülow. And there was something worse than “wearing down” and dislocation. “Perhaps our programme would not have collapsed,” the historian Meinecke imagines,[80] “if we had carried through our original strategical idea with perfect strictness, keeping our main forces firmly together, and, for the time, abandoning East Prussia.” This cannot be admitted. So far from being pursued more strictly, the original German idea soon could not be pursued at all. Its boldest feature had become inapplicable to circumstances more and more subject to another will. On September 1, when the Somme had been passed, and while Joffre was ordering the extension of the retreat to the Seine and the Aube, Moltke was engaged in changing radically the direction of the marching wing of the invasion, Kluck’s I Army. Failing successively on the Sambre, the Somme, the Oise, and finally stultified by the superior courage that staked the capital itself upon the chance of a victorious recoil farther south, the greatest of all essays in envelopment ended in a recognised fiasco.

With the appearance on the southern horizon of the fortress of Verdun and the city of Paris, and the entry of the Allied armies between them as into a corridor, the whole problem, in fact, was transformed. The German Command suddenly found itself in face of a fatal dilemma. As Paris obstructed the way of Kluck, so Verdun challenged the Prussian Crown Prince. To enter the corridor without first reducing these two unknown quantities would be to risk serious trouble on both flanks; to stay to reduce them would involve delay, or dispersal of force, either of which would be disastrous. The course of argument by which the Grand Staff decided this deadly question has not been revealed. They chose the first alternative. Kluck was ordered to pass south-eastward of the one “entrenched camp,” the Imperial Crown Prince south-westward of the other, both, and the three armies between them, to overtake the Allies and force them to a frontal encounter, while a fresh effort was made to break through the eastern defences. A heavy price must be paid for such large re-establishments and changes of plan in face of an alert enemy. Kluck has been too much blamed for what followed. He may have been guilty of recklessness, over-reaching ambition, and specific disobedience. But here, as in the Battle of the Frontiers, it is the authors, not the executants, of the offensive operation who must be held chiefly responsible for consequences that are in the logic of the case.

Joffre’s hour had come. He had laboured to win three elements of an equal struggle lacking in the north: (a) a more favourable balance of numbers and armament—this was gained by the “wearing down” of the enemy, and the reinforcement of the Allied line, in course of the retreat, so that the battle of the Marne commenced with something more than an equality, and ended with a distinct Allied superiority in the area of decision; (b) a favourable terrain—this was reached on the classic ground between the capital and the middle Meuse, under cover of the eastern armies, and subject to the dilemma of Paris–Verdun; (c) a sound strategic initiative. For this, the 6th Army had been prepared, and the 5th kept at full strength. The failure of the enveloping movement and the change of the German plan provided the opportunity. To reduce the distended front of the invasion, at one time no less than 140 miles (Amiens to Dun-sur-Meuse), to one of 100 miles (Crécy-en-Brie to Revigny), Kluck had boldly crossed the face of the 6th Army, and on the evening of September 5 presented a moving flank of more than 40 miles long to Maunoury, French, and d’Espérey’s left. Joffre seems to have hesitated for a moment as to whether it were best to continue the retreat, as arranged, to the Seine, and then to have given way to Gallieni’s importunity. “We cannot count on better conditions for our offensive,” he told the Government.

The order of battle was issued on the evening of September 4. “Advantage must be taken of the adventurous situation of the I German Army (right wing),” it started: this was to be the factor of surprise. Positions would be taken on the 5th in order that the general movement might begin at dawn on the following day. The 6th Army and the British were to strike east on either side of the Marne, toward Château-Thierry and Montmirail respectively, while the 5th Army attacked due northward: thus, it was hoped, Kluck would be taken in flank and front, and crushed by superior force. The central armies (9th and 4th) would move north against Bülow, the Saxons, and the Duke of Würtemberg; and Sarrail would break westward from Verdun against the exposed flank of the Crown Prince. The function of Foch’s, the smallest of the French armies concerned, and of de Langle’s, the next smallest, must be regarded as primarily defensive, the chief offensive rôle being entrusted to d’Espérey’s, by far the strongest, and Maunoury’s, with the small British force linking them. Sarrail had not the means to exploit his advantage of position. The essence of the plan lay in the rectangular attack of the left.

The CRISIS of the BATTLE
Mid-day, Sept. 9.

The design was perfect: Kluck’s columns, stretched out from the Ourcq to near Esternay, should have been smashed in, the western part of the German communications overwhelmed, the other armies put to flight. These results were not obtained; the whole battle was, indeed, compromised, before it was well begun, by the unreadiness of the Allied left and the precipitancy of General Gallieni. When Lamaze’s reservists stumbled upon Schwerin’s outposts north of Meaux, at midday on September 5—eighteen hours before the offensive was timed to open—Maunoury had only three divisions in line, and on the following day he had only two more. Kluck had instantly taken alarm; his II Corps was actually on its way back to the Ourcq while the main body of the Allied armies was commencing their grand operation. The benefit of surprise was thus sacrificed; and Kluck was able to move one after another of his corps to meet Maunoury’s reinforcements as they arrived upon the field. Certain French partizans of the then Governor of Paris have attempted to shift the responsibility for this miscarriage to the shoulders of the British Commander-in-Chief. The Expeditionary Force deserves more scrupulous justice. It had retired and was re-forming behind the Forest of Crécy, at the request of General Joffre, when the order of September 4 arrived. The positions therein named to be reached on the following day (Changis–Coulommiers) were unattainable, being too far away, and solidly held by the enemy. The instructions for Marshal French were to attack eastward toward Montmirail on the 6th; neither to him nor to the French Staff was it known till the afternoon of that day that Kluck was withdrawing across the Marne. No need appeared of helping Maunoury until September 7. By that time the Field-Marshal had again changed his direction at Joffre’s request, facing north beside d’Espérey, instead of east beside Maunoury; and, from the moment when Kluck’s withdrawal was discovered, rapid progress was made.

The German Staff now seems to have completely lost control of its two chief Commanders. The fatal fault is plainly exhibited in Bülow’s “Bericht zur Marneschlacht”—significantly, withheld from publication for five years. Though weakened by a premature start, unreadiness, and imperfect co-ordination, the French attack on the Ourcq necessarily produced not merely a local shock, but a disturbance reverberating eastward by what has been called its “effect of suction.” To double this with the strain of Bülow’s continued offensive—disastrously successful in the surprise of Fère Champènoise—was the most reckless gambling. With the I Army pulling north-west, the II Army pulling south-east, and 60 miles between the points where they were seeking a decision, how could anything more than a pretence of liaison be kept up? But it was precisely before this interval that Joffre had aligned a full third of the strength of the French crescent—the 20 divisions of the French 5th and British armies. In the separation of the two masses of the German right, and the entry between them of this powerful body, lies the governing cause of the victory.

All the rest is a prodigy of endurance. The battle of the Ourcq was no sooner joined than it resolved itself into a race of reinforcements, and a stubborn, swaying combat over a few miles of open farmland, with little of manœuvre, save reciprocal attempts at envelopment by the north. The story of the battle of the Marshes of St. Gond is the epic of Foch’s obstinacy, of Humbert’s defence of the pivot on the Sézanne plateau, the loss of the swampy barrier and Mont Août, the agonising breakdown about Fère Champènoise on September 8, and the devices of the following day to close the breach. Between these points of strangulation, the real offensive arm of the Allies progressed with comparative ease. On the night of September 8, when d’Espérey’s 3rd Corps entered Montmirail, it was exactly midway between them. On the morning of the 9th, when the British 1st and 2nd Corps passed the Marne, Kluck and Bülow were more definitely divided. At noon, Smith-Dorrien and Haig were on the Lizy–Château-Thierry road; and in the evening d’Espérey’s 18th Corps held Château-Thierry. No last-moment success of the enemy on the Ourcq or in Champagne could have greatly affected the course of this development. The necessity of a retreat of the three Western armies was probably accepted by the German Grand Staff in the morning of September 9; but it may be that a considerable success by either or both of the Crown Princes on that day would have modified the decision as regards the rest of the front. At 11 a.m. Betz was evacuated; and during the afternoon great convoys were seen hurrying from the Ourcq to the Aisne. Bülow’s orders, inspired by fear of flank attack by d’Espérey’s 10th and 1st Corps, rather than by the 42nd Division, seem to have been given about 3 p.m. Fère Champènoise was abandoned in the evening, and Foch’s anxiously prepared manœuvre could not be carried out. The 6th and 9th Armies were too much exhausted to attempt a serious pursuit till next morning; and the German right reached the Aisne without inordinate losses.