The Battle of the Marne. George Herbert Perris
the valley of the Oise? Moltke had advocated a march to the North Sea coast, and a descent by the Channel ports, through the trouée of the Oise, upon Paris, turning not merely the principal line, but the whole system, of the French fortresses. Bernhardi had toyed with the idea of an even more extensive movement, violating Dutch territory, but seemed at last to favour the more limited project, “the army of the right wing marching by the line Trêves–Stenay, crossing Luxembourg and southern Belgium.” In fact, neither of these ways was taken. The invasion pursued a middle route, Holland being avoided, the descent upon the coast deferred, and armies thrown across both the Flanders plain and the difficult country of the Belgian Ardennes.
Notwithstanding the advertisement of the Kaiser’s chief Ministers in their famous pleas in justification, on the first day of the war, the French Staff do not seem to have anticipated anything more in the north than an attack by Luxembourg and the Ardennes, or to have altered their dispositions to meet it until the middle of August. We do not yet fully know what are the reasons for the arrest of the German offensive after the effective reduction of Liège, until August 19. Instead of six days, with, perhaps, three more for re-concentration, the German right wing took sixteen days in crossing Belgium. As this week of Belgium’s vicarious sacrifice saved France, it cannot be supposed to have been a voluntary delay made simply for the purpose of deceiving the Allies. It had that effect, however. Thwarted at Liège, the German command did everything it could to conceal the true nature of the blow it was about to deliver—by terrorising the population and occupying the mind of the world with its atrocities, by the ubiquitous activity of its cavalry screen, by avoiding Western Flanders and the coast, and by holding up the advance of its first three armies behind the line of the Gette and the Meuse till everything was ready. The Allies altogether failed to pierce the veil of mystery covering the final concentration. They were deceived (1) as to the main direction of the coming onslaught, (2) as to its speed, (3) as to its power in men and armament. General Sordet’s cavalry got little information during their Belgian wanderings; the few French aviators still less. No doubt, the Allies hoped for a longer Belgian resistance, especially at Liège and Namur, as the enemy expected a shorter. The French Staff clung blindly to its belief that it need expect, at most, only an attack by the Meuse valley and the Ardennes.15
The first French plan of campaign, then, envisaged solely the eastern and north-eastern frontier. The original concentration placed the two strongest armies, the 1st and 2nd (Dubail and Castelnau—each five corps) between Belfort and Toul; the 3rd and 5th (Ruffey and Lanrezac—three and five corps respectively) from Verdun to Givet, where the Meuse enters Belgium; the 4th (de Langle de Cary—three corps) supporting the right, at its rear, between the Argonne and the Meuse. Of 25 reserve divisions, three were kept in the Alps till Italy declared her neutrality, three garrisoned Verdun, and one Epinal. The remainder were grouped, one group being sent to the region of Hirson, one to the Woevre, and one before Nancy. There was also a Territorial group (d’Amade) about Lille. These dispositions are defended as being supple and lending themselves to a redirection when the enemy’s intentions were revealed.16 We shall see that, within a fortnight, they had to be fundamentally changed, Lanrezac being sent into the angle of the Sambre and Meuse, de Langle bringing the sole reserve army in on his right, and Ruffey marching north into the Ardennes—a north-westerly movement involving awkward lateral displacements, the crossing of columns, and oblique marches. Some of the following failure and confusion resulted from the dislocating effect of a conversion so vast.
Instead of an initial defensive over most of the front, with or without some carefully chosen and strongly provided manœuvre of offence—as the major conditions of the problem would seem to suggest—the French campaign opened with a general offensive, which for convenience we must divide into three parts, three adventures, all abortive, into Southern Alsace, German Lorraine, and the Belgian Ardennes. The first two of these were predetermined, even before General Joffre was designed for the chief command; the second and third were deliberately launched after the invasion of Belgium was, or should have been, understood. A fourth attack, across the Sambre, was designed, but could not be attempted.
The first movement into Alsace was hardly more than a raid, politically inspired, and its success might have excited suspicions. Advancing from Belfort, the 1st Army under Dubail took Altkirch on August 7, and Mulhouse the following day. Paris rejoiced; General Joffre hailed Dubail’s men as “first labourers in the great work of la revanche.” It was the last flicker of the old Gallic cocksureness. On August 9, the Germans recovered Mulhouse. Next day, an Army of Alsace, consisting of the 7th Corps, the 44th Division, four reserve divisions, five Alpine battalions, and a cavalry division, was organised under General Pau. It gained most of the Vosges passes and the northern buttress of the range, the Donon (August 14). On the 19th, the enemy was defeated at Dornach, losing 3000 prisoners and 24 cannon; and on the following morning Mulhouse was retaken—only to be abandoned a second time on the 25th, with all but the southern passes. The Army of Alsace was then dissolved to free Pau’s troops for more urgent service, the defence of Nancy and of Paris.
The Lorraine offensive was a more serious affair, and it was embarked upon after the gravity of the northern menace had been recognised.17 The main body of the Eastern forces was engaged—nine active corps of the 2nd and 1st Armies, with nine reserve and three cavalry divisions—considerably more than 400,000 men, under some of the most distinguished French generals, including de Castlenau, unsurpassed in repute and experience even by the Generalissimo himself; Dubail, a younger man, full of energy and quick intelligence; Foch, under whose iron will the famous 20th Corps of Nancy did much to limit the general misfortune; Pau, who had just missed the chief command; and de Maud’huy, a sturdy leader of men. As soon as the Vosges passes were secured, after ten days’ hard fighting, on August 14, a concerted advance began, Castelnau moving eastward over the frontier into the valley of the Seille and the Gap of Morhange, a narrow corridor flanked by marshes and forests, rising to formidable cliffs; while Dubail, on his right, turned north-eastward into the hardly less difficult country of the Sarre valley. The French appear to have had a marked superiority of numbers, perhaps as large as 100,000 men; but they were drawn on till they fell into a powerful system, established since the mobilisation, of shrewdly hidden defences, with a large provision of heavy artillery, from Morville, through Morhange, Bensdorf, and Fenetrange, to Phalsburg—the Bavarian Army at the centre, a detachment from the Metz garrison against the French left, the army of Von Heeringen against the right. The French command can hardly have been ignorant of these defences, but must have supposed they would fall to an impetuous assault. Dubail held his own successfully throughout August 19 and 20 at Sarrebourg and along the Marne-Rhine Canal, though his men were much exhausted. Castelnau was immediately checked, before the natural fortress of Morhange, on August 20. His centre—the famous 20th Corps and a southern corps, the 15th—attacked at 5 a.m.; at 6.30 the latter was in flight, and the former, its impetuosity crushed by numbers and artillery fire, was ordered to desist. The German commanders had concentrated their forces under cover of field-works and heavy batteries. Under the shock of this surprise, at 4 p.m., Castelnau ordered the general retreat. Dubail had to follow suit.
Happily, the German infantry were in no condition for an effective pursuit, and the French retirement was not seriously impeded. The following German advance being directed southward, with the evident intention of forcing the Gap of Charmes, and so taking all the French northern armies in reverse, the defence of Nancy was left to Foch, Castelnau’s centre and right were swung round south-westward behind the Meurthe, while Dubail abandoned the Donon, and withdrew to a line which, from near Rozelieures to Badonviller and the northern Vosges, made a right-angle with the line of the 2nd Army, the junction covering the mouth of the threatened trouée. In turn, as we shall see (Chap. III. sec. iii.), the German armies here suffered defeat, only five days after their victory. But such failures and losses do not “cancel out,” for France had begun at a disadvantage. Ground was lost that might have been held with smaller forces; forces were wasted that were urgently needed in the chief field of battle. Evidently it was hoped to draw back parts of the northern armies of invasion, to interfere with their communications, and to set up an alarm for Metz and Strasbourg. These aims were not to any sensible extent accomplished.
Despite
In an article on the second anniversary of the first battle of the Yser, the
Field-Marshal French says: “Belgium remained a ‘dark horse’ to the last, and could never be persuaded to decide upon her attitude in the event of a general war.... We were anxious she should assist and co-operate in her own defence.” On August 21, he received a note from the Belgian Government remarking that the Belgian field army had from the commencement of hostilities “been standing by hoping for the active co-operation of the Allied Army,” but was now retreating upon Antwerp.
M. Engerand (
Major Collon, French military attaché at Brussels, and afterwards attached to French Headquarters, has published the following facts in a letter to the Swiss Colonel Egli (
“This plan was at once weak and supple. It was feeble because General Joffre, who established it, ‘saw too many things,’ in the words of the Napoleonic warning.... He knew as well as any one the feebleness of his plan. It was imposed upon him. He sought at least to make it supple” (Reinach,
In an article reviewing this volume (
General Bonnal remarks: “The project of offensive operations conceived by Bernhardi in 1911 in case of a war with France deserved close study by us, which would probably have led to modifications in our plan of concentration while there was yet time” (
General Palat writes: “The French concentration was vicious. Better conceived, it would have saved hundreds of thousands of our compatriots from the tortures of the invasion and occupation” (
“The unknown quantity on the side of Belgium,” says Lt.-Col. de Thomasson, “condemned us at the outset to a waiting strategy. The idea of at once taking the offensive madly overpassed the boldest conceptions of Napoleon” (p. 54). “A well-advised command would have understood that it was folly to launch at once all its army to attack troops of the value of the Germans; that the offensive should have been made only on certain points of the front, with a sufficient numerical superiority, and for this purpose the forces must be economised; that, in brief, the beginning of hostilities could only be favourable to us on condition of a superior strategy such as was shown in the preparation for the battle of the Marne, but not in the initial plan or in the first three weeks of the war” (177–8).
See Hanotaux,