THE WESTERN FRONT
THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE MARNE: 26th AUGUST – 6th SEPTEMBER 1914
AND THE BATTLE OF THE RIVER AISNE: 12th – 28th SEPTEMBER 1914
Acknowledgements
The Great Retreat: book cover by British historian Spencer Jones Map-
As we have seen, in mid-
WW1-
In Paris, not surprisingly, there were rumours of German troops entering the outskirts – in fact German cavalry were seen near Meaux, just 20 miles from the capital – and word was going around that Kaiser Wilhelm had already booked a dinner table on the Champs-
But, in fact, the aim of the Schlieffen Plan to capture Paris and bring down the French government was not to be realised. Joffre concentrated his forces, virtually all his forces, along the line of the River Marne (see map above), just north of the capital. From there he took on the Germans as they began to cross the river, and then launched a major counter-
Incidentally, it was during this battle that the French army used a fleet of six hundred Paris taxi cabs to bring extra troops to the front! Over two days these vehicles transported some 4,000 men to the battle zone. This “taxicab army” only provided a small number of troops in the overall scheme of things, but this action definitely contributed to public morale, and it is remembered to this day. It was the idea of General Joseph Simon Gallieni (1849-
Butxthe “Miracle of the Marne”, as it came to be known, did not rest solely on the courage and determination of the Allied forces. The Germans themselves played a part, and by no means a small one. On crossing the river, their First and Second Armies developed a gap some 20 miles wide between their front line forces. This was picked up by French aerial reconnaissance (never given much credence when the war began!) and the French and British exploited this weakness to the full. They not only struck hard at the vulnerable right flank of the First Army to take advantage of this gap – the Battle of Ourcq River – but also launched an overall attack from Compiègne, east of Paris, to Verdun in the west, a distance of some 100 miles. Such was the intensity of this campaign that from the 9th of September the Germans, anxious to evade encirclement, began a strategic withdrawal along the whole front to take up a defensive position along the River Aisne.
The First Battle of The Marne proved a strategic victory for the Allied Forces. Among the reasons for this, it must be said, were tactical errors by the Germans at command level, and the ruthless determination shown by their generals to advance at any cost. And the greatest cost in that respect had been borne and was being borne by the men under their command. They had endured over three weeks of continuous marching and, earlier, a prolonged period of severe fighting. Some, of course, were professional soldiers, but the vast majority were enlisted men, trained in warfare, but not experienced in warfare. The German forces had certain advantages over their enemy, such as the 
element of surprise and, above all, their superior artillery fire in depth, but in addition to general fatigue, an army giving chase had to deal with additional logistical problems, such as rebuilding demolished bridges and broken railways, and suffering from the lack of food and equipment due to ever lengthening lines of supply. On reaching the Marne one general, Max von Hausen, commander of the Third German Army, did speak his mind. His men, he said, had reached the limits of their “psychological elasticity” and “physical capability”. He was not listened to, of course, but by then the die had been cast.
On the Allied front the mood was quite different. Although the majority of troops had been involved in the fighting, fresh troops had been drafted in, and a sizeable number of men had arrived from the aborted campaign in Alsace-
Incidentally, duringxthe war, Mildred Aldrich, an American journalist, worked in France as a foreign correspondent. In 1914 she lived in a house overlooking the Marne, and wrote about the battle in her book A Hilltop on the Marne, the first of four books based on her wartime letters. She wrote at this time: “This war will be the bloodiest affair the world has ever seen – a war in the air, under the sea as well as on it, and carried out with the most effective man-
THE BATTLE OF THE RIVERxAISNE – 12th to 28th September
The Battle of The Aisne began as a series of manoeuvres in which both sides attempted to gain a tactical advantage in the establishment of a new front further north. Known as the “Race to the Sea", the retreating Germans were in a much better position to seize the high ground, and this they did. After crossing the Lower Aisne, they occupied the Chemin des Dames, a rugged, irregular ridge of land that stretched from L
affaux in the west to Craonne in the east. And where there was no natural barrier, the Germans “dug in” as a means of protection. By the 13th of September they commanded a wide field of fire over an open countryside which offered little or no means of concealment.
Andxit was on the night of the 13th September, in thick fog, that the British and the French attempted a crossing of the Aisne. Both made it to the other side and, for a time (late September to early October) there followed a series of tactical encounters – among them the Battles of Albert, Picardy, Arras, La Bassée, Armentières and Messines – during which both sides attempted to outflank the other and gain the higher ground. The French Fifth Army managed to occupy a tip of the Chemin des Dames for a short time, but casualties were heavy, and it was soon realised that neither side was in a position to oust the other. It was at this point that Sir John French ordered the entire B.E.F. to “entrench”. At first, short of the proper tools, only shallow pits were dug, but as shelling and sniping increased, these ditches were deepened to about seven feet and provided with timber supports. The age of trench warfare, born out of the devastating effect of increased firepower – be it artillery or machine gun – had arrived. And with it, the change from mobile war to static deadlock.
By the end of November trenches, together with a whole new family of weapons (such as howitzers, trench mortars, flares, periscopes and hand grenades) were coming into place along the entire Western Front, from the North Sea to the Swiss border. Trench warfare (discussed ealier), the horrors of which were realised soon after the outbreak of the war, was set to stay, here and elsewhere across many of the battlefields of the First World War.
Incidentally, the ridge Chemin des Dames (the Ladies’ Path) was named after a road on which the daughters of Louis XV regularly travelled to visit the Château de Boues near Vauclair. Today, a number of memorial statues are dotted along this ridge in remembrance of the disastrous Nivelle Offensive of April 1917, and the mutinies that followed within the French Army.
Marshalxof France Joseph Joffre (1852-
f 1916. As a young officer in the engineering corps, he took part in the defence of Paris in the Franco-
Incidentally, in the critical fighting along the Marne, the commander of the Ninth Army, General Ferdinand Foch, impressed all by the speed by which he drove the German Second Army back to the River Aisne. Appointed Commander of the Allied Armies in March 1918, he was to play an important role in the defeat and surrender of the German Army. ……
…… ThexBattle of the Marne saw the first use of one of the twenty mobile radiology units produced by the Polish physicist, Marie Curie. Having discovered radioactivity at the turn of the century (along with her husband), these units enabled surgeons to locate bullets, shrapnel and broken bones with the minimum of delay, thereby saving the lives of thousands of men. And apart from organising the productiion of these vehicles, she also took part in the operation, travelling in the battle zones to teach groups of women and medics how to use the apparatus.
…… Andxit was at this time that the English poet Lawrence Binyon wrote his famous poem For the Fallen. A tribute to those who fought and died for their country, it was published in The Times, London, on the 21st September. He worked for some time as a hospital orderly in France and was moved by the heavy casualties being suffered by the British Expeditionary Force. The poem is often recited at Remembrance Day Services, particularly those associated with the British Legion. The fourth stanza, much quoted, reads:
As we shall see, following the repulse of the Germans at the Battle of the Marne, and their retreat to the River Aisne, the permanence of trench warfare was to be clearly confirmed in the next major battle of the war, the First Battle of Ypres in October 1914. Part of the “Race to the Sea” (in which both sides endeavoured to outflank the other and gain a tactical advantage), the name “Ypres” – known by the British troops as “Wipers” – was to become an enduring and sad reminder of the many battles fought and the many lives lost or marred on Flanders’ fields …. and beyond.
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They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.