THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE
IN MEMORIAM
N. F. P. + E. L. P.
[Illustration: General Map showing
POSITION of the ARMIES
on the Eve of the Battle, and the central German lines of approach.
German Armies.
I–Von Kluck. II–Von Bülow.
III–Von Hausen. IV–Duke of Würtemberg.
V–Imperial Crown Prince.
VI–C. Prince of Bavaria (& troops from Metz).
VII–Von Heeringen.
French & British Armies:
6–Marmoury. B.E.F. British.
5–F. d’Espérey. 9–Foch.
4–DeLangle de Cary. 3–Sarrail.
2–DeCastelnau. 1–Dubail.
]
THE BATTLE OF
THE MARNE
BY
GEORGE HERBERT PERRIS
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT OF “THE DAILY CHRONICLE”
WITH THE FRENCH ARMIES, 1914–18
WITH TWELVE MAPS
JOHN W. LUCE & CO.
BOSTON
MCMXX
PREFACE
The great war has entered into history. The restraints, direct and
indirect, which it imposed being gone with it, we return to sounder
tests of what should be public knowledge——uncomfortable truths may
be told, secret places explored. At the same time, the first squall
of controversy in France over the opening of the land campaign in
the West has subsided; this lull is the student’s opportunity. No
complete history of the events culminating in the victory of the Marne
is yet possible, or soon to be expected. On the German side, evidence
is scanty and of low value; on that of the Allies, there is yet a
preliminary work of sifting and measuring to undertake ere definitive
judgments can be set down. Any narrative conceived in a scientific, not
an apologetic or romantic, spirit may claim to further this end.
The difficulty lies less in following the actual movements of that
great encounter——the most important of which, and their part in the
result, can now be traced pretty accurately——than in estimating the
factors that produced and moulded it. Yet, if we are right in holding
the battle of the Marne to be essentially the completion of a chapter,
the resultant of certain designs and certain misadventures, a vast
strategical reversal and correction, such an estimate is necessary to
the subject. How did the two chief antagonists envisage the process of
modern warfare? Why was the action which was to close the first phase
of the war, and largely to shape its after-course, fought not near the
northern or eastern frontiers, but between Paris and Verdun? Why and
how were the original plans of campaign modified to reach this result?
What conditions of victory existed on the Marne that had been lacking
on the Sambre? In a word, the key to the meaning of the battle must
be sought in the character of the forces in play, their comparative
numbers, organisation, and training, armament and equipment, leadership
and inspiration.
No sooner is such an inquiry opened than a number of derivative
problems appear. Where exactly lay the German superiority of force
at the outset, and why was it not maintained? Was the first French
concentration justifiable? If not, was it promptly and soundly
changed? Could the northern frontier have been defended? Was Lanrezac
responsible for Charleroi, and, if so, why not Castelnau for Morhange?
Was the German plan of envelopment exaggerated? Could the British
have done more at Mons, and were they slow and timorous when the hour
arrived to turn about? Was Paris ever in danger? And, coming to the
battle itself, how was it decided? What parts did Gallieni, Von Kluck,
Sir John French, and Foch play? Was Joffre really master of the field?
It may be too soon to answer fully such questions as these; it is too
late to evade them.
Outside the mass of official and semi-official bulletins, dispatches,
and explanations, much of it now best left to oblivion, a considerable
literature has accumulated in France, including personal narratives
by combatants of all arms, and critical essays from points of view
the most diverse. With the rather cruel sincerity of the French
intelligence, the whole military preparation of the Republic has been
challenged; and, in the consequent discussion, many important facts
have come to light. Thus, we have the texts of the most decisive
orders, and many details of the dispositions of troops. We have Marshal
Von Bülow’s valuable diary of field movements, and the critical
reflections of distinguished officers like Lt.-Col. de Thomasson,
Generals Malleterre, Berthaut, Verraux, Percin, Canonge, Bonnal, Palat,
Cherfils, and Col. Feyler. Fragmentary statements by General Joffre
himself, by Generals Foch, Lanrezac, and Maunoury, the Ministers of
War, MM. Messimy and Millerand, by Generals von Freytag-Loringhoven,
Von Kluck, and other German officers and men, give useful indications.
We are also indebted to the more systematic works of MM. Hanotaux,
Reinach, Engerand, and Babin; and, with regard to the British
Force, the volumes of Marshal French and Major-General Maurice are
important. These and other sources are cited in the pages of “Notes
and References” at the end of the volume, in which some questions of
detail, especially relating to the preparation of the battle, are
discussed.
Having been privileged to watch the war in France from beginning to
end, and to live with the French armies (as Correspondent attached to
General Headquarters) for more than two years, the writer has also had
exceptional opportunities of studying the terrain, and of discussing
the drama as a whole and in detail with officers and men from the
highest to the most humble. To name all those from whom he has received
aid would be impossible; to name any might seem to associate them with
conclusions for which he is solely responsible; but he may record his
deep gratitude to the French Government, the Headquarters Staff, and
the various Army Staffs, for the rare experience of which this volume
is unworthy fruit.
_February 1920._
_German units are throughout numbered in Roman capitals_ (“the XX
Corps”), _Allied in ordinary figures_ (“the 20th Corps”).
_The small figures in the text refer to “Notes and References” at the
end of the volume._
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE v
CHAP.
I. THE DELUGE 1
II. A TRAGEDY OF ERRORS——
i. The German Plan of Campaign 10
ii. The Forces in Play 14
iii. The French War Doctrine 20
iv. The Three French Offensives 28
v. The Battle of Charleroi-Mons 34
III. JOFFRE STARTS AFRESH——
i. Ecce Homo! 46
ii. The Second New Plan 54
iii. Battle of the Gap of Charmes 61
iv. Battles of Le Cateau, Guise, and Launois 64
v. End of the Long Retreat 71
IV. THE GREAT DILEMMA, PARIS–VERDUN——
i. The Government leaves the Capital 76
ii. Kluck plunges South-Eastward 79
iii. Joffre’s Opportunity 84
V. THE ORDER OF BATTLE——
i. Gallieni’s Initiative 92
ii. General Offensive of the Allies 95
_Strength and Position of the Armies_ 97
iii. Features of the Battlefield 106
iv. The Last Summons 110
VI. BATTLE OF THE OURCQ——
i. A Premature Engagement 113
ii. The British Manœuvre 118
iii. A Race of Reinforcements 126
iv. The Paris Taxi-Cabs 129
VII. THE “EFFECT OF SUCTION”——
i. French and d’Espérey strike North 135
ii. Battle of the Marshes of St. Gond 142
iii. Defence and Recapture of Mondemont 148
iv. Foch’s Centre broken 155
v. Fable and Fact of a Bold Manœuvre 160
VIII. FROM VITRY TO VERDUN——
i. The Battle of Vitry-le-François 169
ii. Sarrail holds the Meuse Salient 175
IX. VICTORY 184
X. THE DEFENCE OF THE EAST 197
XI. SUMMING-UP 214
INDEX 271
NOTES AND REFERENCES
The German Objective (p. 239); The Opposed Forces (p. 240); De Bloch’s
Prophecy and French’s Confession (p. 242); Criticisms and Defence of
the French Staff (p. 244); The Surprise in the North (p. 247); The
Abandonment of Lille (p. 252); M. Hanotaux and the B.E.F. (p. 252); The
Fall of Maubeuge (p. 256); Paris and the German Plan (p. 259); Some
Books on the Battle (p. 263); General Bonnal and the British Army (p.
265); Scenes at Farthest South (p. 266); The Myth of the 42nd Division
(p. 268).
LIST OF MAPS
1. POSITION OF THE ARMIES AND LINES OF APPROACH _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
2. BATTLE OF CHARLEROI–MONS 38
3. THE OURCQ FRONT, AFTERNOON, SEPT. 6 118
4. THE BRITISH TURN-ABOUT 122
5. OPENING OF ALLIED OFFENSIVE, SEPT. 6 136
6. THE MARNE RE-CROSSED, SEPT. 9, A.M. 142
7. FOCH’S FRONT, SEPT. 6 AND 7 146
8. FOCH’S FRONT, SEPT. 8 AND 9 156
9. FRONT OF FRENCH 4TH ARMY 172
10. THE VERDUN SALIENT 180
11. BATTLE OF THE GRAND COURONNÉ 206
12. CRISIS OF THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 224
THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE
CHAPTER I
THE DELUGE
August 25, 1914: three weeks after Von Emmich opened the war before
Liège; five days after the French Army of Lorraine was trapped at
Sarrebourg and Morhange; two days after Namur fell, and Charleroi and
Mons were abandoned.
On this black day, the 25th, while Louvain was burning, the 80,000 men
of the old British regular Army made an average of 20 miles under a
brazen sun, pursued by the enormous mass of Von Kluck’s marching wing.
The 1st Corps under Haig came into Landrecies at 10 p.m., and, after a
stiff fight and two or three hours’ sleep, trudged on to Guise; while
the 2nd, Smith-Dorrien’s, at Le Cateau and towards Cambrai, spent most
of a showery night in preparing for the battle of the morrow, which
was to save the western flank of the Allies. On the British right, the
French 5th Army, Lanrezac’s, surprised in the Charleroi–Namur–Dinant
triangle by the onset of Von Bülow and the cleverly secreted approach
of Von Hausen, had struck a wild blow, and then reeled back; the
two German commanders were now driving it over the Belgian frontier
from Avesnes to Rocroi. The 4th Army, under de Langle de Cary, no
less heavily punished between Paliseul and Neufchateau in the Belgian
Ardennes, was just reaching the French Meuse between Sedan and Stenay,
there to dispute the passages against the Duke of Würtemberg. Eastward
again, Ruffey, beaten back on a wide crescent from Virton to Briey in
the Woevre by the Imperial Crown Prince, was standing better against a
relaxed pressure, from toward Montmédy, through Spincourt, to Etain.
Thus, Sarrail, in taking over the command of the 3rd Army, was able to
make ready, though with inadequate means, for the three-sided defence
of Verdun. On the eastern border, Castelnau and Dubail, withdrawing
hardly from ill-starred adventures in Lorraine and Alsace, were
rallying the 2nd and 1st Armies around the Nancy hills and on both
sides of the Gap of Charmes. Mulhouse, twice captured, was finally
abandoned by General Pau, with all save a corner of Alsace and the
southern passes of the Vosges. “It is a cruel necessity,” said the
official communiqué of August 26, “which the Army of Alsace and its
chief have submitted to with pain, and only at the last extremity.”
They had discovered that “the decisive attack” had to be met “in the
north.” At that moment, in fact, a hardly less “decisive” attack was
being met in the heart of Lorraine.
It was everywhere the same bitter story of defeat——defeat by surprise,
by locally superior numbers, by superior armament, sometimes by
superior generalship; and everywhere the retreat was accompanied and
hampered by the flight of masses of peasantry and townsfolk whose
flaming homes lit upon the horizon behind a warning to hasten their
feeble steps.
Before we seek the Staffs in their shifting quarters, to explain this
extraordinary situation, let us see what it meant for the commonalty of
the armies, without whose strength and confidence the best plans must
be as chaff in the wind. Over a million strong, they had left their
homes, and gathered at their depots during these three weeks, to be
whirled off to the frontiers and the first scarcely imaginable trial of
modern conscript systems. It was a new thing in the world’s history,
this sudden tremendous clash of the whole manhood of highly developed
nations, armed with the most murderous machinery science could devise,
and supported by vast reserves of wealth. It had fallen swiftly upon
them, the doom that many learned men had declared to be impossible in
the twentieth century; yet its essential nature was crude enough to be
immediately understood, and the intelligence of France, though shocked,
was not stunned. This million of peasants and workmen, merchants,
manufacturers, priests, artists, idlers, and the nation behind them,
were unanimous as never before. They knew the issue was not of their
making; they knew equally that it could not be refused, but must be
fought out, and that it would be a hard fight. The Napoleonic wars
were to be eclipsed; and there was now no Little Corporal to flash
his genius like a searchlight across Europe. The enemy had no less
advantage in prestige than in effectives, preparation, initiative.
Few of the million guessed, as yet, that most of them were marked
down for sacrifice. The general opinion was that it would be all over
by Christmas, at latest. A four months’ war seemed tragic enough in
those first days. With the unwonted agreement, an unwonted gravity
spread across the sunny lands from the Channel to the Alps where the
crops were ripening. If international idealism lay shattered, national
democracy rose well to the trial——never better. No recrimination (even
the murderer of Jaurès was set aside), no conspiracy, no guillotine,
marked the great revival of the republican spirit. England would at
least guard the coasts, and keep the seaways open. France went into the
struggle without wavering or doubt.
And so, “Aux armes, Citoyens!”——for these, mark you, are, in very fact,
citizen armies, independent, free-thinking, high-spirited fellows, no
Emperor’s “cannon-food.” From the smallest hamlet to the boulevards of
the great city, every pulse of life is feverishly concentrated upon
their gathering and departure. At the barracks the reservists, clad,
armed, equipped, are ready to entrain. Crowds of women, whose red
eyes belie their brave words, children at their skirts, surround the
gates, and run forward with bunches of flowers and tricolor rosettes.
The officers carry bouquets at their saddle-bows, the men cap their
rifles with roses and ribbons. At the railway station, long lines of
goods-vans, with a few passenger carriages; more flowers and little
flags; allied colours in front of the engine; a wag chalks up the
direction: “_Berlin, aller et retour._” The horses and guns are aboard;
the men jostle in the open doorways, and exchange cries with the crowd.
A stanza of the “Marseillaise” is broken by last adieux, shouts of
“Vive la France!” and the curtain falls upon the first memorable act.
Interminable journeys follow, by road and rail, toward the frontiers,
then from town to village, and from farm to farm of countrysides more
and more deserted and desolate. In the passes of the Vosges, the hills
and flats of Lorraine, the woods of the French Ardennes, the men
accustom themselves uneasily to the oppressive heat of day and the
chill and damp of night; to sore feet and chafed shoulders; to spells
of hunger due to late or lost convoys; to the deprivation of accustomed
comfort, and the thousand minor ills which in all times have been the
ground-stuff of the showy tapestries of war. Superfluous graces of
civilised life vanish before the irreconcilable need of economy in
every effort. Officers begin to be honoured not for rank or show, but
for the solid talents of leadership; pals are chosen, not from effusion
of heart, but for assurance of help in emergency.
The mantles of the chasseurs are still blue, the breeches of the
infantry red, the uniforms of the artillery and engineers nearly
black; but already bright colours tend to disappear, and every other
tone to assimilate with the dust of the high roads. By day and night
there is but one traffic throughout these northern and eastern
departments——files of cavalry, batteries of field-guns, columns of
heavy-laden men, convoys of Parisian autobuses and hooded carts, pass
incessantly through the silent forests out into the open plains. The
civilian population steadily diminishes, even in the larger towns; the
gendarmerie keep those who remain under suspicion of espionage. The
frontier villagers welcome the marching troops hospitably, until local
food supplies are exhausted, and until news comes in from the front of
reverses and of foul cruelty to the peasants on the part of the enemy.
Only a fortnight has gone by when the national confidence in a speedy
victory receives this heavy blow. Bad news gathers and reverberates. It
is a little difficult, after years of bloodshed, to recover the fresh
sense of these first calamities. Men were then not yet broken to the
pains, the abominable spectacles, of war. That their self-offering to
the fatherland should win them an honoured grave might well be. But
defeat at the outset, the shame of retreat almost before a blow could
be struck, this was an incredible, monstrous, intolerable thing.
The incredible, however, generalised itself over all the highways of
Lorraine and Belgium. Take any typical scene on the march-routes of
August 22 or the following days.[1] The roads are black with columns of
troops retreating west- and south-ward, more or less broken, linesmen,
chasseurs, artillerymen, supply and special services, with their guns,
munition wagons, Red Cross detachments, convoys of heavy-laden carts
with wounded men sitting on top or clinging behind; and, in the breaks,
crowds of panic-stricken peasants, in farm wagons or on foot, old men,
women, and children, with bedding, boxes, bird-cages, and other strange
belongings. Dismay broods like a palpable cloud over these pitiful
processions. There is an incessant jostling. Drivers flog their horses
cruelly. Wounded men drop by the wayside and lie there untended, their
haggard faces stained with mire and powder, blood oozing through their
coats, trickling out into the litter of torn knapsacks and broken arms.
The sun blazes inexorably, the air is poisoned with clouds of dust, or
drenching showers of rain produce another sort of misery; and ever the
long stream of failure and fear flows on, eddying here and there into
acute confusion as some half-mad woman sets up a cry: “The Prussians!”
Night follows day: soldiers and country-folk, hungry and exhausted,
fall into the corners of any sheltered place they can find——an empty
barn, the nave of a village church——for an unsatisfying sleep, or, too
sick to sleep, watch the fantastic shadows and fugitive lights dancing
upon the walls, mocking their anguished thoughts of the morrow. The
batteries and convoys have gone on through the darkness, men rolling
from side to side with fatigue on their horses or gun-carriages, as
though drunk. With daybreak the greater trek recommences. The enemy
has not been idle: in the distance behind rolls the thunder of heavy
guns; pillars of smoke and flame rise from burning villages. And as,
day after day, a new stage of retirement——increasingly controlled, it
is true——is ordered, the question pierces deeper: What is to become of
France?
Those who have lived at the centre as well as on the skirts of armed
hosts become habituated to one enveloping condition: the rank and
file, and even most of the officers, know little or nothing of what is
passing outside their own particular spheres. It is in the nature and
necessity of military operations, especially at the beginning and in
a phase of rapid movement, that it should be so. Perhaps it is also a
necessity of the psychology of endurance. Of these republican armies,
only a small minority of the men were old soldiers; most of them had
all they could do to adapt themselves, day by day and hour by hour,
to the new world of violence, squalor, and general unreason in which
they were now prisoned. They had to learn to bear fatigue and pain
such as they had never known; to overcome the spasm of fear that grips
the stoutest heart in unaccustomed emergencies; to thrust the bayonet
not into a sandbag, but into soft, quivering flesh, and draw it forth
again; to obey men who were incompetent and stupid, as well as born
leaders. The German heavy shells, aeroplanes, motor transport, the
formidable entrenchments and fields of wire——gradually they recognised
these and other elements of the invader’s superiority. Weaklings cried:
“We are betrayed. It is 1870 over again.” What could the bravest reply?
Letters were few and far between. Newspapers were never so barren. What
was Paris doing? What were Russia and England doing? The retreating
columns marched with downcast eyes, wrapped in a moody silence.
By what revolt of the spirit did these apparently broken men become, a
fortnight later, the heroes of the Marne? The answer must be that they
were not broken, but were passing through the sort of experience which,
in a virile race, wakens the dull-minded to their utmost effort, blows
away the last traces of laxity and false idealism, and, by setting
above every other fear the fear of a ruined Fatherland, rallies the
whole mass on the elementary ground of defence to the death. Voices,
lying voices, had whispered that France was diseased, body and soul,
that the Republic would surely die of its corruptions. We have since
discovered the immeasurable strength of democratic communities. Then
it was questioned by the few, unsuspected by the many. England and
America, even more than France, had outgrown any sort of liking for
war. To be driven back to that gross test was a profound surprise.
For the quick, proud French mind to find itself suddenly in face of
defeat and the threat of conquest was a second and severer shock. The
long retreat gave it time to perceive that this calamity arose largely
from its own errors, and to re-group its forces in a truer conception
of the character of modern warfare. Even Joffre may not have clearly
realised this need; great instincts count in the crisis of leadership
equally with powerful reasoning. Amid the tramp-tramp of the weary,
dust-blinded columns, by the night bivouacs, under the rain of shrapnel
and the crash of high explosive, men of the most diverse condition and
character, shedding old vanities and new alarms, came down step by
cruel step to the fundamental honesty, unity, and resolution of our
nature. The mirage of an easy victory vanished; in its place a finer
idea rose and rose till the armies saw nothing else: France must live!
I may die, or be doomed to a travesty of life; at any price, France
must be saved.
So the steel was tempered for the supreme trial.