JOFFRE STARTS AFRESH
I. ECCE HOMO!
France, land of swift action and swifter wit, was the last one would
expect to take kindly to the new warfare. She looked then, as her
elders had always looked, for a Man. And she found one; but he was far
from being of the traditional type.
Joseph Cesaire Joffre was at this time sixty-two years old, a
burly figure, with large head upheld, grey hair, thick moustache
and brows, clear blue eyes, and a kindly, reflective manner. His
great-grandfather, a political refugee from Spain, named Gouffre, had
settled in Rivesaltes, on the French side of the eastern Pyrenees,
where his grandfather remained as a trader, and his father lived as
a simple workman till his marriage, which brought him into easier
circumstances. One of eleven children, Joffre proved an industrious
pupil at Perpignon, entered the Ecole Polytechnique in 1869, advanced
slowly, by general intelligence rather than any special capacity,
entered the Engineers after the War of 1870, and during the ’eighties
commenced a long colonial career. His report on the Timbuctoo
Expedition of 1893–4, where he first won distinction, is the longest
of his very few printed writings. It shows a prudent, methodical,
lucid, and energetic mind, with particular aptitude for engineering
and administration. After an interval in Paris as secretary of the
Inventions Commission, the then Colonel Joffre went out to direct
the establishment of defence works in Madagascar. In 1900, promoted
general, he commanded an artillery brigade, in 1905 an infantry
division. After other experience at the Ministry of War and in local
commands, he became a member of the Higher War Council in 1910, and
in July 1911 Vice-President of that body, and thus Commander-in-Chief
designate.
This heavy responsibility fell to him almost by accident. It was the
time of the Agadir crisis; France and Germany were upon the verge
of war. M. Caillaux was Prime Minister, M. Messimy Minister of War,
General Michel Vice-President of the Council, a position, at the end
of a long period of peace, of little power, especially as the Council
had only a formal existence. The Government recognised its weakness,
but feared to establish a Grand Staff which might obtain a dangerous
authority. Moreover, General Michel was not “well seen” by the
majority of his colleagues. Messimy thought him lacking in spirit and
ability.[27] There were also differences of opinion; Michel thought
the reserves should be organised to be thrown into line directly upon
the outbreak of hostilities, and he believed in the probability of an
invasion by way of Belgium. Generals Pau and Gallieni were the first
favourites for the succession. Both, however, would attain the age
limit at the end of 1912. Gallieni declined on the further ground that
his experience had been almost wholly colonial, and that he would not
be welcomed by the metropolitan army. Michel’s ideas having been
formally rejected at a meeting of the Higher War Council on July 19,
1911, the post was offered to Pau, a universally esteemed officer.
The Ministry had decided to strengthen the post of Vice-President of
the Council by adding to it the functions of Chief-of-Staff; but when
Pau demanded the right to nominate all superior officers, Messimy
hesitated, and turned to Joffre, the member of the Council having the
longest period——over five years——of service before him.
Joffre was little known outside army circles; and he had none of
the qualities that most easily bring popularity. Southerners would
recognise his rich accent, but little else in this silent, though
genial, figure. His profound steadiness, a balance of mind that was
to carry him through the worst of storms, a cool reflectiveness
almost suggesting insensibility, were qualities strange in a French
military leader. He was understood to be a faithful Republican; but,
unlike some high officers, he had never trafficked with party, sect,
or clique, and he showed his impartiality in retiring the freethinker
Sarrail and the Catholic de Langle de Cary, as in supporting Sir John
French and in advancing Foch. When I looked at him, I was reminded of
Campbell-Bannerman; there was the same pawkiness, the same unspoiled
simplicity, the same courage and bonhomie. Before the phrase was coined
or the fact accomplished, he prefigured to his countrymen the “union
sacrée” which was the first condition of success; and to the end his
solid character was an important factor in the larger concert of the
Allies.
While there appears in Joffre a magnanimity above the average of great
commanders, it is, perhaps, not yet possible to say that, through
this crisis, his sense of justice was equal to every strain. There are
friends of General Gallieni who would question it. The case of General
Lanrezac is less personal, and more to our purpose. An officer of
decided views and temper, who had been professor at St. Cyr in 1880,
and had risen to be director of studies in the Staff College, he became
a member of the War Council only six months before the outbreak of war,
when the opinions formerly represented by General Michel, and partially
and more softly by Castlenau, were definitely discredited.[28] Always
sceptical of the orthodox doctrine of the general offensive, Lanrezac
was convinced by information obtained at the beginning of the campaign
that the great danger had to be met in the north, and that the armies
should be shifted immediately to meet it. We have seen that Joffre
would not accept this view till the third week in August, and still
pursued an offensive plan which now appears to have been foredoomed
to failure. Nevertheless, Lanrezac was punished for the defeat on the
Sambre, by being removed from the command of the 5th Army; and, to the
end of the war, the Generalissimo persisted in attributing the frontier
repulses to subordinate blundering. Joffre’s action in the height of
the crisis, his wholesale purge of the army commands, may be justified;
it is too late to shelter the Staff of those days from their major
share in the responsibility.
It must remain to his biographers to explain more precisely the
extraordinary contrast between the errors we have indicated and the
recovery we have now to trace. This much may here be said: Joffre
was hardly the man, in days of peace, to grapple with a difficult
parliament, or to conceive a new military doctrine. He was not, like
his neighbour of the South, Foch, an intellectual, a bold speculator, a
specialist in strategy, but an organiser, a general manager. The first
French plan of campaign, for which he had such share of responsibility
as attaches to three years in charge of the military machine, was the
expression of a firmly established teaching, which only a few pioneers
in his own world had consciously outgrown. It did not reflect his own
temperament; but he could not have successfully challenged it, in
the time at his disposal, against prejudices so inveterate, even if
he had had the mind to do so. It was the first time all the services
concerned in war preparations, including the War Council, the General
Staff, the Staff Committee, the Higher War School, had come under a
single control; and, even had there been no arrears, no financial
difficulties, a greater permanence of Ministries, the task would
have called for all one man’s powers of labour and judgment. Joffre
was surrounded during that period by men more positive, in certain
directions, than himself, more ambitious, men whose abilities could
no more be defied than their influence. “He had more character than
personality,” says one of his eulogists, who compares him with Turenne,
citing Bossuet on that great soldier: “He was used to fighting without
anger, winning without ambition, and triumphing without vanity.”[29] It
was as though Nature, seeing the approach of a supreme calamity, had
prepared against it, out of the spirit of the age——an age by no means
Napoleonic——an adequate counter-surprise.
The slow growth and cumulation of his career are characteristic. It is
all steady, scrupulous industry. It smacks of an increasingly civilian
world. There is no exterior romance in the figure of Joffre, nothing
mediæval, nothing meretricious. He is a glorified _bourgeois_, with
the sane vigour and solidity of his race, and none of its more showy
qualities. There is extant a lecture which he delivered in 1913 to
the old scholars of the Ecole Polytechnique. He presented the Balkan
wars for consideration as a case in which two factors were sharply
opposed——numbers, and preparation. Setting aside high strategy and
abstract teaching, he preached the virtue of all-round preparation——in
the moral and intellectual factors, first of which a sane patriotism
and a worthy command, as well as in the material factors of numbers,
armament, supplies, and so on. “_To be ready_ in our days,” he says,
“carries a meaning it would have been difficult for those who formerly
prepared and conducted war to grasp.... To be ready to-day, all the
resources of the country, all the intelligence of its children, all
their moral energy, must be directed in advance toward a single
aim——victory. Everything must have been organised, everything foreseen.
Once hostilities are commenced, no improvisation will be of any use.
What lacks then will lack definitively. And the least omission may
cause a disaster.”
That he and his Staff were caught both unprepared and ill-prepared
gives an impish touch of satire to this passage. That it is,
nevertheless, the authentic voice of Joffre is confirmed by one of his
rare personal declarations in the course of the war. This statement
was made in February 1915——when many of the commanders referred to
had been removed, and the officership of the French Army considerably
rejuvenated——to an old friend[30] who asked him whether Charleroi
was lost under pressure of overwhelming numbers. “That is absolutely
wrong,” replied Joffre. “We ought to have won the battle of Charleroi;
we ought to have won ten times out of eleven. We lost it through our
own faults. Faults of command. Before the war broke out, I had already
noted that, among our generals, many were worn out. Some had appeared
to me to be incapable, not good enough for their work. Some inspired
me with doubt, others with disquietude. I had made up my mind to
rejuvenate our chief commands; and I should have done so in spite of
all the commentaries and against any malevolence. But the war came too
soon. And, besides, there were other generals in whom I had faith, and
who have not responded to my hopes. The man of war reveals himself more
in war than in studies, and the quickest intelligence and the most
complete knowledge are of little avail if they are unaccompanied by
qualities of action. The responsibilities of war are such that, even in
the men of merit, their best faculties may be paralysed. That is what
happened to some of my chiefs. Their worth turned out to be below the
mark. I had to remedy these defects. Some of these generals were my
best comrades. But, if I love my friends much, I love France more. I
relieved them of their posts. I did this in the same way as I ought to
be treated myself, if it be thought I am not good enough. I did not do
this to punish them, but simply as a measure of public safety. I did it
with a heavy heart.”
Such were the character and record of the man upon whom, at the darkest
moment in modern history, fell the burden of the destinies of liberal
Europe; who was called upon to prove, against his own words, that a
great leader must and can improvise something essential of what has
not been prepared; who, between August 23 and 25, 1914, in a maze of
preoccupations, had to provide the Western Allies with a second new
plan of campaign. Some day his officers will tell the story of how he
did it, of the outer scene at his shifting headquarters during those
alarming hours, as the Emperor’s Marshals portrayed their chief pacing
like a caged tiger by candlelight in a Polish hut, or gazing gloomily
from the Kremlin battlements upon the flames that were turning his
ambition to ashes. Joffre will not help us to such pictures; and in
this, too, he shows himself to be representative of the modern process,
which is anything but picturesque. If he had none of the romance of the
stark adventurer about him, he had a cool head and a stout heart; and
we may imagine that, out of the depths of a secretive nature, there
surged up spontaneously in this crisis all that was worthiest in it,
the stored strength of a Spartan life, the will of a deep patriotism,
the lessons of a long, varied, pondered experience. So far from dire
peril paralysing his faculties, it was now that they first shone to the
full. Calm, confident, clear, prompt, he set himself to correct the
most glaring errors, and to create the conditions of an equal struggle.
We know from his published Army Orders what resulted. Castlenau, Pau,
Foch were far away on the east, or at the centre. There were other
advisers; but, in the main, this was Joffre’s own plan.
Before we state it, and trace its later modification, it will be well
to recall the main features of the problem to be solved.
II. THE SECOND NEW PLAN
The first fact which had to be reckoned with was that the main weight
of the enemy was bearing down across the north and north-east, and was,
for the moment, irresistible. Retreat, at the outset, was not, then,
within the plan, but a condition of it. There was no choice; contact
with the invader must be broken if any liberty of action was to be
won back. Defeat and confusion had been suffered at so many points,
the force of the German offensive was so markedly superior, that an
unprepared arrest on the Belgian frontier would have risked the armies
being divided, enveloped, and destroyed piecemeal.
If the first stage of the retreat was enforced, its extension was
in some measure willed and constantly controlled. For all the
decisions taken, Joffre must have the chief credit, as he had the
whole responsibility. The abandonment of large tracts of national
territory to a ruthless enemy cannot be an easy choice, especially when
the inhabitants are unwarned, and the mind of the nation is wholly
unprepared (the defeats on the Sambre and the Meuse were not known
for several days to the civil public, and then only very vaguely). A
less cool mind might have fallen into temporising expedients. Maubeuge
was to hold out for a fortnight more; the 4th Army had checked the
enemy, and Ruffey had repulsed several attacks; Longwy had not yet
capitulated. But the Commander-in-Chief was not deceived. He had no
sooner learned the weight of Kluck’s flying wing than he realised that
the only hope now lay in a rapid retirement. The fact that the British
force, holding the west flank, depended upon coast communications
for its munitions, supplies, and reinforcements, was an element to
be counted. In every respect, unreadiness in the north dominated the
situation.
Evidently the retreat must be stayed, and the reaction begun, at
the earliest possible moment. Not only were large communities
and territories being abandoned: the chief German line of attack
seemed to be aimed direct at the capital, which was in a peculiar
degree the centre of the national life. This consideration, which
no Commander-in-Chief could have forgotten, was emphasised in a
letter addressed at 5 a.m. on August 25 by the Minister of War, M.
Messimy, to General Joffre. It contained a specific order from the
Government——probably the only ministerial interference with the
operations in this period——thus phrased: “If victory does not crown a
success of our armies, and if the armies are compelled to retreat, an
army of at least three active corps must be directed to the entrenched
camp of Paris to assure its protection.” In an accompanying letter, the
Minister added: “It goes without saying that the line of retreat should
be quite other, and should cover the centre and the south of France. We
are resolved to struggle to the last and without mercy.”[31] No doubt,
these measures would, to Joffre, seem to “go without saying.” The
retreat, so long as necessary, must be directed toward the centre of
the country, and at the same time the capital must be protected.
There was another necessity of no less importance. The retreat must be
covered on the east. After the reverse of Morhange–Sarrebourg, this
was a continual source of anxiety. On August 25, the German Armies
of Lorraine, now reinforced, were hammering at the circle of hills
called the Grand Couronné of Nancy, and were upon the Moselle before
the Gap of Charmes. Belfort and Epinal were safe, and Verdun was not
yet directly threatened. Very little consideration of the rectangular
battle front——the main masses ranged along the north, while a line of
positions naturally and artificially strong favoured the French on
the east——would lead to the further conclusion: to stand fast along
the east, as cover for the retreat from the north. Castelnau and
Dubail, therefore, were asked to hold their critical positions at any
cost. At the same time, Mulhouse and the northern Vosges passes were
abandoned; Belfort, Epinal, and even Verdun were deprived of every
superfluous man, in order to meet the main flood of invasion. The
evacuation of Verdun and Nancy was envisaged as a possibility. The line
Toul–Epinal–Belfort could not be lost without disaster.
Such were the three chief conditions affecting the extent of the
strategic retreat. Conditions are, however, to be made, not only
suffered; and General Joffre had no sooner got the retreat in hand
than he set himself to the constitution of a new mass of manœuvre
by means of which, when a favourable conjuncture of circumstances
should be obtained, the movement could be reversed. The simultaneous
disengagement and parallel withdrawal of four armies, with various
minor forces, over a field 120 miles wide and of a like depth, was
an operation unprecedented in the history of war. The pains and
difficulties of such a retreat, the danger of dislocation and
demoralisation, are evident. Its great compensation was to bring the
defence nearer to its reserves and bases of supply, while constantly
stretching the enemy’s line, and so weakening his striking force. This
could not, of course, be pure gain: the French and British Armies lost
heavily on the road south by the capture of laggards, sick, wounded,
and groups gone astray, as well as in killed and men taken in action.
The Germans lost more heavily in several, perhaps in most, of the
important engagements, and they were much exhausted when the crucial
moment came. On the other hand, the Allies were constantly picking
up reinforcements; while the enemy had to leave behind an army of
occupation in Belgium, and large numbers of men to reduce Maubeuge,
to garrison towns like Lille, Valenciennes, Amiens, St. Quentin,
Cambrai, Laon, Rethel, Rheims, to terrorise scores of smaller places,
and to provide guards and transport for ever-lengthening lines of
communication.
Upon these chief elements Joffre constructed his new plan of campaign.
It was first mooted, a few hours after the issue of the order for
the general retreat, in the tactical “Note for All the Armies” of
August 24, and in the strategical “General Instruction” of August
25. General Headquarters were then housed in the old College, in the
small country town of Vitry-le-François. Here, far behind the French
centre, undisturbed by the turmoil of the front and the capital,
the Commander-in-Chief, aided by such men as General Belin (a great
organiser particularly of railway services), General Berthelot and
Colonel Pont, grappled with the dire problem and, in the shadow of
defeat, imperturbably drafted the design of the ultimate victory.
The tactical note gathered such of the more urgent lessons of the
preceding actions as were capable of immediate application: the
importance of close co-operation of infantry and artillery in attack;
of artillery preparation of the assault, destruction of enemy
machine-guns, immediate entrenchment of a position won, organisation
for prolonged resistance, as contrasted with “the enthusiastic
offensive”; extended formation in assault; the German method of cavalry
patrols immediately supported by infantry, and the need of care not to
exhaust the horses. “When a position has been won, the troops should
organise it immediately, entrench themselves, and bring up artillery to
prevent any new attack by the enemy. The infantry seem to ignore the
necessity of organising for a prolonged combat. Throwing forthwith into
line numerous and dense units, they expose them immediately to the fire
of the enemy, which decimates them, stops short their offensive, and
often leaves them at the mercy of a counter-attack.” The Generalissimo
offered his lieutenants no rhetorical comfort, but the purge of simple
truth. He knew, and insisted on their understanding, that the shrewdest
of strategy was useless if faults such as these were to remain
uncorrected.
The “General Instruction No. 2,” issued to the Army Commanders at 10
p.m. on August 25, consisted of twelve articles, which——omitting for
the moment the detailed dispositions——contain the following orders:
“1. _The projected offensive manœuvre being impossible of
execution, the ulterior operations will be regulated with a view
to the reconstitution on our left, by the junction of the 4th
and 5th Armies, the British Army, and new forces drawn from the
region of the east, of a mass capable of resuming the offensive,
while the other armies contain for the necessary time the efforts
of the enemy._
“2. _In its retirement, each of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Armies will
take account of the movements of the neighbouring armies, with
which it must keep in touch. The movement will be covered by
rearguards left in favourable irregularities of the ground, so
as to utilise all the obstacles to stop, or at least delay, the
march of the enemy by short and violent counter-attacks, of which
the artillery will contribute the chief element._
“6. _In advance of Amiens, a new group of forces, constituted
by elements brought up by railway (7th Corps, four divisions
of reserve, and perhaps another active army corps), will be
gathered from August 27 to September 2. It will be ready to pass
to the offensive in the general direction St. Pol–Arras, or
Arras–Bapaume._
“8. _The 5th Army will have the main body of its forces in the
region of Vermand–St. Quentin–Moy, in order to debouch in the
general direction of Bohain, its right holding the line La
Fère–Laon–Craonne–St. Erme._
“11. _All the positions indicated must be organised with the
greatest care, so as to make it possible to offer the maximum of
resistance to the enemy._
“12. _The 1st and 2nd Armies will continue to hold the enemy
forces which are opposed to them._”
Articles 3, 4, and 5 specified the lines of retreat and zones of action
of each of the Western forces. Articles 7, 9, and 10, like articles 6
and 8 quoted above, indicate the positions from which the projected
offensive movement was to be made. The whole disposition may be
summarised as follows:——On the extreme left, from the coast to near
Amiens, the northern Territorial Divisions were to hold the line of
the Somme, with the Cavalry Corps in advance, and the 61st and 62nd
Reserve Divisions in support. Next eastward, either north or south
of the Somme, was to come the new, or 6th Army, which was to strike
north or north-east, on one side or the other of Arras, according to
circumstances. Beside it, the British Army, from behind the Somme
between Bray and Ham, would advance to the north or north-east. The 5th
Army (article 8 above) had an exceedingly strong position and rôle.
With the Oise valley before it, and the St. Gobain and Laon hills
behind, it was to attack due northward between St. Quentin and Guise.
The 4th Army was to reach across Champagne from Craonne to the Argonne
either by the Aisne valley or by Rheims; while the 3rd hung around
Verdun, touching the Argonne either at Grandpré or Ste. Menehould.
The great military interest of these arrangements must not detain us.
Their publication reveals the fact, long unknown save to a few, that
Joffre not merely hoped for, but definitely planned, a resumption
of the offensive from a line midway between the Sambre and the
Marne, that is, from the natural barrier of the Somme and the St.
Gobain–Laon hills. We shall see that an effort was made to carry out
these dispositions, and that it failed. The failure was lamentable,
inasmuch as it doomed another large tract of country to the penalties
of invasion. But, because the dispositions ordered on August 25
were only provisional details, not essentials, of the new plan, the
military result was in no way compromised. While dealing with local
emergencies or opportunities, Joffre envisaged steadily the whole
national situation. The essentials of the “General Instruction” of
August 25 were four in number: (_a_) a defensive stand by the armies of
Alsace and Lorraine, and a provisional defensive by the two armies next
westward, the 3rd and 4th; (_b_) a strictly controlled continuation
of the northern retreat while reorganisation took place and forces
were transferred from the east to the north-west; (_c_) an ultimate
offensive initiated by the western and central armies, of which one
additional, to be called the 9th, under General Foch, about to be
interjected between the 4th and 5th, is not yet mentioned; (_d_) the
constitution of a new left wing, to meet the extraordinary strength of
the German right, and to attempt a counter-envelopment. The Amiens–Laon
line fell out of the plan; the plan itself remained, and it is fully
true to say that in it lies the germ of the battle of the Marne.
III. BATTLE OF THE GAP OF CHARMES
Everything was conditional upon the defence of the eastern frontier,
now at its most critical phase.[32]
On the morning of August 24, Lunéville having been occupied on the
previous day, the hosts of Prince Ruprecht and General Heeringen were
reported to be advancing rapidly toward the entry of the Gap of Charmes
by converging roads——the former, on the north, passing before the Nancy
hills, southward; the latter, coming westward from around the Donon,
by Baccarat. We have seen (p. 31) that, on the other hand, the 2nd and
1st French armies, in preparation for a decisive action, were ranged
in the shape of a right-angle——that of Castelnau (based on Toul)
from the foothills north-eastward of Nancy, southward, to Rozelieures
and Borville; that of Dubail (based on Epinal) from the northern end
of the Vosges, westward, to the same point. How far these positions,
with the prospect of being able to close in upon the flanks of the
enemy, arose from necessary directions of the retreat, and how far from
strategical design, whether of one or both of the army commanders,
or of the Commander-in-Chief, does not here concern us; suffice it
to say that the two generals won equal honour, and that the Grand
Quartier effectively supervised this and subsequent developments of the
situation. The opposed forces were now about equal in strength——nine
corps on either side.
A space had been left at the point of the angle, north of the Forest
of Charmes, west of Rozelieures; and this may have tempted the Germans
forward. The 16th Corps of the French 2nd Army, the 8th and 13th of
the 1st, with three divisions of cavalry under General Conneau masking
them, were ready to fill this space, and, as soon as Lunéville had
been lost, proceeded to do so, artillery being massed particularly on
Borville plateau. On the afternoon of August 24, the pincers began to
close, Dubail holding the imperilled angle and Heeringen’s left, while
Castelnau beat upon the enemy’s northern flank. On the morning of the
25th, the Germans took Rozelieures; at 2 p.m. they abandoned it; at
3 p.m., Castelnau issued the order: “_En avant, partout, à fond!_”
Foch’s 20th Corps, aiming at the main line of enemy communications,
the Arracourt–Lunéville road, took Réméréville and Erbéviller, east of
Nancy, and struck hard, farther south, at Maixe, Crevic, Flainval, and
Hudviller, toward Lunéville, which was at the same time threatened on
the south-west by the 15th Corps, reaching the Meurthe and Mortagne at
Lamath and Blainville. By night, the enemy was conscious of his danger,
and escaped constriction by a general withdrawal. On the 26th, further
hard fighting confirmed the French victory. Positions were occupied at
the foot of the Grand Couronné, on the north, and near St. Dié on the
south, which were to save the situation a fortnight later. The Gap of
Charmes was definitely closed. The German armies had suffered their
first great defeat in the war; and, although little known to the outer
world, it did much for the moral of the French ranks. On August 27,
General Joffre issued an order praising this “example of tenacity and
courage,” and expressing his confidence that the other armies would
“have it at heart to follow it.”
Towards the north end of the Franco-German frontier, another check was
administered at the same time to the Crown Prince’s Army, near Etain,
half-way between Verdun and Metz. General Maunoury, with an ephemeral
“Army of Lorraine,” consisting of three reserve divisions, formed part
of the 3rd Army of General Ruffey, but was given by the G.Q.G. the
special task of watching for any threat on the side of Metz. He could
do little, therefore, to help Ruffey in the battle of Virton.[33]
On August 24, however, a German postal van was captured with orders
showing that the Crown Prince intended to attack in the belief that
the French had engaged all their troops. Generals Ruffey, Paul Durand,
Grossetti, and Maunoury held a hurried conference; and, the G.Q.G.
having given permission, on the following day Maunoury struck out
suddenly at the Crown Prince’s left, which was thrown back in disorder.
This victory might have been followed up. But General Joffre did not
mistake the real centre of gravity of the situation, and would not
change the basis of his new plan. He now considered the eastern front
sufficiently secure to justify a transfer of certain units to meet the
emergency in the western field. Thither, our attention may return.
IV. BATTLES OF LE CATEAU, GUISE, AND LAUNOIS
During the night of August 25——while Smith-Dorrien’s men were defending
themselves at Solesmes and Haig’s at Landrecies——General Maunoury
received the order to disengage his divisions, and to hurry across
country to Montdidier with his Staff, there to complete the formation
and undertake the command of the new 6th Army. This distinguished
soldier was sixty-seven years of age. Wounded in the war of 1870, he
had taken a leading part in the development of the French artillery,
directed the Ecole de Guerre, and restored a strict discipline in the
garrison of the capital as Governor of Paris. Two of his phrases will
help to characterise this gallant officer. The first was that in which,
in the moment of victory, he spoke of himself as having for forty-four
years directed all his energies toward “la revanche de 1870.” The other
was addressed to a group of fellow-officers who were discussing certain
German brutalities. He could not understand such things, he said, and
added: “When we are in their country, we will give them a terrible
lesson in humaneness.”[34]
The Army of the Somme consisted at the outset of the 7th Corps, taken
from Alsace (_minus_ its 13th Division, left in Lorraine; _plus_ the
63rd Reserve Division and a Moroccan Brigade from the Châlons camp);
the 55th and 56th Divisions of Reserve, taken from the Verdun–Toul
region; the 61st and 62nd Divisions of Reserve, detached from the Paris
garrison to Arras, under General d’Amade, and brought back from Arras
to Amiens. It was constituted in the most unfavourable circumstances;
and the idea of a flank attack from the Arras–Amiens region, in
support of an offensive from the old line of secondary fortresses La
Fère–Laon–Rheims, was no sooner conceived than it had to be abandoned.
Maunoury was compelled to send his divisions off piecemeal from
railhead to the battlefield. The chief body of them had had such rest
as a long journey in goods-vans permits; d’Amade’s reservists had
been routed in the north, and had lost heavily. If Kluck had not been
absorbed in the effort to destroy Sir John French’s little band of
heroes, Maunoury’s task could never have been fulfilled.
The debt was quickly repaid. The moment had come when the British must
be relieved, or exterminated. Between Le Cateau and Cambrai, on August
26, the three infantry divisions and two cavalry brigades of the 2nd
Corps, although worn by long marches, checked the onrush of seven
German divisions and three mounted divisions, including some of the
best Prussian troops, supported by at least a hundred batteries. Again
trusting to his guns while he planned a double envelopment, Kluck
allowed his enemy to escape. While this first experience of massed
artillery fire revealed the fine quality of our “Old Contemptibles,”
it is a debated question whether General Smith-Dorrien’s temerity was
justified. He had been expressly ordered to continue the retreat,
and General Allenby had warned him of the risk he ran. A sharp blow
upon the German right flank by Sordet’s cavalry and some of d’Amade’s
battalions relieved the perilous situation. But the British losses
were heavy after as well as during the battle. At night, during the
disengagement, the 1st Gordons marched into the camp of a German
division, and were taken prisoner almost to a man. The following is
the judgment of the British Commander-in-Chief upon this affair: “The
magnificent fight put up by these glorious troops saved disaster, but
the actual result was a total loss of at least 14,000 officers and
men, about 80 guns, numbers of machine-guns as well as quantities of
ammunition, war material and baggage, whilst the enemy gained time to
close up his infantry columns marching down from the north-east....
The hope of making a stand behind the Somme or the Oise, or any other
favourable position north of the Marne, had now to be abandoned, owing
to the shattered condition of the army, and the far-reaching effect
of our losses at the battle of Le Cateau was felt seriously even
throughout the subsequent battle of the Marne, and during the early
operations on the Aisne. It was not possible to replace our lost guns
and machine-guns until nearly the end of September.”[35]
At this time Bülow was pursuing Sir Douglas Haig along the Guise road.
On the 27th, the 2nd Munster Fusiliers were cut off, and killed or
captured, except a handful saved by the 15th Hussars. On the 28th,
the weary remnant of an army which had marched 90 miles in four days,
fighting continually, tramped down the Oise valley, from La Fère to
Noyon. That evening, Gough’s cavalry, at the south of the Somme near
Ham, and Chetwode’s a little farther east, in covering the retreat, had
to bear two severe attacks, which they effectually broke. On August 26,
Sir John French had met Generals Joffre and Lanrezac at St. Quentin,
and had again found the attitude of the latter officer unsatisfactory.
On August 29, at 1 p.m., General Joffre visited the British Commander
at the latter’s headquarters in the Château of Compiègne. “I strongly
represented my position,” Sir John reported to Lord Kitchener, “to the
French Commander-in-Chief, who was most kind, cordial, and sympathetic,
as he has always been.” The Field-Marshal was persuaded from this time
on that “our stand should be made on some line between the Marne and
the Seine.”
The needed relief had already been arranged when the conference took
place, by a movement which we may summarise as an inclination of the
6th and 5th French Armies toward each other across the British rear.
Sordet’s three cavalry divisions had already passed from the right to
the left of the British Army. D’Amade’s Divisions had done something
to check Von Kluck’s advance by the Bapaume–Amiens and Peronne–Roye
highroads. Nevertheless, Von der Marwitz’s cavalry was on the Somme
on August 28. That day Lanrezac’s Army, which had retired from the
line Avesnes–Chimay west-south-westward, took positions south of the
Oise between La Fère and Guise. On the following day, August 29, while
Joffre had gone from Lanrezac’s headquarters at Laon to consult Sir
John French at Compiègne, Maunoury and Lanrezac struck two hard blows,
the one eastward from the Santerre plateau toward Peronne, the other
north-west from the Oise toward St. Quentin, against the two flanks of
Kluck.
In the former action, between the villages of Villers Bretonneaux and
Proyart, 15,000 French chasseurs and troops of the line arrested a
larger German force for a day and a night, then falling back toward
Roye. Lanrezac was more successful in the simultaneous battle of Guise
(extending to Ribémont on the west, and eastward to Vervins), although
its original aim was not carried out. This was to wheel about, and to
strike westward. The delicate manœuvre might have ended disastrously,
for Bülow was closer than was thought, but for a rapid return to the
old front. The left of the 5th Army (18th and 3rd Corps) crossed the
Oise toward St. Quentin in the morning of the 29th, but was stopped in
view of the arrest of the right (1st and 10th Corps) by heavy German
attacks. The 3rd Corps was then transferred to the right; and, to the
east of Guise, a serious repulse was inflicted on the German X Corps
and the Guard.
This seems to have been the strongest of several factors which now
produced a deep disturbance of the German plans. On August 28,
according to Bülow’s war-diary,[36] the High Command, probably under
the impression of Le Cateau, had ordered the I Army to continue
south-westward to the Seine below Paris, and the II Army to make
straight for the capital. Guise altered the whole prospect. Bülow had
had to ask aid from Kluck (who, till August 27 subject to Bülow, was
then given an independence of command which continued till September
10). Kluck, evidently the more forceful personality, and opposed to
an immediate descent on Paris, then proceeded south-east to the Oise
about Compiègne. The new direction was at once accepted by General
Headquarters——a momentous change which will be discussed presently.
Other important results were attained by these actions. The British
Force was freed, and retired to the north bank of the Aisne, between
Compiègne and Soissons, there to reorganise. At the same time, the
neighbouring French armies, albeit outnumbered, were so ranged as to
close the breach thus left against Kluck and Bülow, Field-Marshal
French, not having received reinforcements, had rejected Joffre’s
request to “stand and fight,” and refused to budge when it was repeated
by President Poincaré and Lord Kitchener.[37]
Dislocation became apparent on both sides at this juncture. Kluck’s
liaison with Bülow was not very good, or the movements just described
would not have been possible. A considerable gap had also developed
between Hausen and Bülow. True, there was a corresponding void between
the French 5th and 4th Armies, a distance of 25 miles held only by a
few flying columns. But behind this breach, a few miles to the south
(between Soissons and Château Porcien), the new so-called 9th Army had
begun to form on August 27, under General Foch, fresh from his failure
and success in Lorraine.
It is difficult now not to regard this appointment in the light
of later fame.[38] But the commander of the 20th Corps was already
distinguished. It is noteworthy that Ferdinand Foch was born within
4 miles and four months of Joffre——at Tarbes in the Upper Pyrenees,
on October 2, 1851. Of a solid and comfortable middle-class family,
he is said to have called the Generalissimo’s attention, when he was
offered the army command, to the fact that he had a brother who was a
Jesuit priest. Joffre swept the hinted objection aside. Foch, who had
served as subaltern in the 1870 war, had risen to be brigadier-general
when he was made director of the Ecole de Guerre. Later, he commanded
successively the 13th Division, the 8th Corps, and the 20th, of Nancy.
The new force he was now called upon to lead——consisting of the 42nd
Division of the 6th Corps, taken from the 3rd Army, the 9th and 11th
Corps, taken from the 4th Army, the 1st Moroccan Division, and two
reserve divisions from the 4th Army——was not yet ready to enter into
action. Joffre’s purpose in creating and placing it was not only to
strengthen his centre, but to preserve the offensive force of the
5th Army. The German Staff probably did not know of the existence
of Foch’s “detachment.” It did know that, farther east, its central
armies, those of Duke Albrecht of Würtemberg and the Prussian Crown
Prince, were not doing as well as had been expected. On August 28,
de Langle, having obtained the Generalissimo’s leave to suspend the
retreat of the 4th Army for a day, and a day only,[39] drove the German
IV Army back across the Meuse between Sedan and Stenay with his right,
while, with his left, he struck at the Saxons between Signy-l’Abbaye
and Novion-Porcien (sometimes called the battle of Launois), where,
in particular, the 1st Moroccan Division dealt faithfully with the I
Saxon (XII German) Corps. The 3rd French Army was also deliberate in
its retirement toward and around the northern limits of the entrenched
camp of Verdun, and, on the 29th, near Dun-sur-Meuse, almost completely
destroyed one of the Crown Prince’s regiments which tried to cross the
river.
V. END OF THE LONG RETREAT
The position along the French front on this day was, therefore, more
favourable than it had been. In Lorraine, there was a slackening of the
German attacks, pending the arrival of fresh forces; and Castelnau,
his weakened army fully rallied, was more confident of the issue. In
the west, one new army had come, and another was coming, into line.
At the right-centre and left-centre, the enemy had suffered checks
which must have disturbed his arrogance, and caused hesitation and
divided counsels that were presently to contribute to his undoing.
They were checks only, however. A superiority of power remained; and
Kluck’s right wing, doing forced marches of 25 to 30 miles a day,
although the Allies broke most of the bridges behind them, was a very
serious menace. Foch was not ready for a decisive engagement; and the
Commander-in-Chief never wavered in his view that the general reaction
must commence from the left.
So the offensive must be postponed, the subsidiary scheme of August 25
cancelled, the retreat prolonged. General Joffre had left Lanrezac,
at noon on the 29th, with the knowledge that an offensive toward
St. Quentin was impossible, and during the afternoon had listened to
the representations of the British commander, who was accompanied by
his three corps commanders and General Allenby. In his report of the
interview, French says: “A general retirement on the line of the Marne
was ordered, to which the French forces in the more eastern theatre
of war were directed to conform,” adding: “Whilst closely adhering to
his strategic conception, to draw the enemy on at all points until a
favourable situation was created from which to assume the offensive,
General Joffre found it necessary to modify from day to day the methods
by which he sought to attain this object, owing to the development
of the enemy’s plans and changes of the general situation.” It was a
hard decision to retreat to the Marne, so abandoning the second great
defence line established after the war of 1870, including the forts of
La Fère, Laon, and Rheims. This new objective emphasised the dangerous
unevenness of the front, for, on the 29th, de Langle’s Army was 40
miles north of the Marne (beyond Rethel), Lanrezac was 50 miles to the
north (near Guise), Maunoury and the British were about 30 miles to the
north (between Clermont and Compiègne). It was a bold decision. But
there was something still more heroic to follow.
Retreat and pursuit now attained their maximum speed, the greatest
pressure being always on the west. The city and important railway
centre of Amiens was evacuated by d’Amade, and occupied by Kluck’s
extreme right, on August 30 (the British base had already been moved
to St. Nazaire). On that memorable Sunday, all the roads converging
towards Paris were crowded with fugitives, whose panic-haste was
only too well justified by the barbarities that marked the progress
of the invasion. On the 31st, while the 5th Army was still north of
Laon, Kluck was driving across the rearguards of Maunoury and of the
British (restored to the general line, after a day’s rest) in the
Clermont–Compiègne region. The curvature of the Allied line, and the
threat of envelopment on the left, or division of the left from the
centre, were acute. As we shall see, however, the enemy had fallen
into a more perilous predicament. Paris had begun to be a major factor
in the situation. The railways running southward from the capital
were overwhelmed with multitudes of flying civilians; so that the
detrainment of some of the reinforcements from the east had to be made
at a point more distant than had been intended.[40]
The British Commander-in-Chief, conscious of the weakness of his
means, but sensible also of what might happen to the great city, now
expressed his readiness to take part in a general battle before Paris,
provided that his flanks could be covered.[41] But neither of Joffre’s
two new armies, the 6th and 9th, was ready for a decisive test. Kluck
was hard upon the heels of d’Amade, Maunoury, and the British; and
even on the Marne they might not be able to make a stand. Weighing up
the possibilities from hour to hour, the Generalissimo concluded that
he was not yet justified in risking everything. On September 1, from
his headquarters, which were moved on that day from Vitry to a quiet
château at Bar-sur-Aube, orders were issued to extend the retreat
by another 30 miles to the south banks of the Aube and the Seine.
“Despite the tactical successes obtained by the 3rd, 4th, and 5th
Armies on the Meuse and at Guise,” he wrote, “the enveloping movement
of the left of the 5th Army, insufficiently arrested by the British
troops and the 6th Army, obliges the whole of our formation to pivot
upon its right. As soon as the 5th Army has escaped the enveloping
manœuvre against its left, the mass of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Armies
will resume the offensive.” This order marks the moment at which Verdun
became a pivot for the remaining portion of the western retreat. “We
shall reach this line,” the Generalissimo added (September 2), “only
if we are constrained. We shall attack, before reaching it, if we can
realise a disposition permitting the co-operation of the whole of the
forces.”
The “General Instruction No. 4” of September
1 indicated, as the turning-point, the line
Bray-sur-Seine–Nogent-sur-Seine–Arcis-sur-Aube–Camp-de-Mailly–Bar-le-Duc.
By the supplementary note of the following day, this line of arrest was
pushed back a little farther still, from Pont-sur-Yonne (south-east
of Fontainebleau), through Brienne-le-Château, to Joinville, 25 miles
south of Bar-le-Duc. These positions were never reached; but the orders
are of great interest, anticipating, as they did, the possibility of a
movement that might well have involved the abandonment of Verdun and
the creation of a new pivot at Toul–Nancy. Joffre’s public words are
so few and sententious that the “General Order No. 11” may be given in
full:
“Part of our armies are falling back to re-establish their front,
recomplete their effectives, and prepare, with every chance of
success, for the general offensive that I shall order to be resumed in
a few days. The safety of the country depends upon the success of this
offensive, which, in accord with the pressure of our Russian Allies,
must break the German armies, that we have already seriously damaged at
several points.
“Every man must be made aware of this situation, and strain all his
energies for the final victory. The most minute precautions, as well
as the most draconian measures, will be taken that the retirement be
effected in complete order, so as to avoid useless fatigue. Fugitives,
if found, will be pursued and executed. Army commanders will give
orders to the depots so that these shall send promptly to the corps the
full number of men necessary to compensate for losses sustained and to
be foreseen in the next few days.
“The effectives must be as complete as possible, the cadres
reconstituted by promotion, and the moral of all up to the level of the
new tasks for the coming resumption of the forward movement which will
give us the definitive success.
“At General Headquarters, September 2, 1914.
The General Commanding-in-Chief,
“JOFFRE”