First Battle of the Marne

“ The first battle of the Marne holds a mystery which will intrigue historians, separate friends, cause hot debate, spawn learned treatises, help to fill the libraries, and assist in keeping not a few asylums occupied, for ages. If you would measure it as a cause for lunacy, read Belloc’s convincing exposition of the battle, and compare that with le Goffic’s story of the fighting of the Ninth Army, under General Foch, by Fère Champenoise and the Marshes of St. ”

“ The broken, rocky ground lends itself naturally to defence, and, by filling it with machine-guns, the Germans had made it well-nigh impregnable.{51}
The attack was begun on June 10, 1918, by the American Marine Brigade—the first of Uncle Sam’s units to land in France (June 27, 1917) —300 prisoners being taken. Operations were successfully continued on the 13th, when a powerful German counter-attack, with orders to drive out the Americans at all cost, was repulsed with heavy enemy loss. ”

“ In the evening, at the third attempt, the enemy recovered the village; and in the last hours of the night his general offensive along the Sezanne and Fère roads began. It will be convenient to follow first the western arm of the attack.
At 3 a.m. on September 8, after a sharp cannonade, the French machine-gunners on Mondemont Hill observed spectral forms approaching in open order—these were advanced parties belonging to the X Corps, with some elements of the Guard. They were easily repulsed ”

“ But this disposition placed the British Army much to the rear, to the west, of the line first fixed, and permitted the German II Corps, reported in the morning at Coulommiers, to repass the Marne and escape to the north-west. Fearing its appearance on the Ourcq, General Gallieni wrote on the 6th to Marshal French praying him at once to advance in accordance with the orders of General Joffre. On his side, the latter telegraphed to General Maunoury, on the 6th, asking him constantly to support the British left. ”

“ In this first phase, there is a strange naïveté; it is nearly all headlong extemporisation; masses of men constantly plunged from one into another term of the unknown. The “front” was never fixed; there were few of the features of combat later most characteristic—no234 trenches or dugouts, no bombs or helmets, no poison-gas, no mines, no Stokes guns, no swarm of buzzing ’planes across the sky, no field railways, few hot meals, and fewer ambulance cars. ”

“ Crossing the river before dawn, the Germans attacked the first-line divisions holding the southern bank, from Chartèves to Mareuil-le-Port. The American 3rd Division gallantly withstood the onslaught in the region of Chartèves, Jaulgonne and Fossoy and, after fierce fighting, forced the enemy back over the river, thereby helping to make the German offensive a failure. ”

“ Recklessly throwing masses of men into the battle in an attempt to reach his objective quickly by sheer weight of numbers, he launched five powerful attacks in five different places. Considered in the whole, these attacks were unsuccessful, while in the Ardre Valley the enemy was vigorously counter-attacked. Meanwhile, four French divisions began an offensive in the region of Dormans.
In spite of protecting smoke screens, the bridges across the Marne were unceasingly bombarded by the Allied aviators and artillery, and sometimes destroyed. ”

“ All efforts must be employed to attack and repel the enemy. Any troop which can no longer advance must at any cost hold the ground won, and be slain rather than give way. In the present circumstances, no failure can be tolerated.”
Sir John French struck a more conventionally cheerful note: “I call upon the British Army in France to show now to the enemy its power, and to push on vigorously to the attack beside the 6th French Army. ”

“ On the 22nd, the front was quiet between the Aisne and the Ourcq, but between the Ourcq and the Marne violent enemy counter-attacks temporarily drove back the Allies. However, at the end of the day the Allies had progressed beyond the Château-Thierry-Soissons road. On the Marne, French troops, moving eastwards under enemy artillery and machine-gun fire, enlarged their bridgehead on both banks. ”

“ The soldiers who lie buried there are those who gallantly defended the passage of the Marne on September 6. The French troops, overwhelmed by the fire of the German artillery at Vitry, were obliged to fall back on Courdemanges and Mont-Moret. The Germans in their turn were violently shelled by the French guns, but succeeded in holding out in Frignicourt until the 11th. ”

“ From June 5 onwards, enemy action was purely local, the Germans being often compelled to defend themselves against French counter-attacks. To the north, the Moroccan Division recaptured the Amblény positions by night. Hard fighting continued all along the Savières Stream, from Troësnes to Longpont, where the French recovered part of the lost ground, and to the north-west of Château-Thierry on the Dammard-Veuilly-la-Poterie-Belleau-Bouresches line, where the American troops, co-operating with French divisions, gave signal proofs of their courage and determination. ”

“ Enough has been said to show that the reverses of the beginning of the war which led to the long retreat were due not only to the brutal strength of the German invasion, but to bad information, bad judgment, bad45 organisation, an ill-conceived strategy and reckless tactics, on the side of the Allies. The impact on the north and north-west (including now the Crown Prince’s Army) of some 28 army corps—considerably over a million men—provided with heavy artillery, machine-guns, transport, and material on a prodigious scale, had never been dreamed of, and proved irresistible. ”

“ Crossing a river in battle was a perilous operation, entailing much confusion, and the chance might come at the Marne. They could see too that the Germans were now being pressed harder. The French shells were coming faster and with more deadly precision. Now and then they exploded among the masses of German infantry, and once or twice they struck close to the captives.
"It would be a pity to be killed by our own people," said Fleury. ”

“ From the Ourcq to the Marne the German resistance stiffened and occasionally counter-attacks were made, notwithstanding which the Franco-American troops progressed in the Fère and Ris Woods, and along the narrow passage which separates them. An advance was also made higher up the river near Reuil, but the attack by the 77th Division at this point failed to drive back the enemy. Some progress was made in the Ardre valley, in spite of enemy reinforcements. ”

“ In the decisive hour when the honour and safety of the French Fatherland are at stake, officers and soldiers will draw from the energy of our race the strength to stand firm till the moment when the enemy will collapse, worn out. The disorder prevailing among the German troops is a sign of our coming victory; by continuing with all its force the effort begun, our army is certain to stop the march of the enemy and to drive him from our soil. But every one must share the conviction that success will fall to him who can endure longest. ”

“ The German Government having industriously circulated reports that the French armies had suffered such a wastage of men that in a short time they would prove a negligible factor in the war, the French War Office announced that there were a million more troops in the fighting zone than were mustered to stem the German flood tide at the Battle of the Marne. ”

“ Like all religion, patriotism, for the many, speaks in symbols; what symbol more eloquent than the strong stream, endlessly renewed to cleanse, to nourish, and to heal? Through those stony years, most of the convoys crossed the Marne at some point—lumbering carts, succeeded by wagons white with a slime of dust and petrol; fussy Staff cars and hurried ambulances; gun-trains, their helmeted riders swaying spectrally in the misty air of dawn; columns of heavy-packed infantry, dreaming of their loves left in trembling cities far behind. ”

“ 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 battlevii 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. ”

“ While unable to create the means to a successful general offensive, the French Command had discounted, if not positively discredited, modern methods of defence and delaying manœuvre, methods peculiarly indicated in this case, since France had the same reasons for postponing a decision as Germany had for hastening it. The only hope of the Allies at the outset lay in a combination of defence and manœuvre: there was no adequate defence, and no considerable manœuvre, but only a general headlong attack on a continuous line. ”

“ A soldier would call it an ideal battlefield, its many and good roads helping the movement of troops, its wooded bottoms and the stone walls of its farmsteads and hamlets giving sufficient cover, its hills good artillery emplacements. The eastern and higher part of the plateau is crossed from south-east to north-west by three ridges, against which the French offensive beat in successive waves.114 The northernmost rises to 300 feet above the Ourcq, from near May-en-Multien, along the little river Gergoyne, by Etavigny and Acy, to Bouillancy ”

“ The basic idea being to strike France down before Russia and Britain could effectually interfere, speed was a principal condition of success; and the plan of the Western campaign was probably the only one on which it could be realised. One-third of the whole force was to hold the old Franco-German frontier in a provisional defence, while one-third attacked through Luxembourg and the Belgian Ardennes, and the remainder was thrown across the Meuse and the open plain of Flanders, toward the French capital. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On the left, the 7th Division of the 4th Corps had no sooner come into action than it had to meet a formidable assault by the IV Active Corps. This was repulsed; but the Cavalry Corps seems to have been unable to take an effective share in the battle. During the afternoon, German troops occupied Thury-en-Valois and Betz. Reinforcements were continually reaching them. At nightfall, although Boëlle’s divisions were resisting heroically, and even progressing, the outlook on the French extreme left, bent back between Bouillancy and Nantheuil-le-Haudouin, had become alarming. ”

“ Our attack to-morrow morning will be overwhelming. Debouching between hills 832 and 725, it will take in flank the German Corps which is stopping our brave 9th, and will determine the victory.”
Hardly has the toast of the morrow’s triumph been drunk than a heavy step is heard outside, the click of spurs, and then a knock on the door. A captain enters, in helmet and breastplate, a bloody bandage across his forehead, dust thick upon his uniform, perspiration rolling down his face. He has ridden from Dinant with news of the defeat, and secret instructions. ”

“ A succession of surprises marks the light regard for information of the enemy’s means and movements, as a series of instant reverses measures the scorn for well-pondered manœuvre. Was France required by her Eastern ally to attack at once? The attack need not have surpassed the proportions of holding actions punctuating a stout defence. Was Belgium closed to the French armies by the old treaty of neutrality? That did not justify a plan of campaign which left the north uncovered to a German aggression. ”

“ Most of the Battle of the Marne was fought on so vast a scale, over so wide a stretch of country—about 200 miles long, by 50 broad—that for the civilian spectator of the future it will never be possible to realise it as a whole, and very difficult even to realise any section of it, topographically, owing to the complication of the actions involved. ”

“ The French stood the bombardment heroically and made a desperate resistance. Near Laffaux, the 21st (Territorial) Regiment fought to the last man rather than fall back. However, in spite of heroic resistance and heavy sacrifices, the German onrush bore down the Allies by sheer weight of numbers.{7}
To the west, a German corps with a division of reserves outflanked Pinon Wood and converged towards Laffaux Plateau, but were unable to reach the Aisne, whilst another corps gained a footing on the Chemin-des-Dames and advanced slowly towards Vailly. ”

“ Four of our [Pg 82] aviators are said to have been brought down by the enemy.
Finally, when forced back to the Marne, after three days of incessant fighting—pounded by the French guns, broken by the fury of the French infantry, ripped by slashing onslaughts of the French horse—the Germans still made effort after effort to recover and to re-form. Of the struggle on the Marne, Mr. William Maxwell says:—
I was fortunate enough to meet a non-commissioned officer who watched from an eminence the critical phase of the battle which routed the German centre. ”