THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE

1914

By the end of August nineteen fourteen, news for the allies on the western front was not favorable and the situation deteriorating. The French had suffered three hundred thousand casualties since the outbreak of the war and several German armies had advanced to within thirty miles of Paris.

On September 1st, the French commander in chief General Joffre ordered the newly formed French 6th Army under General Maunoury to fall back on the capital and support the Paris garrison under General Gallieni. Joffre also gave standing orders to all commanders along the lower Marne River to prepare for a counter attack.

On September 5th, the Allied offensive began along a one hundred and twenty five mile front. Three French and one British army comprising just over one million men marched forward against an equal number of enemy formations in an attempt to halt the advancing German forces and save Paris from occupation.

As the fighting between the French 6th Army and the right wing of General Von Kluck's German 1st Army grew more fierce with each passing hour, Kluck ordered the transfer of two Infantry Corps from his left flank to support his right. This created a dangerous gap between his army and that of Field Marshall Von Bulow's 2nd Army.

To help Maunoury cope with the German reinforcements, General Gallieni commandeered twelve hundred taxi cabs to rush reinforcements from the Paris garrison to support the French 6th Army. 

On September 6th the British Army (BEF) marched into the gap between the German 1st and 2nd armies reporting that it had encountered virtually no resistance. Joffre now ordered his 5th Army under General D'Esperay forward to protect the British right flank and drive a wedge between the two German Armies.

On September 7th with his flanks crumbling, General Von Kluck ordered his entire army to fall back. Von Bulow's right wing now disintegrated under the intense Allied pressure and he was also forced to order his army to retire. 

With their central lines broken wide open to an extent of thirty miles, Von Moltke and the German high command ordered a general withdrawal of some forty miles, stabilizing their front behind the Vesle and Aisne rivers.

If the Allies had not themselves been so utterly exhausted and at the end of there supply's, they may have turned the German retreat into a complete route and had ended the war with a sensational victory. 

Allied casualties in the eight day battle numbered two hundred and fifty thousand French and thirteen thousand British dead wounded and missing. German losses amounted to two hundred and twenty thousand casualties.

As a direct result of the German defeat, Von Moltke was dismissed from active service and replaced as chief of staff by General Von Falkenhayn, who's first order was to launch a series of attacks through Belgium against the exposed allied left flank. 

But General Joffre and the French high command also had the same followup battle plan and began shifting forces north, this upcoming phase of the war until the end of the year would be known as ''the race to the sea''.