The Guns of August

by Barbara W. Tuchman

  Siege guns: In addition to Schindler, whose account is largely concerned with the transport and actual operation of the guns, the technical facts are taken from Army War College, Study on Development of Large Calibre Mobile Artillery in the European War, Washington, GPO, 1916, p. 8; U.S. Field Artillery Journal, October 1914, p. 591 and January 1915, p. 35; “Austria’s Famous ‘Skoda’ Mortars,” Scientific American, July 3, 1915.

  Emerson, mark of the beast: qtd. Whitlock, 126.

  “One of the greatest soldiers”: Ludendorff, 28.

  “Nobody believed in Belgium’s neutrality”: ibid., 29.

  “Hold to the end”: Galet, 56.

  M. Flechet, Burgomaster of Warsage: Hanotaux, III, 84.

  German proclamations: van der Essen, 52.

  “Chocolate soldiers”: Schryver, qtd. AQ, October, 1922, 157.

  Belgian Government proclamations: Gibson, 31; Cobb, 90.

  “Summary executions of priests”: Bülow, III, 160. General von Bülow was killed the same day. According to rumor at the time, he committed suicide; according to an investigation conducted by Prince Bülow, he was shot by a franc-tireur.

  Six hostages of Warsage shot: Hanotaux, III, 125.

  Battice “burnt out … gutted”: Bloem, 27, 29.

  “Our advance is certainly brutal”: Conrad, IV, 193.

  Belgian officer’s account: qtd. Times History of the War, I, 336.

  “To intimidate the governor”: Ludendorff, 41.

  Ultimatum to Leman to surrender: Schryver, 103.

  Zeppelin attack: Weltkrieg, I, 115

  Attempt to kidnap Leman: van der Essen, 62.

  “Spared not but slew”: Martin H. Donohue in NYT, August 10.

  “Hummed with wild plans”: Cammaerts, 147.

  Woman offers flowers by mistake to German: Bloem, 48.

  Joffre’s refusal to divert troops to Belgium: Poincaré, III, 7.

  Joffre’s letter to King Albert and King’s reply: Galet, 83–4.

  Belgium “defending the independence of Europe”: M. Deschanel, qtd. Times, August 7. So great was the moral effect of Belgium’s resistance that even the Irish Nationalist leader, John Redmond, said there was no sacrifice he would not make on behalf of Belgium, Times History of the War, I, 357.

  “Hurrah in Liège!”: Bülow, 22.

  Kaiser reproaches, then kisses Moltke: Moltke, Erinnerungen, 24.

  Kaiser “despondent”: Gerard, 198, 206.

  German Note of August 9: Gibson, 44.

  “We were cornered into it”: Cammaerts, 20.

  Berthelot’s mission and King’s reply: Galet, 93–5.

  Dubail: Engerand, 456–7.

  Lanrezac “a veritable lion”: Spears, 345. One of Joffre’s choices: Joffre, 12, 236.

  Lanrezac’s letter criticizing strategy: AF, I, I, Annexe 19, 59–60; Lanrezac, 54–56; Engerand, 412–15.

  Joffre ignored it: Joffre, 130–31.

  Joffre’s reply to Ruffey: Briey, April 15, 1919, evidence of Ruffey.

  “That may be your plan”: ibid., also Dubail, 12, and Lanrezac, 60–61.

  Chauffeur, Georges Bouillot: NYT, September 20, IV, 3.

  Joffre’s habits and characteristics: Mayer, 40; Pierrefeu, GQQ, 96–99.

  “Il m’a toujours fait mousser”: Gallieni perle, 69.

  Bonneau’s fears: Dubail, 14–20.

  Entry into Altkirch and parade in Mulhouse: Hanotaux, III, 179, 185–92.

  “Faulty execution”: qtd. Mayer, 35; Joffre, 152, 156.

  Storks leave Alsace: Poincaré III, 51.

  “Silently and anonymously” and Joffre’s orders to generals not to discuss strategy: Gallieni, Mémoires, 172; Corday, 138; Poincaré, III, 92. Messimy, 243–52, gives a heart-rending account of the Government’s “anguish” at being kept uninformed by GQG of events at the front and of its persistent efforts to force Joffre out of his “obstinate mutism.” Although his exasperation nerved Messimy at one point to inform his liaison officer with GQG that “this intolerable and even ridiculous situation” could not continue, and to appoint André Tardieu as his own representative at GQG, Joffre calmly continued in his “systematic defiance” of the Government and managed to “seduce” Tardieu to his views.

  Joffre orders generals not to discuss strategy: Gallieni, Mémoires, 172; Corday, 138.

  “That is how history is written”: Gallieni, Carnets, 33, n. 1.

  Gallieni worries: ibid., 32, n. 2.

  French cavalry’s advance: Maurice, 30; Spears, 100. The French cavalry’s habits were severely disapproved by British cavalrymen. “They never got off,” says Major Bridges, 81.

  Ian Hamilton, Hoffmann and Moltke’s “crazy way”: qtd. De Weerd, 72.

  Fournier’s report and dismissal: Poincaré, III, 19; Engerand, 422.

  Lanrezac’s anxiety “premature”: Joffre, 159.

  GQG’s arguments disposing of German threat: Joffre, 141, 147–8, 150.

  Col. Adelbert’s mission: Galet, 96.

  Saw themselves in Berlin and German retreat “final”: ibid., too.

  Siege guns begin bombardment: Schindler, 119; Muhlon, 92; Essen, 77–79; Sutherland, 34, 83, who was in Namur when the same guns shelled those forts ten days later.

  Demblon describes gun dragged through streets: Demblon, 110–11.

  Capture of General Leman: Hanotaux, III, 254.

  “Death would not have me”: Cammaerts, 151.

  12. BEF to the Continent

  Unless otherwise noted, facts about the BEF are from Edmonds, and all quotations from Sir Henry Wilson and Haig are from their diaries, edited by Callwell and Blake, respectively.

  “Brains of canaries”: Philip Gibbs, Now It Can Be Told.

  “Frocks” and “Boneheads”: Childs, 134

  Kitchener scorns plan to “tack on” BEF: qtd. F. Maurice, Life of General Rawlinson, 95.

  “We must be prepared”: qtd. Magnus, 284. On Kitchener’s views, see also Esher, Tragedy, 31, 38–9.

  Duke of Wellington: qtd. Hurd, British Fleet, 29.

  “Like partridges”: qtd. Magnus, 279.

  “See them damned first”: Esher, Journals, III, 58.

  “Tranquilize public feeling”: Arthur, 13.

  “It was never disclosed … by some flash of instinct”: Grey, II, 69.

  War with Germany an “eventual certainty”: Wilson, 112.

  “practical grasp of minor tactics”: article on French, DNB.

  “French is a trump”: qtd. Trevelyan, 198.

  “I don’t think he is clever”: to the Duke of Connaught, May 23, 1915, qtd. Nicolson, George V, 266.

  “Mercurial temperament”: qtd. Cruttwell, 23.

  “Heart of a romantic child”: Esher, Tragedy, 43.

  Proceedings of War Council of August 5: Churchill, 248–55; Haldane, 296; Wilson, 158–9; Blake, 68–9; Esher, Tragedy, 24.

  “As much an enemy as Moltke”: qtd. Magnus, 302.

  Officers’ swords sharpened: Memoirs of Field Marshal Montgomery of Alamein, New York, 1958, 30.

  “Best-trained … best-equipped”: Edmonds, 11.

  It seemed to an officer that Kluck could hear: Childs, 115.

  A French witness at Rouen: qtd. Poincaré, III, 31.

  Thunder and blood-red sunset: Childs, 117.

  Haig told a fellow officer: Charteris, 11.

  Sir John French and Callwell visit Intelligence: Callwell, Dug-Out, 17.

  Proceedings of War Council of August 12: Huguet, 41–2; Wilson, 162–3; Arthur, Kitchener, 22.

  Kitchener’s instructions to C. in C.: Edmonds, Appendix 8.

  “Temptations in wine and women”: text in Spears, Appendix XIII.

  French greetings along the way: Corbett-Smith, 32.

  “Roses all the way”: Bridges, 75.

  13. Sambre et Meuse

  Spears’ narrative, Chapters IV through VIII, is the most vivid and valuable in English for the Sambre and Meuse front if its strong anti-Lanrezac bias and other prejudices are skirted and Lanr
ezac, Engerand, and other French accounts are read to balance it. All French orders cited are in the Annexes to AF, I, I.

  “Thank God we don’t have any!”: qtd. Monteil, 34; also on the artillery, Dubail, 44; Messimy, 86–87.

  “Sack” strategy of Rupprecht’s Army: Rupprecht, 12, 15.

  White roses for King Charles: NYT, Obituary of Rupprecht, August 9, 1955.

  “Barbarians”: Dubail, 39.

  Lanrezac’s fears and efforts to shift the Fifth Army to the left: Lanrezac, 67–77.

  “Maybe even two million”: Percin, 105.

  “What, again!”: Lanrezac, 73.

  “The responsibility is not yours”: Pierrefeu, Plutarque, 69.

  “The Germans have nothing ready there”: Lanrezac, 78.

  “Death in my soul”: ibid.

  Lanrezac’s letter to Joffre on Intelligence report: ibid., 79; Annexe No. 283; Joffre, 159.

  Gallieni goes to Vitry: Joffre, 158; Messimy, “Comment j’ai nommé Gallieni,” Revue de Paris, September 15, 1921, 247–61.

  Joffre agrees to “preliminary arrangements”: Annexe No. 270.

  Special Instruction No. 10: Annexe No. 307.

  Complicated exchange of troops: Joffre, 164; Engerand, 523–4.

  Lanrezac suspects a British tuck: Spears, 89.

  “Modern Alexander”: Schlieffen Cannae, qtd. Earle, Modern Strategy, 194.

  German wireless garbled and channels clogged: Bauer, 47; Kuhl, qtd. AQ, January, 1921, 346.

  Von Stein, rude, tactless, Berlin Guards’ tone: Sturgkh, 24.

  Tappen’s “odious manner”: Bauer, 34

  Moltke forbade champagne and Kaiser’s meager fare: ibid., 46.

  OHL weighs shift of strategy to left wing: Tappen, 103–4.

  Arguments of Rupprecht and Krafft in favor of attack: Rupprecht, 13–21; these and the following account of events at Sixth Army Hq., visits of Zollner and Dommes, conversations with them and OHL are from Krafft, 12–22.

  Greetings to Sir John French and Poincaré’s reactions: Guard, 23; Poincaré, III, 51.

  “Waiting attitude”: French, 39.

  “Choose his own hours for fighting”: Poincaré, III, 225.

  Clausewitz, “the most enterprising”: qtd. Poincaré, III, 169.

  Sir John’s visit to Joffre: Joffre, 161; French, 34–5.

  “Au fond they are a low lot”: qtd. Magnus, 302.

  Sir John “favorably impressed”: to Kitchener, August 17, French, 39–40.

  “At last you’re here”: Huguet, 51.

  Meeting of Sir John French and Lanrezac and the conversation about Huy: Besides the accounts of the two principals, which are of little interest, there are four eyewitness reports of this encounter: Wilson’s in Callwell, 164; Spears, 72–82; Huguet, 51; and a postwar speech by Captain Fagalde, Intelligence officer of Lanrezac’s staff, to the Forum Club, London, qtd. AQ, April, 1925, 35.

  Misunderstandings about cavalry and date and Lanrezac’s report to Joffre: Spears, 80–81; Annexe No. 430.

  “Please do as I ask you in this matter”: French, 40.

  French and Smith-Dorrien never got on: Bridges, 80.

  “One of the most unfortunate books”: J. W. Fortescue, Quarterly Review, October 1919, 363.

  King Albert’s talk with De Broqueville: Galet, 103, 116–19.

  Germans west of the Meuse a “screen”: Galet, 106.

  “Incredulous dismay”: Galet, 122.

  Col. Adelbert’s outburst: Klobukowski, Résistance belge; D’Ydyewalle, 109; Galet, 122.

  Special Instruction No. 13: Annexe No. 430.

  “Throw them back into the Sambre”: Spears, 92.

  Bethelot to Messimy, “So much the better”: Briey, March 28, evidence of Messimy.

  Commandant Duruy: Spears, 87–8, 94.

  “They always managed to escape”: Kluck, 32.

  Kluck’s cavalry report British at Ostend: Kluck, 18.

  Kluck’s extreme annoyance: Kluck, 22; Bülow, 37.

  Density figures for German armies: Edmonds, 44.

  Kluck disputed Bülow’s orders: Kluck, 29–30.

  “Severe and inexorable reprisals”: ibid., 25–6.

  Aerschot, 150 killed: Whitlock, 209; Dinant: Gibson, 326–29. Method of procedure: Gibson, 151; Whitlock, Cobb, et al., see Notes to Chap. 16.

  Quotations from Hausen: Hausen, 25, 135, 141. 152–3.

  German proclamations quoted: Whitlock, 70–71; 162.

  “Slow in remedying the evil”: Kluck, 26.

  Rag doll seemed a symbol: Cobb, 79.

  German entry into Brussels: Gibson, 115; Whitlock, 113, 124–6, 138.

  A “fierce joy” in Berlin: Blücher, 20.

  General Pau’s farewell: La France héroïque et ses alliés, Paris, Larousse, 1916, I, 44. Joffre’s speech at Thann: Hinzelen, Emile, Notre Joffre, Paris, Delagrave, 1919, 39.

  Berthelot, “No reason to get excited”: Annexe No. 587.

  “I understand your impatience”: Annexe No. 589.

  “There is reason to await with confidence”: Annexe No. 585.

  14. Debacle: Lorraine, Ardennes, Charleroi, Mons

  “It is a glorious and awful thought”: Wilson, 165.

  Field Regulations and “gymnastics so painfully practised”: qtd. Lt.-Col. Fliecx, Les Quatre Batailles de la France, Paris, 1958, 12–13.

  Plan 17’s most passionate critic: Engerand, 473.

  Dubail’s “repugnance”: Dubail, 57. Battles of Morhange-Sarrebourg: AF, I, I, 176–265, passim.

  Nothing visible but corpses and “God teaches the law to kings”: Engerand, 473.

  “To attack as soon as we are ready”: qtd. Edmonds, 507.

  “We will continue, gentlemen”: Giraud, 535.

  “I went to Nancy on the 21st”: Aston, Foch, 115.

  OHL lured by the left wing: Tappen, 15 (German ed.).

  Case 3 and Krafft’s call to Tappen: Rupprecht, 37, n.; Krafft, 47

  Joffre’s order for attack in Ardennes: Annexes Nos. 592 and 593. Battle of Ardennes: AF, I, I, 351–432, passim.

  “Await artillery support”: Annexe No. 352.

  Ardennes favorable to side lacking heavy artillery: Joffre, 66.

  Joffre’s memoirs: Messimy (88) says they were written by “a group of faithful and devoted officers.”

  “Only ordinary mental calibre”: Wile, Men Around the Kaiser, 69.

  “Only by relying on the sword”: Grelling, 46.

  “Gave me theoretical grounding”: Crown Prince, War Experiences, 3.

  “Wilde jagd nach dem Pour le Mérite”: qtd. Goerlitz, 158.

  “Grave and gloomy faces”: Crown Prince, War Experiences, 12.

  Poète du canon and “too much imagination”: Engerand, 483, 488–9.

  “Tout ça c’est du sport”: qtd. Monteil, 34.

  Fourth Army reconnaissance officer is judged “pessimistic”: Engerand, 491.

  “We who were surprised”: Langle, 137.

  GQG ignored Ruffey’s reports: Briey, April 15, evidence of Ruffey.

  “Might as well have been blindfolded”: Commandant A. Grasset, Un Combat de rencontre, Neufchâteau, 22 Août, 1914, qtd. AQ, January, 1924, 390.

  “Battlefield unbelievable spectacle”: qtd. Engerand, 499, 504.

  French sergeant’s diary: qtd. W. E. Grey, With the French Eastern Army, London, 1915, 49.

  German officer’s diary: Charbonneau, 54,

  “prodigies of valor” and remainder of paragraph: Crown Prince, War Experiences, 26, 29–37.

  Ruffey loses three divisions: Joffre, 166; Briey, April 15, evidence of Ruffey.

  “You people at GQG … ignorant as an oyster”: Briey, ibid.

  Langle’s “anguish”: Langle, 137. “Serious check at Tintigny”: Annexe No. 1098.

  “Advantage of numerical superiority”: Annexe No. 1044.

  Germany could not have fought without Briey ore: A memorandum addressed to the German Supreme Command by Dr. Reichert of the Iron and Steel Association in Decembe
r 1917 supported a plea for annexation of Briey with the argument that without the ores of this region “the continuation of the war would have been impossible. If we had not possessed Briey we would have been defeated long ago.” Wirtschaftzeitung der Zentralmaechte, December 17, 1917, qtd. Engerand, 486. The subject is fully discussed in Engerand’s Rapport on Briey, première partie.

  “Every effort to renew the offensive”: qtd. Isaac, Joffre at Lanrezac, 87.

  “Do as he tells you”: qtd. AQ, April, 1923, 37.

  Telegram from Papa William: Crown Prince, War Experiences, 37.

  “Dazzling white tunic”: Sven Hedin, qtd. Gardiner, 223.

  Iron Cross could only be avoided by suicide: Sturgkh.

  Joffre orders Lanrezac to attack and BEF to “cooperate”: Annexe No. 695. Battle of Charleroi: AF, I, I, 433–480, passim.

  Kitchener’s telegram of August 19: Arthur, 29.

  “Give battle alone”: Spears, 127. “I leave you absolute judge”: Annexe, No. 705.

  No trenches or fixed defenses: Spears, 105; Engerand, 530–31.

  “With bugles blowing”: Spears, 132.

  “Long singing scream”: Sutherland, 36–9.

  “There must be a band”: Spears, 128.

  “I know the situation thoroughly”: Arthur, 30.

  “Information … exaggerated”: Spears, 137, n.

  Cavalry encounter at Soignies: Bridges, 77.

  Orders to Smith-Dorrien: Edmonds, preface to Bloem, viii.

  Kluck intended to “attack and disperse”: Kluck, 33.

  Kluck protests, Bülow insists: Kluck 37–8, 41–2.

  “No landings of importance”: Bülow, 50.

  Bülow’s and Hausen’s complaints: Bülow, 58; Hausen, 165–6, 191–3.

  General Boë: Spears, 144.

  IIIrd Corps “terrible” losses: Annexe No. 894.

  2.25 shots per minute: Lanrezac, 135.

  “Forced to fall back … suffered severely” et seq.: Annexe No. 876.

  Lanrezac’s request to Sir John French and his reply: Spears, 149–50; Edmonds, 92, n. 2.