The Guns of August
Page 65
Joffre’s dismissals in first five weeks: Allard, 15.
The meeting with Franchet d’Esperey on the road: Grasset, 41; Joffre, 237.
The meeting with Lanrezac at Sezanne: Lanrezac, 276–7; Joffre, 237–8; Muller, 1o4–5; Spears, 377–78. In his lively account Spears says the conversation between the two generals took place outdoors as they walked “up and down the courtyard whilst I watched with fascinated interest.” Although this obliging arrangement allowed Spears to write as an eyewitness, it does not fit with the probabilities, for Joffre would hardly have chosen to conduct what was to him the most distressing operation of the war so far, in full view of spectators. In fact he did not. “Lanrezac was in his office. I went in there and remained alone with him,” he says specifically.
Franchet d’Esperey: Grasset, passim; Spears, 398.
“March or drop dead”: Grasset, 45. The phrase he used was “Marcher ou crever.”
Sept. 4, a sense of climax: Gallieni Parle, 53; Blücher, 23; in Brussels people felt a chill: Gibson, 191.
Kaiser, “It is the 35th day”: Helfferich, Der Weltkrieg, Berlin, 1919, Vol. II, 279.
French “have offered us an armistice”: qtd. Hanotaux, VIII, 279.
General Kuhl’s doubts: Kuhl, 19.
“We are advancing triumphantly everywhere”: Crown Prince, War Experiences, 69.
Moltke to Helfferich: Helfferich, op. cit., 17–18.
Reports reach OHL of French troop movements: Tappen, 115.
“An attack from Paris”: ibid.
Moltke’s order of Sept. 4: full text, Edmonds, 290–91.
Falkenhayn quoted: from Zwehl’s life of Falkenhayn, qtd. AQ, April, 1926, 148.
Gallieni’s order to Maunoury of Sept. 4: Mémoires, 112.
“Immediate and energetic decision”: ibid., 107.
Gallieni tells Poincaré there is a “good opening”: The fact of this call was disclosed by Poincaré after the war in an interview with Le Matin, Sept. 6, 1920.
The real battle “fought on the telephone”: Gallieni Parle, 53.
Joffre’s aversion to telephone: Muller. “I have always disliked using the telephone myself,” Joffre, 250.
Clergerie’s conversation with Col. Pont: Mémoires, 119; Joffre, 245.
Discussions at GQG: Muller, 85–6; Joffre, 243–4; Mayer, 41.
Joffre under the weeping ash: Muller, 87.
Joffre’s messages to Franchet d’Esperey and Foch: ibid., 91–2; AF, I, II, Annexe No. 2327.
Gallieni’s visit to British Hq.: Mémoires, 121–4; Parle, 55; Clergerie, 16.
Franchet d’Esperey’s meeting with Wilson: Grasset, 51–53; Spears, 400–01; Wilson, 174.
Joffre at dinner with the Japanese: Joffre, 249.
Franchet d’Esperey’s reply: full text in Edmonds, 279.
General Hache’s protest: Grasset, 74.
“Intelligent audacity” and Foch’s reply: Joffre, 250.
Murray’s orders “simply heartbreaking”: Wilson, 174
“Marshal not yet returned”: Gallieni, Mémoires, 128.
Sir John French decides to “re-study the situation”: Joffre, 252.
Gallieni’s conversation with Joffre: Mémoires, 130; Joffre agreed “unwillingly” and “as Gallieni desired”: Joffre, 251.
General Order No. 6: AF, I, II, Annexe No. 2332.
Joffre receives Huguet’s message: Joffre, 252.
Kluck assumes Germans “everywhere advancing victoriously”: Kluck, 106. “Regain freedom of maneuver”: ibid.
Col. Hentsch’s visit to Kluck’s Hq.: Kluck, 107, report of Commander of IVth Reserve: ibid., 108; Kuhl, “Neither OHL nor the First Army”: qtd. Edmonds, 292, n. 2.
Gallieni replied “Nowhere”: Gallieni Parle, 57, n. 1. His orders for destruction: AF, I, II, Annexe No. 2494; “A void”: Hirschauer, 228.
“Gallieni having attacked prematurely”: Gallieni Parle, 64; “That is worth gold”: Carnets, 78, n. 3. (To the present author it seems unnecessary to ascribe all credit for the Marne either to Gallieni as, for example, Captain Liddell-Hart does in Reputations Ten Years After, at the cost of making Joffre out a fool, or to Joffre as General Spears does at the cost of making Gallieni out a liar. As Poincaré said long ago, there was credit enough for both.)
Joffre’s uncertainty “altogether agonizing”: Joffre, 252; his telegram to Millerand: AF, I, II, Annexe No. 2468.
Wilson transmits Order No. 6 to Sir John French: Wilson, 174. Huguet de Galbert and British “lukewarm”: Joffre, 253; Mayor of Melun: Hirschauer, 179.
“At any price”: Joffre, 252.
The meeting at Melun: Joffre, 254; Muller, 106; Wilson, 174; Spears, 415–18. The phrase “Threw his heart on the table” is Muller’s, as is the description of Huguet which reads in the original, “qui semble, à son habitude, porter le diable en terre.” (Unfamiliar to most French friends queried, this phrase was variously translated for me as meaning that Huguet looked satanic, bored, or gloomy. I have adopted the last as proposed by the only person who seemed certain.)
Spears, in his vivid and dramatic account of the meeting, performs another historical sleight of hand. Unwilling to give the reader an impression of British reluctance to fight, he claims that Joffre made the trip to Melun—a six-to-seven-hour round trip by car just before the crucial battle—in order to “thank” Sir John French for his cooperation. Inexplicably, Spears then quotes Joffre as saying, “with an appeal so intense as to be irresistible, ‘Monsieur le Maréchal, c’est la France qui vous supplie.’” This does not sound compatible with thanks.
“Gentlemen, we will fight on the Marne”: Poincaré, III, 136.
Order to the troops for Sept. 6: AF, I, II, Annexe No. 2641.
Afterword
Foch’s order: Aston, Foch, 124.
Joan of Arc won the battle: Bergson said this on several occasions; Chevalier, 25, 135, 191, 249.
Moltke to his wife: Erinnerungen, 385–6.
Kluck’s explanation: Interview given to a Swedish journalist in 1918, qtd. Hanotaux, IX, 103.
Col. Dupont’s tribute to the Russians: Danilov, Grand Duke, 57; Dupont, 2.
Numerical superiority: In five armies present at the Marne, the Germans had about 900,000 men in 44 infantry and 7 cavalry divisions. In six armies the Allies had about 1,082,000 men in 56 infantry and 9 cavalry divisions. AF, I, III, 17–19.
“If we had not had him in 1914”: Aston, Foch, 125.
The taxis: Clergerie, 134–45; Gallieni parle, 56.
Footnote: experience of André Varagnac from private information; casualty figures from AF, I, II, 825; AQ, October 1927, 58–63; Samuel Dumas and K. D. Vedel-Petersen, Losses of Life Caused by War, Oxford, 1923, Chap. 1.
“All the great words cancelled”: in Lady Chatterley.
A Presidio Press Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 1962 by Barbara W. Tuchman
Preface copyright © 1988 by Barbara Tuchman
Foreword copyright © 1994 by Robert K. Massie
Copyright renewed 1990 by Dr. Lester Tuchman
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Presidio Press, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in 1962 by The Macmillan Publishing Company.
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