After a week in action Smith-Dorrien was clearly the star general of the BEF He was handling his troops well and had twice met a stronger enemy in difficult circumstances and fought him to a standstill. That done he had extricated his men - or most of them - and got them away to fight another day. It could perhaps be argued that Smith-Dorrien was lucky; he was in command of superb troops and fighting the kind of mobile, small-scale, cutand-run war in which the discipline, fieldcraft and marksmanship of his soldiers could be deployed to telling effect against larger enemy formations that, time and time again, presented themselves as targets. On the other hand, he was engaged with a much larger enemy force, one with an abundance of artillery and which seemed able to absorb any losses his troops were able to inflict. All in all though, full credit must go to Smith-Dorrien for conducting a retreat with considerable skill in very difficult circumstances and remaining cheerful. For some reason this combination of cheerfulness and competence did not endear Smith-Dorrien to the BEF commander.
Assessing the performance of Field Marshal French is more difficult. His responsibilities were outlined in the orders he had been given by Kitchener, and carrying those orders out in the present circumstances was far from easy - not least the part that obliged him to take good care of Britain's only fully trained field army while cooperating closely with the French. The situation was nothing if not perilous, and it was hardly surprising that the weight of command was gradually wearing French down. He was by no means the oldest of the Western Front commanders at this time but he was, perhaps, too old and too temperamental for such a delicate and dangerous appointment.
Any sympathy for French on these points must be tempered by the fact that he failed to perform well even within his previous limits of competence. He did not provide his men or his subordinates with adequate leadership or guidance and failed to exercise even the basic duties of command. On occasion days went by without any orders corning from GHQ; Operation Order No. 6 was issued on 21 August; Operation Order No. 7 did not appear for another three days - the day after the engagement at Mons, when, as noted, French had made no attempt to contact SrnithDorrien. On 30 August, the day the BEF crossed the Aisne, he left the Corps commanders to decided on the moving-off time when every effort was needed to keep the three corps together.
A general is not obliged to bombard his subordinates with orders or send out messages when there is nothing to say but French carried reticence to extremes. He frequently left his Corps commanders to work out the best course of action, separately or together, on a day-to-day basis, and contact with his allies or subordinates seems to have been motivated largely by his personal likes and dislikes rather than by the demands of the situation. He only met General Lanrezac twice, having taken against him at their first meeting, when the two commanders should have been in close and frequent contact. As before with Srnith-Dorrien, he continued to nurture his resentments, as if they were a welcome distraction from the pressure of current events.
While the BEF was trudging south from the Belgian frontier to the elusive security of the Marne, elsewhere on the Western Front the Schlieffen Plan was running out of time. According to the plan the French should have been beaten or be on the point of surrender in within forty-two days. On 28 August, when the first of Joffre's counter-attack force detrained, only fourteen days of the timetable remained - and the armies of France, albeit battered, were nowhere near defeat.
On the Eastern Front von Schlieffen's masterplan was suffering another reverse. The Russians had reacted with unexpected speed and, rather than falling back, as anticipated, to take advantage of Russia's wide open spaces, by 20 August Russian forces were advancing on Konigsberg in East Prussia, with the German Eighth Army falling back before them. This Russian advance was causing the Kaiser considerable disquiet, and Helmuth von Moltke was obliged to take action. On 28 August, von Moltke ordered that two corps should be transferred from the west to the Eighth Army in the east.
The commander of the Eighth Army, Lieutenant-General von Prittwitz und Gaffron, was sacked and replaced by General Paul von Hindenburg, who came out of retirement at the Kaiser's call and took up this challenge in the east. As his Chief of Staff von Hindenburg took Major-General Erich Ludendorff, the officer recently credited with the taking of Liège. Von Hindenburg and Ludendorff made a formidable military combination that would endure until the end of the war.
Germany's failure to either defeat the French armies or stem the Russian advance on the Eastern Front was the first German reverse in this war - and arguably a fatal one. Since 1895 - for almost twenty years - German victory had been predicated on the avoidance of a two-front war and the rapid defeat of first France and then Russia. By the end of August this plan was falling apart and Germany's attempt to win the war quickly and get the troops home 'before the leaves fall' was clearly a pipe dream. If Hindenburg was not able to reverse the position in the east quickly, so getting the Schleiffen Plan back on track, von Moltke might be obliged to divert large forces from the Western Front - and that would be serious indeed, for the Schlieffen Plan was already behind schedule and that forty-two-day window of opportunity was closing fast.
This pending failure of the German master plan was not yet apparent to the French. Joffre and his commanders had also seen their plan- Plan XVII- dissolve under the German guns and were now in full retreat from the frontiers of France; 'l'attaque à outrance' stood revealed as a nonsensical doctrine, most costly in lives.
Here is the first great paradox of the Great War. Although the French and their British allies were in full retreat and the news from every front was grave, hindsight reveals that it was the Germans who were actually losing the war at this time, for their strategy was either being abandoned or falling apart. This abandonment was a grave error; strategists should not lose track of their declared aims and divert their attention to winning battles, but that is what the Germans were doing as these precious days slipped away. Everywhere there is evidence of failure, evidence von Moltke ignored.
The Russians were not yet supposed to be in the field, yet there they were, advancing. On the Western Front the French armies were supposed to be pushing east towards or across the Rhine, each step of their advance exposing Paris and their own rear to attack; instead they were falling back, much reduced but still intact, to a position where they could re-form and come on again, with the new Sixth Army about to outflank the western end of the German line.
As for the situation on the Northern Front, where the BEF had made that surprising appearance at Mons, the Allies were in retreat but as yet undefeated. This again was not part of von Schlieffen's scenario. German hopes for victory in this war depended on avoiding a fight on two fronts. To do that it was necessary to destroy the French Army before the Russian armies could take the field. Now, some three weeks into the war, the Russian Army was in the field and the French Army was still undefeated. Although the war would go on for more than four years, it is at least arguable that the Germans lost it in the first three weeks.
The French retreat from the frontiers was not part of von Schlieffen's plan. Hard as it was for the Allied soldiers on the ground, slogging along those punishing cobbled roads under a blazing sun, periodically drenched by sudden rainstorms, their retreat kept the French armies together. In spite of terrible losses to individual units, and especially among the officers, too many of whom fell victim to the leadership demands of l'offensive à outrance, the French armies had not been crushed.
Nor had the small and gallant Belgian Army. This small army had now withdrawn into the forts defending Antwerp, where King Albert intended to hold off the advancing Germans until his French and British allies sent forces to his assistance.
The overall picture was the same on every front; nothing was going as planned for the German armies. In Alsace and Lorraine the French armies of Generals Noel de Castelnau and Auguste Dubail were falling back but fighting hard for every metre of ground, and General Ferdinand Foch, now commanding the French XX Corps- t
he Iron Corps- was stoutly defending Nancy. In the centre, astride the Ardennes, the Third and Fourth Armies of Generals Ruffey and Ferdinand Langle de Cary were regrouping their forces, while General Lanrezac, falling back from the Meuse with the BEF hanging on his flank, was resisting the temp tation to seek the shelter offered by the fortifications of Maubeuge and keeping his army on the move. The Anglo-French forces, albeit in full retreat, were still in existence and presenting a common front to the foe; the situation was certainly grave, but it could have been a great deal worse.
It is important not to present too rosy a picture of the BEF at this time. If the units were not as disorganized and the soldiers' morale nowhere near as low as Field Marshal French from time to time believed, there were some reasons for disquiet. Haig had been obliged to unload supply wagons and send them to the rear loaded with exhausted soldiers. Major-General Robertson's action in piling supplies by the side of the roads, hoping that any passing British unit could avail themselves of the contents, supplied more Germans than British and gave von Kluck the idea that the BEF was on the run, throwing away supplies and on the brink of disintegration- an idea also held at Joffre's GQG, which was receiving regular gloomy reports from Colonel Huguet, their liaison officer at French's GHQ. Huguet was an Anglophobe, but there were indeed signs of collapsing morale among some BEF units.
On 27 August the remnants of two exhausted British battalions, the 1st Royal Warwicks, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Elkington, and the 2nd Royal Dublin Fusiliers, under Lieutenant Colonel Mainwaring, lay down in the central square in St Quentin and flatly refused to move, declaring to the cavalry commander, Major Tom Bridges of the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards, that their commanding officers had promised the town mayor that their troops would surrender rather than have the town destroyed in more fighting. Bridges managed to rouse the men by collecting a number of musical instruments from a nearby toy shop and creating a band. This scratch orchestra, playing marches and lively airs, eventually got the men back on their feet and the retreat continued, but both commanding officers were later cashiered and dismissed from the army. Colonel Mainwaring, who was sick at this time but roused himself sufficiently to lead his men away from St Quentin, was never reinstated. Colonel Elkington joined the French Foreign Legion as a private soldier and his gallant conduct with that unit led eventually to the restoration of his British commission.
The German armies, surging forward in apparent victory, were gradually slowing down. Smith-Dorrien's 'stopping blow' at Le Cateau had confused von Kluck, who, believing that the British would retreat south-west towards their base at Amiens and the Channel ports, set out in that direction. This was a miscalculation since the BEF was marching south, but it proved of great benefit to the Allied cause. Von Kluck's shift to the west- already dictated by the Schlieffen Plan - obliged Field Marshal French to abandon his first aim, to retreat down his line of communications towards Amiens and the Channel ports; to go that way would bring on another encounter with the enemy, so a retreat towards Valenciennes and the Marne was the best option.
The second Allied advantage was that von Kluck's shift west caused the German First Army to lose contact with von Bulow's Second Army on its right. On 27 August von Kluck and von Hausen, the commanders of the German First and Third Armies on the right wing, were released from the overall control of General von Bulow, commander of the centrally placed Second Army, who had been acting as an army group commander. Von Kluck's shift west of the First Army caused von Bulow considerable alarm, for it split the German front. That great, 115-kilometre (70-mile) wide feldgrau tidal wave, now sweeping down from Belgium, was starting to break up. After the fight at Le Cateau, von Bulow had ordered von Kluck's pursuit of the BEF to be continued 'in a south-westerly direction'; once free of von Bulow's control, von Kluck went off to the west and a gap of some 22-kilometre (14 miles) soon opened up between the German First and Second Armies.
Haig brought this situation to the attention of General Lanrezac, pointing out that the current direction of von Bulow's army was presenting the German flank to an Allied counter attack. This German move had also been spotted by French aircraft and reported to GQG, from whereas noted- Joffre ordered Lanrezac to attack von Bulow at Guise and Haig offered to support him. Given the events described above, it is agreeable to record that Lanrezac's attack at Guise was a considerable success.
On 29 August, aerial reconnaissance suggested that von Kluck 'had reached the limit of his western advance and was wheeling south eastward, covering his southern flank with his cavalry'. (11) Further reconnaissance on 30 August confirmed this manoeuvre, and on that day the leading cavalry units of von Kluck's army crossed the River Oise, so exposing the First Army's flank to Lanrezac between St Quentin and Guise.
Lanrezac, so often derided as a cautious commander, handled his army with considerable skill and nerve in the battle that followed. As his Fifth Army advanced against von Kluck at St Quentin, von Bulow's Second Army came in on Lanrezac's right flank. Undaunted, Lanrezac swung his army about and soundly defeated von Bulow at Guise, driving the Second Army back five kilometres (three miles) on a 40-kilometre (25-mile) front- a far larger reverse than the 'stopping blow' at Le Cateau, and one with wide-ranging effects. Alarmed at this unexpected reverse and at the growing gap between their two armies, von Bulow called for help from von Kluck, who hastened to comply.
Basically, the presence of the BEF on his front presented von Kluck with a hard choice; he could either stick with the Schlieffen strategy and swing west of Paris, thereby splitting the German front, or he could shift east and keep in contact with von Bulow. Worried that pressing on to the south-west would expose his army or that of von Bulow to another attack, he elected to abandon the march south and west and keep in contact with the Second Army on his right flank.
This decision was in defiance not only of the original plan but also of fresh orders which arrived from the German High Command (OHL) on 28 August, orders that again directed von Kluck to advance to the Seine south-west of Paris, von Bulow to advance south, directly on Paris, while the Third, Fourth and Fifth German Armies were to advance to the Marne east of Paris as Crown Prince Rupprecht brought the Sixth and Seventh Armies in from the east - those vital timings might be falling apart, but on 28 August von Moltke at least was still sticking to the territorial requirements of the Schlieffen Plan. By 30 August von Kluck had torn the plan up and the German armies were set on a course that would carry them east, north of the city rather than south of it.
Though impressed by the need to maintain a united front, von Kluck's decision to shift east was also inspired by the belief that the BEF and the Fifth Army were on their last legs and could be rounded up without any need for more of this exhausting marching. He had succeeded in driving back the French forces on his right and come across those piles of abandoned British stores in the centre; why bother to hook round south of Paris, when all the current evidence suggested that the French and British could be rounded up by a swift hook north of Paris? The French and British were defeated, he told von Moltke in a cable - all that remained was a little mopping up.
Von Moltke was not entirely convinced of this; the wider intelligence sources open to OHL told him that the French armies were still united and fighting hard. Evidence of a Franco-British collapse was also scanty, said von Moltke; if the French and British armies were collapsing, he asked, where were the prisoners? Before this question could be answered, on 30 August von Kluck informed OHL that his First Army would start to wheel east, north of Paris, in order to keep in touch with von Bulow. This decision was in line with German military practice, which left the greatest possible latitude to the field commanders, a practice that often led to quick decisions and decisive results. Tactically this was sound doctrine; strategically it was disastrous - but von Moltke was already losing control of this campaign and let von Kluck have his way.
Lanrezac's victory at Guise-St Quentin was a great boost to French morale but Joffre believed, rightly, th
at the time was not yet ripe for a general counter-attack. The French armies and the BEF were still off balance and the German advance, if slowing down as the soldiers grew tired and their supply lines lengthened, was still grinding relentlessly forward. The BEF managed a rest day on 29 August while the French were engaged at Guise-St Quentin, and on that day Joffre paid a visit to Field Marshal French at the latter's newly established HQ at Compiegne, 64 kilometres (40 miles) from Paris. The purpose of this visit was to urge on French the necessity of keeping the BEF in the field, a point on which Joffre, alarmed by Colonel Huguet's gloomy dispatches, was less than convinced. This meeting on 31 August did not resolve the issue; Joffre left Compiegne without any certainty that French appreciated this point or would comply with his requests; French had decided that his force was exhausted and must be pulled out of the line for a complete rest and refit.
A brighter picture may have revealed itself to the Field Marshal the following day, in the great fight put up by the 1st Cavalry Brigade- the 2nd Dragoon Guards (The Bays), the 5th Dragoon Guards and the 11th Hussars- and 'L' Battery of the Royal Horse Artillery (RHA) at Néry on 1 September. The brigade and its artillery had camped overnight at the village of Nery and awoke to find the valley deep in mist. The march should have been resumed at 0400 hours, but since it was difficult to collect the column in such poor visibility the start was put back until 0500 hours and then until 0530 hours. Then, before the men could move, a storm of shellfire broke upon them from German artillery and machine guns, which had taken up position on the 200-metre (650-foot) high slopes around the village.
The Old Contemptibles Page 20