The Old Contemptibles

by Robin Neillands

  September 9 is generally regarded as the end of the Battle of the Marne. In three days the Franco-British armies - forty-nine infantry divisions and eight cavalry divisions - had forced forty six German infantry divisions and seven cavalry divisions into a 100-kilometre (60-mile) retreat and fought one of the most decisive battles in history. The Marne battle is unusual because, while the enemy was certainly retreating, he had not been fought to a finish or indeed soundly defeated. Nevertheless, according to General Franchet d' Espery of the Fifth Army: 'Held on the flank, his centre broken, the enemy is now retreating towards the east and north by forced marches.’ (31)

  A significant part of the credit for this German reverse goes to the BEF 'At the Marne,' says Spears, 'it was the British who were to be the only force available to march into the gap in the enemy lines. It was the wedge the British drove into the heart of the enemy's array that made the German retreat inevitable.' (32) Henry Wilson for one was delighted with the BEF advance: 'I believe the Germans are in retreat although I think that they may give us some shrewd knocks in the process. It is only three days ago that I had to fight all I could to prevent us retiring behind the Seine for three weeks' rest.' (33)

  The Marne ended German hopes of a quick victory, but to ensure a decisive French victory the Allied forces needed to keep the enemy moving back, all the way to the Rhine if possible, and this they failed to do. The Allied advance stalled on the Aisne, where the Germans were given time to dig in and beat off their attacks. However, the German High Command also seems to have lost the plot at this time, failin to see that the failure of the Schlieffen Plan was a truly devastating blow. Indeed, von Moltke persisted in trying to rework the plan, not realizing that all the delays and errors since the Battles of the Frontiers had combined to render it useless. He did appreciate the more profound effect of the Marne reverse, writing to his wife on 9 September: 'Things are going badly and the battles east of Paris will not be decided in our favour. This war which began with such hopes will go against us and we must be crushed in the fight against East and West ... and we shall have to pay for all the destruction we have done.'

  So the first phase of the Great War, the war of movement, ended on the Aisne. The Battle of the Marne also marked the end of the Schlieffen Plan, which alone offered Germany the chance to win the war and avoid the perils of encirclement. Someone had to pay for this failure; on 14 September, six weeks after he had sent the German armies into Belgium, von Moltke was replaced as Chief of the German General Staff by General Erich von Falkenhayn, who took up his command while the opposing armies were locked in combat on the Aisne.

  On the Aisne 13 September-2 October 1914

  It seems as if the enemy is once more going to accept battle, in prepared positions north of the Aisne.

  Telegram from General Joffre to Field Marshal French, 15 September 1914, cited in British Official History, 1914, Vol. I, p. 367

  On the night of 12/13 September the German First and Second Armies ended their retreat and dug in along the high ground above the River Aisne, a tranquil stream flowing through one of the greenest and prettiest valleys in northern France. Given time to do so, the German armies were able to occupy a line along the escarpment high above the north bank, a few miles south of the hilltop town of Laon. On the top of this escarpment lies a seventeenth­ century carriage road, built by Louis XV as a place where his court ladies could take the air, and therefore known as the Chemin des Dames.

  The arrival of the opposing forces on the Aisne marks the effective end of the first phase of the Great War. The change from a war of movement to static trench warfare on the Western Front would not happen overnight, but it began here on the Aisne, when the awesome power of defence, and especially of heavy artillery, first began to dawn on the opposing commanders. However, when the armies began to draw up along the Aisne on 13 September, there was still a great deal of open, undefended country available to the west, and every possibility that the war of movement would continue on the flanks.

  In order to grasp the detailed complexities of the Great War on the Western Front it is helpful to understand the broad picture and keep in mind the general progress of events. Matters had not gone to plan in the east either, but during the first month of the war the two strategic plans, Schlieffen's and Plan XVII, had both gone awry in the west. As a result the balance of advantage by mid­September lay with the French. This can be attributed to four facts: the Schlieffen Plan was too ambitious; Prince Rupprecht had abandoned it in Lorraine and Alsace by advancing instead of retreating; von Kluck had turned east-north, rather than south, of Paris; and Helmuth von Moltke had agreed to these alterations and made a major contribution to the collapse of German strategy. As a result, although the French armies and the BEF had been driven back, they had not been surrounded and crushed and German hopes of a quick victory had slipped away.

  However, the Franco-British victory on the Marne had also gone somewhat awry. Instead of keeping hard on the heels of their retreating foes and hustling them out of any possible defence line, the French armies and the BEF had allowed the retreating German forces to gain a little time and space in which to find a defensive position and dig in. The Official History points out (1) that several French writers allege that the BEF's advance was both slow and hesitant, a point confirmed by Haig's diary.

  The BEF began at a disadvantage, for on 5 September the BEF was at least a day's march behind the two French armies on its flanks. Nor did the BEF make much ground thereafter. On 6 September the British units advanced a maximum of 18 kilometres (11 miles) and on 7 September 14 kilometres (9 miles), though this included crossing the Grand Morin. On 8 September, the BEF covered 16 kilometres (10 miles) crossing the Petit Morin, and on 9 September 11 kilometres (7 miles), including crossing the River Marne. This was, perhaps, all that could be expected, but it hardly added up to hot pursuit.

  Nor was that all. When the German units found a defensive position it naturally offered certain advantages - good visibility over the front, ground suitable for the rapid creation of a trench system and reverse slopes to conceal artillery positions and supply lines. From its very inception, the advantage of ground on the Western Front lay with the Germans.

  Giving the enemy time to find and occupy such positions was a fundamental error, one that would cost the Allies dearly in the months and years ahead, but in mid-September 1914 all was not yet lost. In spite of von Schlieffen's point about brushing the Channel coast, the advance of the German armies from Mons had not covered all the ground as far west as the Channel- far from it. West and north of the Aisne position a wide expanse of open country was still available for flanking movements, a process that began on the Marne. This turning movement, north and west, by the Franco-British armies, the so-called 'Race to the Sea', an attempt to outflank the German defensive line and roll it up, would provide the genesis of the Western Front, and the process began on the Aisne under the direction of the new German Army commander, Erich von Falkenhayn.

  General von Falkenhayn was fifty-three when he took up this command in 1914 and was therefore one of the younger commanders on either side. His comparative youth was useful, for the exercise of command in war requires good health, strong nerves, a sense of detachment and a flexible mind. Von Falkenhayn was certainly no 'by the book' Prussian officer, the usual product of the junker class; he had an analytical brain and was fully capable of evaluating facts and making difficult decisions. It might be added that the results of his analysis did not always produce the required results, a fact that would become apparent at Verdun in 1916.

  Von Falkenhayn owed much of his advancement to the favour of the Kaiser. The Emperor had been much impressed - it has to be said that the Kaiser was easily impressed - with von Falkenhayn's dispatches from China during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, when he commanded the German contingent. Appointed Prussian War Minister in 1913, he had played a major part in formulating the plans for the attack on Belgium; now he had replaced the overall commander of the German
armies and was responsible to the Kaiser for their operations in the field.

  However astute politically and however shrewd his brain, von Falkenhayn was somewhat less than capable as a field commander. His strategy, orders and actions over the next few months, as the fighting began to concentrate around the Belgian town of Ypres, would cause severe losses to the cream of the pre-war German Army. It is also possible that he had taken on too much work for one man to handle competently; after taking command of the armies, he retained his post as Prussian War Minister and was therefore responsible for German strategy in forthcoming battles in the east as well as in Champagne and at Ypres, in which great losses were inflicted on either side for no worthwhile territorial gain. For the moment, however, von Falkenhayn was seen as the coming man and a great improvement on the hesitant von Moltke.

  His first orders were for a widespread renewal of the offensive. The German armies were to attack at all points, hold back the advancing allies and press on with the siege of Antwerp. On 9 September, in an attempt to keep the Germans from shifting forces into France, the Belgian Army in Antwerp made a strong sortie, which saw Belgian cavalry patrols entering Louvain the following day. Then the Germans reacted as desired, bringing up the 6th Reserve Division and halting the movement of the IX Reserve Corps to France. (2) The Belgian sortie was quickly halted, and by 13 September, the opening day of the Battle of the Aisne, the Belgian Army retired within the fortifications of Antwerp. This sortie had, however, prevented the enemy from rapidly reinforcing the units retiring from the Marne.

  Von Falkenhayn ordered the formation of a new German army, the Ninth, and the mustering of six and a half new reserve corps, but his immediate aim was to prevent the Marne reverse resulting in a long retreat of the kind recently experienced by the BEF and the French. He was too late to prevent a major reverse on the Marne but the subsequent withdrawal of the German armies was of short duration and came to a halt on the heights above the Aisne.

  The Allied pursuit of the German forces to the Aisne was the last major movement on the Western Front until the German Michael offensive of 1918. This was the sort of war Field Marshal French was used to, and during it he handled his men well, pushing them on behind a thick cavalry screen, levering the enemy out of position with artillery fire and flanking attacks. After those weeks of retreat the British infantry and cavalry marched at their best speed, winkling the enemy out of his rapidly prepared positions, taking plenty of prisoners and a quantity of guns. It was good but not good enough, for the enemy gradually gained ground. 'As fast as we retired on our retirement,' wrote Frank Richards, 'the Germans were equally as fast on their feet from the Marne to the Aisne.' (3)

  In the six days between the start of the Marne offensive on 6 September and their arrival on the Aisne on 122 September, the German First and Second Armies were driven back roo kilometres (60 miles); on their eastern flank the German forces fell back as well, their front bending like a bow and pivoting on the fortress city of Verdun. The night of 12/13 September marked the end of the retreat for the German First and Second Armies. Blowing the bridges behind them, they withdrew across the Aisne to the escarpment overlooking the river and dug in there for the next phase of the struggle, the First Battle of the Aisne, which took place between 13 and 15 September, an attempt by the Allies to cross the river, take the Chemin des Dames ridge and continue pushing the enemy back; very little of this was actually achieved.

  When this battle opened the BEF were at once confronted with a serious problem, a shortage of artillery ammunition. On 13 September, II Corps informed GHQ that it had not seen a supply column for the last two days- the advance was clearly inhibiting the movement of supplies. On 15 September, III Corps used up all its remaining stock of 60-pounder and 4.4-inch howitzer ammunition, and no more was available for another three days. These problems - supply shortages, particularly of artillery ammunition, and railway delays- were to plague the BEF for some time to come.

  The dates given here for particular battles are those which appear in the Official History, but they should not be taken as definite limits; they are, at best, simply a historical convenience. They should not be understood to mean that no preliminary moves were made before the 'battle' or that nothing much happened there­ abouts after it. The First Battle of the Aisne was a sideshow compared to the constant fighting that took place along the Chemin des Dames in the coming years; a host of French graveyards and the Caverne de Dragon museum now bear testimony to the duration and intensity of the continual fighting on the Aisne. Battles are simply points in a campaign; they are the result of what happened before and a cause of what follows, but the fighting continues all the time. One feature of this Aisne battle was the appearance on the front line of German heavy artillery.

  Field Marshal French mentions in his memoirs that the first indication that the enemy had halted on the Aisne came when 'Jack Johnsons', heavy shells from German eight-inch howitzers, began to explode among the soldiers, 'our first experience of an artillery much heavier than our own'. (4) These heavy howitzers had been hurried down to the Aisne after completing the reduction of the fortress of Maubeuge, which had surrendered on 8 September.

  French established his headquarters at Fère-en-Tardenois on 12 September and went forward the next day to the River Aisne, south-east of Soissons, where the 4th Division of Pulteney's III Corps were assisting an attack of the French Sixth Army. From a ridge above the south bank of the Aisne, the field marshal looked down on the valley and was astonished by the intensity of the shellfire; ' the river seemed to be ablaze, so intense was the artillery fire on both sides'. (5)

  French was witnessing a change in the balance of power on the battlefield. Heretofore, victory usually depended on a mastery of the 'all arms' battle, finding the correct combination of artillery, infantry and cavalry. Now the artillery piece was beginning to dominate the battlefield and dictate the progress of events, and the guns would continue to do so until the end of the war; more than 60 per cent of all casualties during the Great War were caused by shellfire. The infantry answer to shellfire was entrenchment, so the battle for the Aisne marked the start of 'trench warfare', which became and has largely remained the abiding image of the Great War engagements, conflicts in which men in trenches, up to their knees or waists in mud, endured the relentless pounding of the guns.

  Trench warfare began- and the Western Front developed- not from any deliberate strategic plan but for two simple, understandable, tactical reasons. On the heights above the Aisne the Germans found a position they could defend. To hold it they dug trenches and artillery positions. When the Anglo-French armies came up to assault these positions, they came under intense artillery and rifle fire. Unable to advance and taking losses, they too dug trenches and dugouts to shelter in while preparing for another attack and to resist any counter-attack. From this point on a further series of understandable actions caused the trench lines to extend.

  The Allied soldiers first tried frontal assaults. When these attacks failed, the Allied units, French and British, attempted flanking attacks, hoping to edge round the enemy defences. From the Aisne there was an open flank to the south and east, terminating at the Swiss border, and running north and west towards the North Sea. Seeking the advantage of ground, and anxious to prevent any renewal of the Schlieffen attacks, the Allies hooked north and west in short tactical bounds- only to find that the Germans had meanwhile extended their flank, found more high ground and dug in to beat them off yet again. Impasse.

  And so, with the Allies launching flanking attacks and digging in to hold any ground gained while the Germans extended their line and dug in to oppose any Allied attack, the trench lines crept north and west towards the North Sea. They also crept south and east, up to the frontier with Switzerland, but in September 1914 both sides were attempting to get round the 'open' or western flank of their foe, both still hoping to 'roll up' the enemy's line, a process that ended, as we shall see, when the BEF and the Germans finally collided head on at Yp
res.

  During this time, as Field Marshal French had noticed, the defensive elements of war - steep terrain, dugouts and trenches, artillery using indirect fire from behind hills and ridges - were beginning to dominate the battlefield and stifle the war of manoeuvre. Later on, when this combination was enhanced by barbed wire, the 'Old Front Line' of the Western Front gradually came into being as a means by which soldiers of all armies could hold their ground and protect themselves from shellfire and infantry assaults.

  Overall, the Germans gained the greatest benefit from this procedure. They had the initial choice of ground, and although neither side had visualized a war of fixed positions the Germans also had an adequate supply of trench stores- barbed wire, spades and duckboards, and useful dose-quarter assets such as hand grenades and trench mortars. At first the French and British had none of this equipment - and lacked heavy guns with which to reduce the German positions and support the infantry assaults. Rather more to the present purpose, they lacked ammunition.