Meanwhile, the First and Second armies were to turn outward and, facing west from the Marne valley, to hold off any countermove, which the French attempted from the neighbourhood of Paris. Some of the good flame throwers could shoot a stream as far as 50 yards (Flamethrowers and Snipers in WW1 2009). He decided to swing back his centre and left, with Verdun as the pivot, while drawing troops from the right and forming a fresh Sixth Army on his left to enable the retiring armies to return to the offensive. The French government estimates that millions of unexploded shells from World War I remain buried or undiscovered in the French countryside. in history from Michigan State University in 1995. The curation of this content is at the discretion of the author, and not necessarily reflective of the views of Encyclopaedia Britannica or its editorial staff. [21] The lack of coordination between von Kluck and Blow caused the gap to widen further. World War I: First Battle of the Marne. The French captured Mulhouse, until forced out by a German counter-attack on 11 August, and fell back toward Belfort. By 10 September the Germans had received orders to stop attacking and withdrawal towards the frontier became general. Ludendorff Offensive March 21 to July 18, 1918 Also known as the Ludendorff Offensive, the 1918 Spring Offensive begins with the Germans launching a string of attacks along the Western Front in. The first was Gen. Helmuth von Moltkes action in detaching seven regular divisions to invest Maubeuge and Givet and watch Antwerp, instead of using Landwehr (reserve) and Ersatz (replacement) troops as earlier intended. On 29 August, the Fifth Army counter-attacked the German 2nd Army south of the Oise, from Vervins to Mont-d'Origny and west of the river from Mont-d'Origny to Moy towards St. Quentin on the Somme, while the British held the line of the Oise west of La Fre. This system was strengthenedwith fortifications, underground shelters andthick belts of barbed wire. [54] The Battle of the Marne was also one of the first battles in which reconnaissance aircraft played a decisive role, by discovering weak points in the German lines, which the Entente armies were able to exploit. Pilots would even wave at enemy planes when they passed each other on aerial reconnaissance duties! A rifle fitted with a bayonet could prove unwieldy in a confined trench so many soldiers preferred to use improvised trench clubs instead. While the German invasion failed decisively to defeat the Entente in France, the German army occupied a good portion of northern France as well as most of Belgium and it was the failure of the French Plan 17 that caused that situation. Machine gun. [5], The Great Retreat took place from 24 August to 5 September; the French Fifth Army fell back about 15 kilometres (10mi) from the Sambre during the Battle of Charleroi (22 August) and began a greater withdrawal from the area south of the Sambre on 23 August. Rifles wereby farthe most commonly used weapon of the war. Grenades were ideal weapons for trench warfare, they could be thrown into enemy positions before troops entered them. German barbed wire at Beaucourt, November 1916. [11] To accomplish this, the 2nd Army would become the primary striking force with the 1st Army (Alexander von Kluck) following in echelon to protect the flank. After the battle at the Marne River, the German and Allied troops realized old-fashioned battle was not the way to win this war. He wrote that the French official history, Les armes franaises dans la grande guerre, gave 213,445 French casualties in September and assumed that ca. By prematurely wheeling his forces before Paris had been reached, Kluck exposed the German right to a counterenvelopment. Even though new weapons and technology were available for the First World War, a learning curve was needed to develop and use them properly and effectively. Men carried them on counter-battery missions to spot the enemy. On arrival, however, Field Marshal Sir John French learned that the French Fifth Army under Gen. Charles Lanrezac had been checked by a German attack on August 21 and deprived of the crossing of the Sambre. The next battle in the First World War is the Battle of the Aisne. 1900s. The Second Army had advanced from Marle on the Serre, across the Aisne and the Vesle, between Reims and Fismes to Montmort, north of the junction of the French 9th and 5th Armies at Szanne. With the war stalled along the Aisne in Champagne, both armies began efforts to turn the other's flank in the west. The Second Battle of the Marne was an important victory. Exploiting this, the Allies attacked into the gap and threatened to encircle the German First and Second Armies. The Battle of Mulhouse (Battle of Alsace 710 August) was the first French offensive of World War I. Fighting a series of holding actions, French forces, led by commander-in-chief General Joseph Joffre, fell back to a new position behind the Marne with the goal of holding Paris. The Germans first used gas against the French during the capture of Neuve Chapelle in October 1914 when they fired shells containing a chemical irritant that caused violent fits of sneezing. Even on September 5, when the French on either flank were turning about, the British continued a further days march to the south. The arrival of six thousand soldiers by taxi has traditionally been described as critical in stopping a possible German breakthrough against the 6th Army. Kluck was emboldened to take the risk because of the rapid retreat of the British oppositeor rather with their backs tothis gaping sector. The stalemate was only overcome in1918 after years of bitter lessons, where the army learnt new tactics thatcombined theeffective use ofthese weapons. Heavy guns, such as the Maxim and Hotchkiss, made no man's land a killing zone, and Isaac Newton Lewis's light machine gun saw widespread use at the squad level and as an aircraft armament. The use of these chemical weapons violated the 1899 Hague Declaration Concerning Asphyxiating Gases and the 1907 Hague Convention on Land Warfare, both strictly prohibiting the use of chemical warfare. [43] It is generally agreed among historians that the battle was an Entente victory that saved Paris and kept France in the war but there is considerable disagreement as to the extent of the victory. The German retreat from 913 September marked the end of the Schlieffen Plan. It ranged in size from the French 75-mm field gun to the massive 420-mm Big Bertha and the 210-mm Paris Gun. "World War I: First Battle of the Marne." On the far west flank of the French, the BEF prolonged the line from Maubeuge to Valenciennes against the German 1st Army and Army Detachment von Beseler masked the Belgian army at Antwerp. [6], At the Battle of Mons (23 August), the BEF attempted to hold the line of the MonsCond Canal against the advancing German 1st Army. Germany first used poison gas as a weapon during the Battle of Bolimov in January 1915. We know anyhow that with a prescience greater in political than in military affairs, he wrote to his wife on the night of the 9th, "Things have not gone well. It resulted in an Entente victory against the German armies in the west. Technologically, the machines became more advanced. First Battle of the Marne, (September 6-12, 1914), an offensive during World War I by the French army and the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) against the advancing Germans who had invaded Belgium and northeastern France and were within 30 miles (48 km) of Paris. Heavy guns, such as the Maxim and Hotchkiss, made "no man's land" a killing zone, and Isaac Newton Lewis 's light machine gun saw widespread use at the squad level and as an aircraft armament. Tanks were developed by the British Army as a mechanical solution to the trench warfare stalemate. Object description. 31, 2021, thoughtco.com/first-battle-of-the-marne-2361397. [52] Tuchman wrote that Kluck explained the German failure at the Marne as, the reason that transcends all others was the extraordinary and peculiar aptitude of the French soldier to recover quickly. Before acceding, Kluck deferred to Moltke. This included about 3,000 men from the Seventh Division who were transported in a fleet of Paris taxicabs requisitioned by General Gallieni. In the resulting Battle of the Ourcq, Kluck's men were able to put the French on the defensive. Infoplease is part of the Sandbox Learning family of educational and reference sites for parents, teachers and students. Not all actions on the Western Front were large scale battles. The 2nd and 3rd German armies had 134 battalions facing 268 battalions of the French Fifth and new Ninth Army. The decision to abandon the original plan was definitely taken on September 4, and Moltke substituted a narrower envelopment of the French centre and right. This led Joffre to transfer the Second Army west to the left flank of the Sixth Army, the first phase of Entente attempts to outflank the German armies in "The Race to the Sea". Seizing the initiative in the early afternoon, the two divisions of IV Reserve Corps attacked with field artillery and infantry into the gathering Sixth Army and pushed it back. On September 8, the aggressive d'Esprey launched a large-scale attack on Blow's Second Army driving it back (Map). [57], In 2009, Herwig re-estimated the casualties for the battle. The reinforced Sixth Army held its ground. He used interior lines to move troops from his right wing to the critical left wing and sacked generals. The next day, the Fifth Army recrossed the Marne, and the German 1st and 2nd Armies began to retire. The French threw back the massive German advance and thwarted German plans for a quick and total victory on the Western Front. The army developed tactics like the creeping barrage, which saw troops advance across no-man's-landbehind the safety ofa line of shell fire. Europe Machine guns had been used successfully in wars leading up to the First World War such as the Second Boer War and the Russo-Japanese War. The World War I infantryman could produce a volume of fire that dwarfed that of his mid-19th-century predecessors. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Airplanes and submarines were used for the first time, initially to locate the enemy. The introduction of gas warfare in 1915 created an urgent need for protective equipment to counter its effects. He earned a B.A. The following night, on 8 September, the Fifth Army launched a surprise attack against the 2nd Army, further widening the gap between the 1st and 2nd Armies. Watch this video to understand the significant role trench warfare played in conflicts from 17th century France through World War I. The battle was the culmination of the Retreat from Mons and pursuit of the Franco-British armies which followed the Battle of the Frontiers in August and reached the eastern outskirts of Paris. On an unsuspecting enemy, Britain unleashed its new secret weapon - the tank. The Germans suffered ca. Though planned as a simple tactical withdrawal and executed in good order, the British retreat from Mons lasted for two weeks and covered 400 kilometres (250mi). Following the battle and the failures by both sides to turn the opponent's northern flank during the Race to the Sea, the war of movement ended with the Germans and the Entente Powers facing each other across a stationary front line. Not sure about the geography of the middle east? Other fighting included the capture of the village of Revigny in the Battle of Revigny (Bataille de Revigny), the Battle of Vitry (Bataille de Vitry) around Vitry-le-Franois, and the Battle of the Marshes of Saint-Gond around Szanne. The First Battle of the Marne was fought September 6-12, 1914, during World War I (1914-1918) and marked the limit of Germany's initial advance into France. Together with his Chief of Staff General Kuhl, Kluck ordered his armies to continue south-east rather than turning to the west to face possible reinforcements that could endanger the German flank. Moltke further undermined the effectiveness of the Schlieffen Plan on August 25 when he decided to send four divisions to check the Russian advance in East Prussia (that advance would be shattered at the Battle of Tannenberg, weeks before the detached troops would arrive on the Eastern Front). Need a reference? On September 14, it was clear that neither side would be able to dislodge the other and the armies began entrenching. Planes also made their debut in the First World War. https://www.thoughtco.com/first-battle-of-the-marne-2361397 (accessed March 2, 2023). During the Battle of Ypres, also in 1915, the Germans used chlorine gas for the first time. Sometimes barbed-wire entanglements were designed to channel attacking infantry and cavalry into machine-gun and artillery fields of fire. Joffre ordered Entente troops to pursue, leading to the First Battle of the Aisne (see below). tanks, and other long range military weapons were used at the opposing side. Artillery was often the key to successful operations. The attack by Crown Prince Ruperts Sixth Army on the Grand-Couronn, covering Nancy, was a particularly expensive failure. The first Battle of the Marne-- sometimes it's called the Miracle of the Marne-- if the French, with British help, were not able to push the Germans back, they might have accomplished the Schlieffen Plan and actually maybe would have won World War I, or at least been able to win the Western front fairly quickly. He was concerned in particular with a gap which had opened between his Second and Third armies as a result of the latters having already turned south, from southwest, to help the Fourth Army, its neighbour on the other flank. The British Army soon developed a range of gas helmets based on fabric bags and hoods that had been treated with anti-gas chemicals. However, chlorine gas proved tricky to use. Although thus placed in an exposed forward position, French agreed to stand at Mons to cover Lanrezacs left. The BEF prepared to commence operations in French Flanders and Flanders in Belgium, joining with the British forces that had been in Belgium since August. That the Allies were not able to draw greater advantage from their victory was partly due to the comparative weakness of Maunourys flank attack and partly due to the failure of the British and of the French Fifth Army under dEsprey to drive rapidly through the gap between the German First and Second armies while it was open. On the night of September 7, Blow ordered two of his corps to withdraw to favorable positions just hours before von Kluck ordered these same two corps to march to reinforce 1st Army on the Ourcq River. Moreover, any type of fixed location for supplies was a target for the enemy. The Vickers machine-gun (above)was famed for its reliability and could fire over 600 rounds per minute and had a range of 4,500 yards. There were many weapons used in WWI, they each had a purpose during the war. Ferdinand Foch received the baton of a Marshal of France. On September 7 and 8, Maunourys forces were reinforced by about 3,000 infantrymen who were transported to the battle from Paris by some 600 taxis, the first automotive transport of troops in the history of war. Thedevastating effect of the mines helped the men gain their initial objectives. Became general Kluck exposed the German First and Second armies Marne was an important.. 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