Grasping the Battle of the Marne

By the Editor

For over two decades, I included pieces of 1914's Battle of the Marne in my tours of the Western Front. From my first readings about the war, I knew it was the largest conducted on the Western Front, with over a million men on each side crashing into one another in what was two almost simultaneously launched offensives. More important, it was the battle that turned a war that was supposed to be over by Christmas into the four-year battle of attrition and struggle for national survival it came to be. However, since the actual battlefield extended over 200 miles I had to pick and chose my destinations, the accidental starting point at the village of Villeroy, the retreat and the swinging back into action of the British Expeditionary Force, and the National Memorial at Mondemont.

As interesting as these stops were, I knew I was missing the massive scope of the battle. So, in 2014 for the hundredth anniversary of the battle I decided to cover the battle in its entirety. In preparation, I studied all the works I could find and, most important, searched out the best maps I could find. What I came to see (in football terms) two teams of six armies each (counting the six division BEF as a full army) lined up against one another. However, the formations weren't head to head in all cases. Sometimes they were gaps leaving an army with open territory in front and in some cases other armies had two enemy armies facing them. I realized in each of these unbalanced situations there had been a possibility for one side or the other to break through and wreck the plans of their opponents—thus winning the battle and the war. I decided to visit each of these gaps (there were four) on the trip. I also decided to start the trip at the Hotel des Invalides, where the taxicabs of the Marne started out, and work systematically to the easternmost extent of the battle.

Click on Map to Enlarge

Key Points of the Marne Battlefield
1.  Paris/ Battle of Ourcq; 2. The Two Morins; 3. Foch's Moment at Mondemoont; 4. Mailly & Revigny Gaps, 5. Verdun-St. Mihiel Sector; 
6.  Initial Gap & British Pursuit

Scenes from the 2014 Reenactment of the Opening of the
Battle of the Marne at the Village of Villeroy, NE of Paris

My group and I learned a lot on the trip, too much to fully summarize here. But a few points are worth listing. These are things I would have never known had I not traveled the entire battlefield of the Marne.

1. The failure of the Crown Prince's Fifth Army to capture Verdun in the earlier campaign had a rippling negative effect on the German effort. Three of those gaps were in the eastern part of the battle close to the Verdun battlefield. Had Fifth Army been able to spring loose a corps or two, those men could have been plugged into one of those openings and wreaked havoc with Joffre's plans.

2. More broadly put, while much is written about the opportune charge of the BEF through the western gap around Meaux, the German Army missed multiple similar opportunities a hundred miles to the east.

3. In all my reading about the battle, I had completely missed the significance of a night attack on 8 September ordered by new Fifth Army commander Franchet d'Espèrey against the opposing German Second Army commander. Having just driven across the Meaux gap myself, I saw how the assault froze the enemy in place and guaranteed that the BEF would have a wide-open path to charge through.

4. Besides issuing his stirring quote, "Hard pressed on my right, my center is falling back, impossible to move, situation excellent. I attack," General Foch did a marvelous job commanding his new 9th Army when it was attacked by both the German Second and Third Armies.

5. I was surprised to once again run into that whirling dervish of a lieutenant, Erwin Rommel. who led one of the last successful attacks of the battle at the village of Rembercourt south of Verdun just before the retreat to the Aisne was ordered.

Mondemont, Where Foch Held the Line;
National Memorial on Right

My 2014 Group at the  British La Ferté-sous-Jouarre
Monument on the South Banks of the Marne Marking
the Terminus of the Retreat from Mons

 Here are some of my more recent reflections on the great battle..

In visiting all the battle's major sites, from where the taxicabs of the Marne delivered their reinforcements north of Paris over to Fort de Troyon 11.5 miles southeast of Verdun on the Meuse River, I was reminded how infrequently plans work out as intended, whether those pertaining to million-man armies, delivery schedules, or today's personal to-do list. Only Joffre's "Big Idea" of ambushing the German Army when it was overextended seemed to work out. Almost none of the specifics of either side seemed to work out as intended. Maybe that's the point—if you have the right idea, things will shake out despite innumerable problems, while a bad concept will fail no matter how well executed. Consider a later war: Operation Barbarossa—Bad Idea and disaster; Operation Overlord—Good Idea and success.

That history can change direction in an apparently insignificant location, like the village of Villeroy where a chance encounter triggered the opening of the struggle a day earlier than either supreme commander intended; or tiny Marchais-et-Brie, where the French Fifth Army in the aforementioned surprise night attack decisively gained the flank of the German Second Army; or the hill outside Vitry called Mont Môret where a regiment-sized seesaw battle determined the fate of the French Fourth Army.

Fort de Troyon—Perfectly Positioned to Interfere
with Any Crossing of the Meuse River

Finally, let me indulge in one bit of alternate history-making. Two days after the battle's opening, Helmuth von Moltke ordered the Crown Prince's Fifth Army to move much of his manpower off its Verdun anchor, sending a single corps south against what has been called the Troyon Gap, where only a small fort guarded a crossing of the Meuse River, and the remaining available units to the west of Verdun. Had he (or the General Staff) thought more boldly, revising that deployment by leaving a single corps to monitor the Verdun garrison while sending the rest of the army to storm the Meuse Heights and cross the river, history might have changed dramatically. Even mighty little Fort de Troyon would not have been able to stem the German tide flooding across the Meuse, which would be free to attack Joffre's rear, effectively destroying his operational concept. Crown Prince Wilhelm, should that have transpired, would have been the greatest hero of a European (not world) war that had begun in August 1914 and ended just five weeks later. How's that for "what if?" history? I could never have conceived of this had not I stood on the ramparts of Fort de Troyon overlooking the River Meuse with map in hand to appreciate the strategic opportunity the German Army had missed there.

M. Hanlon