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The Great War 1914

The autumn of 1914, with its bloody battles and its unheard of losses may be called the heroic period of the Great War. The infantry, according to its training, had attacked hostile positions relying on nothing but itself and had conquered the enemy batteries by frontal attacks. During this period nobody wanted to hear anything of the artillery. The infantry felt that it was doing the fighting. From the first battle it was clear that the artillery was unable to silence the hostile batteries. Neither could it properly protect the advance of its own infantry, because when batteries were pushed forward for this purpose they were immediately suffocated by hostile fire. For this reason artillery soon learned to accompany the attack from covered positions and at this time the opinion was general that the hostile artillery was superior, either on account of its armament or its employment.

The French were strongly fortified on their eastern or Alsace-Lorraine frontier from Luxemburg to Switzerland, which was guarded by the four great fortresses behind which they massed their troops in anticipation of a German attack. On the other hand, depending on the Treaty of 1839, they had left their northern or Belgian frontier weakly fortified. Hence the German plan to sweep through Belgium, reduce the two Belgian fortresses of Liege and Namur - which guarded the valley of the Meuse as well as the railroad from Cologne to Brussels and Antwerp - pour into the plains of northern France, envelop and destroy the French army, capture Paris, collect an indemnity and put an end to the war before Russia could strike an effective blow in the East and before the British could send effective aid.

Several factors combined, in spite of many reverses suffered by the Allies, to prevent the realization of this ruthless plan. Although Liege and Namur were soon reduced by heavy artillery, their defenders delayed the German invaders long enough to enable the British expeditionary force to arrive and to enable the French commander Joffre to send forces to the north. He failed, to be sure, in an attempt to menace the German left wing by an abortive thrust toward the Rhine country, and the combined Anglo-French force was not sufficiently large or well equipped to render effective aid to the Belgian army - which took refuge in Antwerp 20 August. Indeed the British - under General French - and the French contingents sent to support them, went so far north as to expose themselves to serious peril.

In August 1914, General Joseph Joffre's bid for a French victory against Germany was Plan XVII which was based upon the widely accepted offensive doctrine of the time. Joffre's Plan XVII met with disaster against the Germans who executed Generail Helmuth Moltke's version of the famous Schlieffen plan. The Germans crushed France's opening offensives in The Battle of the Frontiers, forced General Joffre into a desperate retreat, and threatened Paris.

Forced to withdraw from Mons on 23 August, the British regulars in a five days' retreat manifested a dogged constancy which stands out as one of the magnificent feats of history, notwithstanding the fact that they gave ground too slowly for safety. Yet, while the Anglo- French troops were forced back, they were neither encircled nor crushed, and the Germans failed to take advantage of the opportunity to seize Calais and the other Channel ports, which would have been invaluable to them for blocking the short line of communication from England to France and for hostile bases against Great Britain.

Joffre had hoped to make a stand north of Paris but did not feel himself strong enough, even though the Germans had begun to grow weary in their strenuous advance and were outrunning their heavy guns. Accordingly, he continued his retreat to the Marne, east and south of Paris, where he prepared to give battle.

France appeared to be on the verge of another humiliating defeat by the Germans. However, unlike the French army in 1870 and later in 1940, France re-grouped in the face of destruction and launched a bold counter-offensive in the First Battle of the Marne and drove the Germans back. Ferocious fighting and horrific casualties occurred on both sides but Joffre had saved Paris from Germany's best chance at defeating the French.

Clausewitz, who is the greatest German authority on war, says most plainly in his book, which is the German generals' bible, that the culminating point in war is the point at which the attack turns into defence. Let us quote his own words: "Often, in fact almost universally, there is a culminating point of victory. Experience shows this sufficiently. It is necessary to know how far our preponderance will reach, in order not to go beyond that point, and instead of fresh advantage reach disaster," and he gives as that culminating point: "The point at which the offensive changes into the defensive.” Germany reached that point after the battles of the Marne and Ypres. When she reached that point she ought to have made peace, and as a matter of fact, she began to fly her peace kites very soon afterwards.

"The Miracle of the Marne" (6-9 September, 1914)

On 5 September Joffre gave orders to his army to stand and advance or die. The main battle, lasting four days, involved some 2,000,000 men, and was largely fought within a few miles east of the French capital, though troops were drawn up along a front of 150 miles from Paris to Verdun. The British contingent under General French were contained by a German cavalry screen and played no noticeable part in the battle, though their belated advance has been attributed to French's rigid adherence to orders from Joffre. The miraculous victory of the Marne proved to be one of the decisive battles in the world's history, for it wrecked the German design of putting the French out of the war, forced the invaders to dig in, and took from them the initiative which they never thoroughly regained on the western front till the spring of 1918.

The Retreat to the Aisne and the Race for the Channel Ports

After their defeat at the Marne, the Germans began, 10 September, to retreat to the Aisne, where they were able to check the pursuit of the French and British and to secure their position in strong trenches. Then began a series of movements on the part of Joffie to outflank his enemy on the west, on the Germans' part to extend their line, with the twofold aim of frustrating the Allies' design and of securing the Channel ports, realizing only too late the chance they had missed during their southern advance. Farther north, they succeeded in capturing Antwerp, the third and last of Belgium's fortified places; but they failed to entrap the Belgian army. Unhappily, however, they secured a long stretch of the Belgian seacoast, including Zee- brugge and Ostend, which they later used to great effect as submarine bases.

The First Battle of Ypres

Meantime, early in October, there had begun a furious struggle on the part of the Allies, which lasted until the middle of November, to prevent the Germans from breaking through the forty-mile line between La Bassee and the sea and seizing the Channel ports farther south. The conflict is generally known as the First Battle of Ypres, from the town about which the fighting centered. General Foch, who was in general command of the combined forces of the British, French, and Belgians, gave new evidence of his remarkable gifts. The supreme heroes of Ypres, however, were the British troops, and here most of what were left of French's " Old Contemptibles " were practically wiped out. With a total strength of 150,000 at most - many of them hurried from the farm, the shop, and the factory - armed largely with rifles, for they were only inadequately supplied with artillery, they valiantly and effectively blocked the attacks of a trained army of fully 500,000 Germans, abundantly provided with heavy cannon and machine guns. Had the enemy broken through, they would again have threatened Paris, they would have secured the Channel ports, thus cutting the short line of communications, of transport and supply from England to northern France, they would have dominated the Channel and have threatened England's very existence.

The End of the Campaign of 1914

The close of the campaign of 1914 marked the end of the period of preliminary maneuvering. The line was fixed from the Flanders seacoast to the Swiss mountains. Now began more than three years of trench warfare - with a more or less considerable swaying back and forth of the respective forces engaged - which in a sense must be regarded as one great battle. Not till 1918 was there to be any prolonged or extensive open fighting. It was in this third and final stage that the issue was decided. To return to 1914, the British had sent all their available forces to help stem the invading hordes; the Germans had failed in their major aim of securing Paris and the Channel ports, of crushing the Anglo-French army and forcing a decision in the first year of the war; but they were in possession of all of Belgium save a small corner along the southern coast, and had torn from France the flower of hermining and industrial region. British troops were sent into the trenches between the Belgians and the French, and, starting with a few miles, came to hold a constantly increasing portion of the line. At the same time their fleet was commanding the seas while their army was being built up and equipped, while the French were developing new manufacturing centers and while the Dominions were sending food and troops, and the United States and other neutral countries were providing munitions and foodstuffs.

The Eastern Campaign

Meantime, the Russians - on whom the rank and file, at least, in the Allied countries built high hopes - had exercised an appreciable influence on the western campaign. Mobilizing more quickly than the Germans had expected, they sent invading forces into East Prussia and Galicia. In spite of crushing defeats in East Prussia, their activity, together with Serbia's successful defense of her territory against the Austrians, diverted enemy contingents which the Germans might have used with telling effect in the Marne campaign. On the other hand, Turkey's entrance on the side of the Central Powers, November, 1914, was a decided handicap to the Allies, for it cut off the chance of sending, through the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, the munitions which Russia needed for her huge but badly equipped forces, and, at the same time, deprived the Allies of Russian grain.