First Battle of the Marne

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Retreat to the Marne
Maubeuge – Le Cateau – Guise – 1st Marne – 1st Aisne

Retreat to the Marne
Maubeuge – Le Cateau – Guise – 1st Marne – 1st Aisne

The First Battle of the Marne (also known as the Miracle of the Marne) was a World War I battle fought from September 5 to September 12, 1914. It was a Franco-British victory against the German army under General Helmuth von Moltke the Younger.

The battle of the Marne was a major turning point of World War I. By the end of August 1914, the whole Allied army on the Western Front had been forced into a general retreat back towards Paris. Meanwhile the two main German armies continued through France. It seemed that Paris would be taken as both the French and the British fell back towards the Marne River.

Field Marshall Sir John French, commander of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), began to plan for a full British retreat to port cities on the English Channel for an immediate evacuation. The military governor of Paris, Joseph Simon Gallieni, wanted to organise the French and British armies to counter the weight of the German army's advance. After consulting Lord Kitchener about the use of British forces, Gallieni secured the overall command of the BEF, thus stopping Sir John's planned withdrawal.

Gallieni's plan was simple. All Allied units would counter-attack the Germans along the Marne River, thus halting the German advance. As this was going on, Allied reserves would be thrown in to restore the ranks and attack the German flanks. On September 5, in the mid afternoon, battle commenced when the French Sixth Army, led by General Michel-Joseph Maunoury, stumbled into the forward guard of the German First Army.

The British would not fight in battle until September 9, following a critical mistake by the German commander on the extreme right wing, General Alexander von Kluck. On September 9, as the French Sixth Army retreated back towards the Marne, von Kluck ordered his forces to pursue and destroy them. In doing this, he opened up a fifty kilometer (30 mile) gap between the German First and Second Armies. Seeing a great opportunity, all three infantry corps and the two cavalry divisions of the BEF and the French 5th Army, filled this gap and attacked both German armies' exposed flanks.

General von Moltke suffered a nervous breakdown upon hearing of the danger to his two armies. His subordinates took over and both First and Second Armies were ordered to withdraw to the Aisne River in order to regroup.

The German retreat between September 9 and September 13 signified the abandonment of the Schlieffen Plan. In the aftermath of the battle, both sides dug in and four years of stalemate ensued.

One of the taxi cabs of the Marne

Around six hundred Paris taxicabs, mainly Renault AG's, were commandeered by the French authorities and used to transport a total of six thousand French reserve infantry troops to the battle. Their arrival has frequently been described as critical in stopping a possible German breakthrough against the 6th Army. However, in view of the actual number of combatants and, indeed, in view of casualty figures of 50,000 or more per day, their contribution is today considered to have been mainly of propagandistic value:

Over two million troops fought in the First Battle of the Marne and more than 500,000 were killed or wounded.

First Battle of the Marne

Further reading