The Marne, 1914
Page 41
68. From Die Badener im Weltkrieg 1914/1918, ed. Wilhelm Müller-Loebnitz (Karlsruhe: G. Braun, 1935), 13–14, 22, 24–25.
69. Ibid., 13–14.
70. GLA, S Kriegsbriefe und Kriegstagebücher 53.
71. GLA, 456 F41 Kriegstagebuch Inf. Regt. “Prinz Wilhelm” Nr. 112, 171.
72. Max von Hausen, Erinnerungen an den Marnefeldzug 1914 (Leipzig: K. F. Koehler, 1920), 101–07, appendix 2; Sachsen in großer Zeit: Gemeinverständliche sächsische Kriegsgeschichte und vaterländisches Gedenkwert des Weltkrieges in Wort und Bild, ed. Johann Edmund Hotten-roth (Leipzig: R. M. Lippold, 1920), 3 vols.
73. HStA, M 660/038, Nachlaß von Soden, Die Leistungen der Württemberger im Weltkrieg; also, Württembergs Heer im Weltkrieg. Einzeldarstellungen der Geschichte der württembergischen Heeresverbände (Stuttgart: Berger, 1939), 20 vols.
74. Sewell Tyng, The Campaign of the Marne, 1914 (New York and Toronto: Longmans, Green, 1935), 80.
75. Mob.-Termin Kalendar 1914/15. Ehlert, Epkenhans, and Groß, eds., Schlieffenplan, 478–84.
76. BHStA-KA, AOK 6/369, Aufmarsch-Anweisungen. Italics in the original.
77. Eugenia C. Kiesling, “France,” in Richard F. Hamilton and Holger H. Herwig, eds., The Origins of World War I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 229, 246. Comments by Gaston Doumerge (January 1914) and Maurice Paléologue (July 1914).
78. Ralph R. Menning, ed., The Art of the Possible: Documents on Great Power Diplomacy, 1814–1914 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996), 247.
79. SHD, 7 N 1535, Renseignements données par le Général Gilinski au Général Joffre dans la conference préliminaire du 30 juillet–12 août 1913. I have profited greatly from two recent publications by Robert A. Doughty: “French Strategy in 1914: Joffre’s Own,” Journal of Military History 67 (2003): 427–54; and Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operations in the Great War (Cambridge, MA, and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005).
80. Jan Karl Tanenbaum, “French Estimates of Germany’s Operational War Plans,” Ernest R. May, ed., Knowing One’s Enemies: Intelligence Assessment Before the Two World Wars (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 153, 158–59.
81. Dated 15 February 1908. AFGG, 1:33–38; and 1-1:4–7. Since all volumes from the French official history, Les armées françaises dans le grande guerre, used in this book are from the first of eleven multivolume tomes, the relevant tome number has simply been omitted. For the three narrative volumes of the series consulted, the single number 1, 2, or 3 designates the volume; a hyphenated number (1-1 or 2-1 or 3-1) designates the volume as well as its documentary annex; all numbers after the colon are for pages.
82. Ibid., 1-1, 7-11.
83. Ibid., 1:38; Doughty, Pyrrhic Victory, 14.
84. Joffre, 1:117.
85. Ibid., 1:190.
86. SHD, 7 N 1778; AFGG, 1:53ff., 77ff.; AFGG 1-1:21–35; Joffre, 1:169–80.
87. Cited in Doughty, Pyrrhic Victory, 19.
88. Tyng, Campaign of the Marne, 26–31.
89. Doughty, Pyrrhic Victory, 26.
90. Ibid., 22.
91. Ibid., 23.
92. Ibid., 27.
93. Anthony Clayton, Paths of Glory: The French Army, 1914–18 (London: Cassell, 2003), 37.
94. Tanenbaum, “French Estimates,” 166.
95. Ibid., 143.
96. Ibid., 95.
97. Cited in Doughty, Pyrrhic Victory, 34.
98. AFGG, 1:106, and 1-1:58; Joffre, 1:222; Raymond Poincaré, Comment fut déclarée la guerre de 1914 (Paris: Flammarion, 1939), 119–20.
99. Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, La France et les français 1900–1914 (Paris: Éditions Richelieu, 1972), 82–85; Strachan, First World War, 1:206.
100. Charles de Gaulle, France and Her Army (London: Hutchinson, n.d.), 90–91.
101. Jean-Jacques Becker, Le carnet B; les pouvoirs publics et l’antimilitarisme avant la guerre de 1914 (Paris: Klincksieck, 1973).
102. Henri Desagneaux, A French Soldier’s War Diary, 1914–1918 (Morley, UK: Elmfield Press, 1975), 5.
103. Joffre, 1:236.
104. Instruction générale No. 1, 8 August 1914. AFGG, 1-1:124–26.
105. Joffre, 1:205.
106. Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson: His Life and Diaries, ed. C. E. Callwell (London: Cassell, 1927), 1:78–79.
107. Joffre, 1:122–24.
108. Michael Howard, The Continental Commitment: The Dilemma of British Defence Policy in the Era of the Two World Wars (London: Temple Smith, 1972), esp. 31–52.
109. Diary entry dated 18 November 1914. Douglas Haig, War Diaries and Letters, 1914–1918, eds. Gary Sheffield and John Bourne (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005), 82.
110. Grey to Bertie, 15 January 1906. Grey Papers, FO 800/49, National Archives, Kew.
111. Keith Wilson, The Policy of the Entente: Essays on the Determinants of British Foreign Policy, 1904–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 63.
112. Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War (London: Allen Lane, 1998), 65.
113. David Herrmann, The Arming of Europe and the Making of the First World War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 156–57.
114. See Paul Hayes, “Britain, Germany, and the Admiralty’s Plans for Attacking German Territory, 1906–1915,” in War, Strategy, and International Politics: Essays in Honour of Sir Michael Howard, eds. Lawrence Freedman, Paul Hayes, and Robert O’Neill (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 95–116.
115. Samuel R. Williamson Jr., The Politics of Grand Strategy: Britain and France Prepare for War, 1904–1914 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), 307.
116. Asquith to the king, 2 November 1911. Asquith Papers I/6, Bodleian Library, Oxford University. I am indebted to Professor Keith Neilson of the Royal Military College, Canada, for this reference.
117. Williamson, Politics of Grand Strategy, 364–67.
118. Strachan, First World War, 1:202.
119. Cited in Sir Henry Wilson, 1:158.
120. HGW-MO, 1:10.
121. Following from Ian V. Hogg, British Artillery Weapons and Ammunition, 1914–1918 (London: Ian Allan, 1972), 80–81, 102–03, 116–17.
122. HGW-MO, 1:6–8.
123. Bruce Gudmundsson, The British Expeditionary Force, 1914–1915 (Oxford, 2005), 72–73.
124. Nikolas Gardner, Trial by Fire: Command and the British Expeditionary Force in 1914 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), 20–27; also Andrew J. Risio, “Building the Old Contemptibles: British Military Transformation and Tactical Development from the Boer War to the Great War, 1899–1914,” unpublished MA thesis, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, KS, 2005, 31–82.
125. Timothy Travers, The Killing Ground: The British Army, the Western Front, and the Emergence of Modern Warfare, 1900–1918 (London and New York: Routledge, 1993), 37–42.
126. History of the Great War, Naval Operations, ed. Sir Julian Corbett (London: Longmans, Green, 1920–31), 1:72–82.
127. HGW-MO, 1:31–50.
128. The following from Luc de Vos, “Belgien: Operationsplanungen und Taktik eines neutralen Landes,” in Ehlert, Epkenhans, and Groß, eds., Schlieffenplan, 293–310. The runup to 1914 is in Luc de Vos, Het effectief van de Belgische krijgsmacht en de militiewetgeving, 1830–1914 (Brussels: Koninklijk Legermuseum, 1985); also, Centre de Documentation historique des forces armées, Histoire de l’armée belge, vol. 1, de 1830 à 1919 (Brussels: Editions Centre de Documentation historique des forces armées, 1982).
129. Émile Galet, Albert, King of the Belgians in the Great War: His Military Activities and Experiences Set Down with His Approval (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1931), 10ff.
130. Strachan, First World War, 1:208.
131. BA-MA, RH 61/96, Aufmarschanweisungen für die Jahre 1893/94 bis 1914/15.
132. Marie-Rose Thielemans and Emile Vandewoude, Le Roi Albert au travers de ses lettres inédites, 1882–1916 (Brussels: Office International de librairie, 1982), 85.
133. Galet, Albert, King of the Belgians, 86.
134. Cited in ibid., 18–20.
135. Ibid., 32.
136. Luc de Vos, “Belgien,” 303–04.
137. Galet, Albert, King of the Belgians, 73.
CHAPTER 3. Death in the Vosges
1. The Commentaries of Caesar, ed. William Duncan (London: J. Cuthell, 1819), 1:263–72. Hans Delbrück, History of the Art of War (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1990), 1:483–85, places the battle closer to Colmar and Schlettstadt (Sélestat).
2. Otto Pflanze, Bismarck and the Development of Germany (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 1:487.
3. AFGG, 1-1:21; Joffre, 1:252.
4. Sewell Tyng, The Campaign of the Marne, 1914 (New York and Toronto: Longmans, Green, 1935), 61.
5. AFGG, 1:221.
6. Anthony Clayton, Paths of Glory: The French Army, 1914–18 (London: Cassell, 2003), 20.
7. AFGG, 1:222–23.
8. Michael S. Neiberg, Fighting the Great War: A Global History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), 22; Joffre, 1:247–48.
9. Die Badener im Weltkrieg 1914/1918, ed. Wilhelm Müller-Loebnitz (Karlsruhe: G. Braun, 1935), 22–30.
10. WK, 1:159–68.
11. War diary dated 9 August 1914. GLA, 456 F38 KTB des Inf. Regt. 112, Nr. 146.
12. War diary dated 9 August 1914. Ibid., 456 F42 KTB des Inf. Regt. 169, Nr. 126.
13. Ibid., 456 F42 KTB des Inf. Regt. 169, Nr. 128.
14. Ibid., D Kriegsrangliste des Inf. Regt. 169, Nr. 180.
15. Messimy, 10 August 1914, SHD, 1 K 268; and Messimy, 15 August, AFGG, 2-2:68.
16. War diary dated 12 August 1914. GLA, 456 F43 KTB des Inf. Regt. 170, Nr. 345.
17. War diary dated 11 and 12 August 1914. Ibid., 456 F43 KTB des Inf. Regt. 170, Nr. 317.
18. Brigade Order dated 31 August 1914. Ibid., 456 F58 Brigadebefehle, Nr. 27.
19. Moltke’s “Gedanken über die ersten Operationen der 6. und 7. Armee” of 6 August 1914, BA-MA, RH 61/96, Aufmarschanweisungen für die Jahre 1893/94 bis 1914/15; also Wenninger to War Ministry, 15 August 1914, BHStA-KA, Nachlaß Krafft von Dellmensingen 187.
20. See Dieter Storz, “‘Dieser Stellungs-und Festungskrieg ist scheußlich!’ Zu den Kämpfen in Lothringen und in den Vogesen im Sommer 1914,” in Der Schlieffenplan. Analysen und Dokumente, eds. Hans Ehlert, Michael Epkenhans, and Gerhard P. Groß (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2006), 161–204.
21. BHStA-KA, AOK 6, Gedanken über die ersten Operationen der 6. und 7. Armee 369; and ibid., Aufmarsch-Anweisungen 369.
22. Keiner fühlt sich hier mehr als Mensch … Erlebnis und Wirkung des Ersten Weltkriegs, eds. Gerhard Hirschfeld and Gerd Krumeich (Essen: Klartext, 1993), 94–95.
23. Ibid., 95, 107. Also WK, 1:169–70.
24. Die Bayern im Großen Kriege 1914–1918, ed. Bayerisches Kriegsarchiv (Munich: Verlag des Bayerischen Kriegsarchivs, 1923), 1:17.
25. Diary entry dated 9 August 1914. BHStA-KA, KTB 1914, Nachlaß Krafft von Dellmensingen 145.
26. Die Bayern im Großen Kriege, 1:20; WK, 1:192.
27. Diary dated 13 August 1914, BHStA-KA, KTB 1914, Nachlaß Krafft von Dellmensingen 145.
28. Joffre’s instruction to First and Second armies dated 11 August 1914. AFGG, 1-1:188–89; Joffre, 1:253.
29. AFGG, 1:144–45, 229–30; and 1-1:171.
30. See the critique by Lieutenant Colonel Pont, head of the Third Bureau. AFGG, 1:147–48.
31. Castelnau to Joffre, 6 February 1914. AFGG, 1:295.
32. Yves Gras, Castelnau ou l’art de commander 1851–1944 (Paris: Denoël, 1990), 149–74.
33. Instruction particulière No. 5, 13 August 1914, AFGG, 1-1:239–40; Tyng, Campaign of the Marne, 64.
34. Rudolf von Xylander, Deutsche Führung in Lothringen 1914. Wahrheit und Kriegsgeschichte (Berlin: Junker und Dünnhaupt, 1935), 34; Thomas Müller, Konrad Krafft von Dell mensingen (1862–1953). Porträt eines bayerischen Offiziers (Munich: Kommission für Bayerische Landesgeschichte, 2002), 318–19.
35. BHStA-KA, AOK 6, KTB 2.8.14—14.3.1915, folder 369, 48. Italics in the original.
36. BHStA-KA, KTB 1914, Nachlaß Krafft von Dellmensingen 145; Müller, Krafft von Dellmensingen, 328.
37. Diary entry dated 14 August 1914. Tagebuch Rupprecht, BHStA-GH, Nachlaß Kronprinz Rupprecht 699; Crown Prince Rupprecht, Mein Kriegstagebuch (Munich: Deutscher National Verlag, 1923), 1:9.
38. Diary entry dated 15 August 1914. Tagebuch Rupprecht, BHStA-GH, Nachlaß Kronprinz Rupprecht 699; BA-MA, RH 61/50739, Generalleutnant von Stein, der Generalquartiermeister der sechs ersten Kriegswochen, 11.
39. The German official history lists Sixth Army at 183 battalions of infantry and 1,068 guns; Seventh Army at 145 battalions and 698 guns. French forces ranged against them were set at 218 battalions of infantry and 864 guns for Second Army; 202 battalions and 734 guns for First Army. WK, 1:646.
40. AFGG, 1:271ff.
41. See 26th Division’s report dated 14 August 1914. AFGG, 1-1:330–31.
42. Second Army reports dated 15 August 1914. AFGG, 1-1:316–17.
43. Charles de Gaulle, France and Her Army (London: Hutchinson, 1945), 91.
44. Robert Doughty, Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operations in the Great War (Cambridge, MA, and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005), 62.
45. “The fighting thus far has demonstrated the admiral offensive qualities of our infantry.” Joffre, 1:252, 273.
46. GLA, 456 F41 KTB des Inf. Regt. 112, Nr. 171. Goering served with 8th Company at Mulhouse, Sarrebourg-Morhange, and Nancy-Épinal.
47. GLA, 456 D Kriegsrangliste Bad. Inf. Regt. Prinz Wilhelm Nr. 112. Goering transferred to the air force for the rest of the Great War and ended forty-sixth on the list of “aces” with twenty-two “kills.”
48. Formalized in Instruction générale No. 4, 19 August 1914. AFGG, 1-1:492.
49. Ibid., 528.
50. WK, 1:205; Die Bayern im Großen Kriege, 1:27.
51. Diary entry dated 15 August 1914. BHStA-GH, Tagebuch Rupprecht, Nachlaß Kronprinz Rupprecht 699; Rupprecht, Mein Kriegstagebuch, 1:11.
52. War diary dated 19 and 22 August 1914. GLA, 456 F58 KTB des Inf. Regt. 40 Stab, Nr. 27.
53. Ibid., Nr. 115.
54. GLA, S Kriegsbriefe und Kriegstagebücher 53.
55. Dominik Richert, Beste Gelegenheit zum Sterben. Meine Erlebnisse im Kriege 1914–1918 (Munich: Knesebeck & Schuler, 1989), 28–29.
56. Letter dated 19 August 1914. GLA, 456 F58 KTB des Inf. Regt. 40 Stab, Nr. 52.
57. Gaede to Friedrich II of Baden dated 20 August 1914. GLA, 59 Weltkrieg 1914–Schriftwechsel Gaede, Nr. 316.
58. Diary entry dated 17 August 1914. BHStA-KA, KTB 1914, Nachlaß Krafft von Dellmensingen 145.
59. Diary entry dated 17 August 1914. Tagebuch Rupprecht, BHStA-GH, Nachlaß Kron prinz Rupprecht 699.
60. Diary entry dated 17 August 1914. BHStA-KA, KTB 1914, Nachlaß Krafft von Dellmensingen 145. Italics in the original.
61. Ibid.
62. BHStA-KA, AOK 6, KTB 2.8.14–14.3.1915, 7.
63. Diary entry dated 17 August 1914. Tagebuch Rupprecht, BHStA-GH, Nachlaß Kronprinz Rupprecht 699.
64. Diary entry dated 17 August 1914. BHStA-KA, KTB 1914, Nachlaß Krafft von Dellmensingen 145. Italics in the original.
65. Diary entry dated 17 August 1914. Tagebuch Rupprecht, BHStA-GH, Nachlaß Kronprinz Rupprecht 699.
66. Diary entry dated 18 August 1914. BHStA-KA, KTB 1914, Nachlaß Krafft von Dellmensingen 145; WK, 1:210–11.
67. Wenninger to Falkenhayn, 19 August 1914. BHStA-KA, Nachlaß Krafft von Dellmensingen 187.
68. AFGG, 1:275ff.; Joffre, 1:281–83.
69. See Maréchal Foch, Mémoires pour server à l’histoire de la guerre de 1914–1918 (Paris: Plon, 1931), 1:61–62, 65.
70. Rupprecht, Mein Kriegstagebuch, 1:25.
71. Diary entry dated 19 August 1914. BHStA-KA, KTB 1914, Na
chlaß Krafft von Dellmensingen 145.
72. B. H. Liddell Hart, Foch: The Man of Orléans (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1931), 85.
73. Cited in Clayton, Paths of Glory, 24.
74. AFGG, 1:328–29; and 1-1:263; Joffre, 1:284–86.
75. Tyng, Campaign of the Marne, 70.
76. Die Bayern im Großen Kriege, 1:45–54.
77. Graevenitz to War Minister Otto von Marchtaler, 22 August 1914. HStA, M 1/2 Berichte des Militärbevollmächtigten beim Grossen Hauptquartier und des stellv. Militärbevollmächtigten in Berlin, vol. 54.
78. Diary entry dated 20 August 1914. Wenninger’s reports are at the BHStA-Ministerium des Äußeren, Nachlaß Wenninger, MA 3076–3085. They were published in full by Bernd Schulte, “Neue Dokumente zu Kriegsausbruch und Kriegsverlauf 1914,” Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen 25 (1979): 123–85, hence I cite this work.
79. Hew Strachan, The First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 1:224.
80. Henri Desagneaux, A French Soldier’s War Diary, 1914–1918 (Morley, UK: Elmfield Press, 1975), 7.
81. Letters dated 27 August and 14 September 1914. Madeleine Bosshard and Antoine Bosshard, eds., “Si je reviens comme je l’espère”: lettres du front et de l’arrière, 1914–1918 (Paris: Grasset, 2003), 32, 36. Italics in the original.
82. Dated 22 August 1914. Joffre, 1:293.
83. Diary entries dated 21, 22, and 23 August 1914. Tagebuch Rupprecht, BHStA-GH, Nachlaß Kronprinz Rupprecht 699.
84. John Horne and Alan Kramer, German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2001), 63–65. Karl Deuringer, Die Schlacht in Lothringen und in den Vogesen. Die Feuertaufe der bayerischen Armee (Munich: M. Schick, 1929), 1:185, gives a much different version in the Bavarian semiofficial history.
85. Horne and Kramer, German Atrocities, 65–66.
86. Ibid., 66–67.
87. BHStA-KA, AOK 6, Feldzug 1914, Verlustliste.
88. Deuringer, Die Schlacht in Lothringen, 2:459. The official history, Die Bayern im Großen Kriege, 1:69, states laconically: “The burning city of Lunéville lit up the night far and wide following this bloody day.”