The Marne, 1914
Page 43
27. Hausen, “Meine Erlebnisse,” SHStA 12693, 67–68. Also, war diary dated 24 August 1914. SHStA, 11356 Generalkommando des XII. Reservekorps 139.
28. Hoeppner to Hausen, 30 March 1918. SHStA, 12693 Personennachlaß Hausen 43b.
29. WK, 1:384–85.
30. This was also the verdict of Hausen’s successor as commander of Third Army: Karl v. Einem, Ein Armeeführer erlebt den Weltkrieg. Persönliche Aufzeichnungen (Leipzig: v. Hase & Koehler, 1938), 58.
31. Baumgarten-Crusius, Die Marneschlacht, 40–42.
32. Dated 24 August 1914. SHStA, 11250 Sächsischer Militärbevollmächtigter in Berlin 71. Geheimakten A: Verschiedenes.
33. WK, 1:402–03.
34. Ibid., 1:566.
35. Ibid., 1:337.
36. Ibid., 1:438–39.
37. Reports, 27 and 31 August, 2 September 1914. HStA, M 33/2 General Kommando XIII. Armee Korps 1914–1918, vol. 9, Operationsakten, Meldungen vom 26.8–7.9.1914.
38. Diary entry dated 24–25 August 1914. BA-MA, RH 61/83, Vorgänge im Großen Hauptquartier des Generalstabes 1914–1915.
39. Letter to his father dated 20 August 1914. Bernd Schulte, “Neue Dokumente zu Kriegsausbruch und Kriegsverlauf 1914,” Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen 25 (1979): 153.
40. Dated 31 August 1914. GLA, 233 Politische Berichte des Großherzogl. Gesandten in Berlin und München über den Kriegsausbruch 34816.
41. War diary, General Hans von Plessen, 24 and 29 August 1914. Cited in Holger Afflerbach, ed., Kaiser Wilhelm II. als Oberster Kriegsherr im Ersten Weltkrieg: Quellen aus der militärischen Umgebung des Kaisers 1914–1918 (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 2005), 647, 651.
42. BA-MA, Nachlass Schlieffen, N 43/101, “Der Krieg in der Gegenwart.” Later published in Deutsche Revue 34 (January 1909): 13–24.
43. Moltke, 382.
44. Tappen to General Staff, 13 July 1919. BA-MA, RH 61/51060 Die OHL und die Marneschlacht vom 4.–9.9.1919; WK, 3:190.
45. See Hans Georg Kampe, Nachrichtentruppe des Heeres und Deutsche Reichspost. Militärisches und staatliches Nachrichtenwesen in Deutschland 1830 bis 1945 (Waldesruh: Dr. Erwin Meißler, 1999), 172.
46. From “Die Nachrichtenverbindungen zwischen den Kommandobehörden während des Bewegungskrieges 1914,” General Schniewindt 1928. HStA, M 738 Sammlung zur Militärgeschichte 36.
47. Kampe, Nachrichtentruppe, 170, 172.
48. John Ferris, ed., The British Army and Signals Intelligence During the First World War (Phoenix Mill, UK: Alan Sutton, 1992), 4–5, suggests that British and French intelligence intercepted at least fifty radio messages in plain language from German armies, corps, and divisions between September and November 1914.
49. WK, 3:8–9.
50. Ibid. My italics.
51. Hew Strachan, The First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 1:245.
52. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, eds. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 271.
53. Letter dated 24 August 1914. AFGG, 2-1:124–25. Joffre’s reassessment has been laid out by Robert A. Doughty, Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operations in the Great War (Cambridge, MA, and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005), 76–78.
54. Joffre, 1:303–04.
55. Ibid., 1:300.
56. See the compilation in AFGG, 3-4:846.
57. Joffre, 1:310.
58. Instruction général No. 2, 25 August 1914. AFGG, 2-1:278–80.
59. Robert B. Asprey, The First Battle of the Marne (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1962), 72.
60. Joffre, 1:317–20.
61. AFGG, 2:121, 466; Doughty, Pyrrhic Victory, 78.
62. Edward Spears, Liaison 1914: A Narrative of the Great Retreat (London: Eyre & Spot-tiswoode, 1930), 228–31.
63. Charles J. Huguet, Britain and the War: A French Indictment (London: Cassell, 1928), 67.
64. Huguet to GQG, 16 August 1914. AFGG, 2-1:429.
65. Order dated the night of 25–26 August 1914. AFGG, 1-1:999; and 2:115–16.
66. Keith Jeffrey, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson: A Political Soldier (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 135.
67. John Charteris, At G.H.Q. (London: Cassell, 1931), 17.
68. Cited in Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson: His Life and Diaries, ed. C. E. Callwell (London: Cassell, 1927), 1:169.
69. Strachan, First World War, 1:223.
70. Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, 1:170.
71. Sent “afternoon” of 28 August 1914. AFGG, 2-1:659.
72. Hermann von Kuhl, Der Marnefeldzug 1914 (Berlin: E. S. Mittler, 1921), 82.
73. AFGG, 2:53–54; and 2-1:547. Also Joffre, 1:322–23.
74. Huguet to Joffre, 27 August 1914, SHD, 1 K 268; AFGG, 2-1:550–52; Joffre, 1:328–29; Doughty, Pyrrhic Victory, 78–79.
75. Cited in Tyng, Campaign of the Marne, 150.
76. Lanrezac’s General Order of 27 August 1914. AFGG, 2-1:592–93.
77. Joffre, 1:332.
78. Spears, Liaison 1914, 252.
79. Joffre’s order to Fifth Army, 9 AM, 28 August 1914. AFGG, 2-1:663; Joffre, 1:332.
80. Raymond Poincaré, Au service de la France (Paris: Plon, 1928), 5:206.
81. Huguet to GQG, 28 August 1914. AFGG, 2-1:671–72.
82. Huguet, Britain and the War, 72.
83. Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August (New York: Ballantine Books, 1962), 448.
84. Lanrezac’s orders of 28 August, AFGG, 2-1:706–07; attack in AFGG, 2:68ff.
85. Defforges to Lanrezac, 10 AM, 29 August 1914. AFGG, 2-1:866.
86. WK, 3:154–55.
87. Letter dated 29 August 1914. Wir Kämpfer im Weltkrieg, 57–61.
88. War diary dated 30 August 1914. SHStA, 11356 Generalkommando des XII. Reservekorps 139; Hausen, “Meine Erlebnisse,” 108.
89. Particular Order to I, III, and X corps. AFGG, 2-1:827.
90. Joffre, 1:339.
91. Cited in Leonard V. Smith, Between Mutiny and Obedience: The Case of the French Fifth Infantry Division During World War I (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 55–56.
92. WK, 3:168.
93. Ibid., 3:168–69.
94. Lauenstein’s letters dated 31 August and 3 September 1914. BA-MA, RH 61/948 Der Krieg im Westen 1914–1916.
95. WK, 3:175.
96. Lanrezac’s General Order, 6 PM, 31 August 1914. AFGG 2-2:196–98.
97. Berthelot to Lanrezac, 31 August 1914. AFGG, 2-2:160.
98. Tyng, Campaign of the Marne, 160.
99. John Terraine, The Western Front, 1914–1918 (London: Hutchinson, 1964), 131. A tactical victory belongs to the commander who gains and then holds the battlefield, not to the one who abandons it without plan or purpose. Moreover, Bülow’s appeal for help was not the determining factor in Kluck’s turn to the southeast.
100. WK, 3:177, 179, 186.
CHAPTER 7. To the Marne
1. BA-MA, RH 61/948, Der Krieg im Westen 1914–1916.
2. Joffre, 1:340–41.
3. Sewell Tyng, The Campaign of the Marne, 1914 (New York and Toronto: Longmans, Green, 1935), 181.
4. Ibid.
5. Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson: His Life and Diaries, ed. C. E. Callwell (London: Cassell, 1927), 1:173.
6. Tyng, Campaign of the Marne, 182.
7. Raymond Poincaré, Au service de la France (Paris: Plon, 1928), 5:222.
8. Robert Cowley, ed., What If? The World’s Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been (New York: Berkley Books, 2000), 281.
9. Charles J. Huguet, Britain and the War: A French Indictment (London: Cassell, 1928), 84.
10. Ibid., 85.
11. Dated 1 September 1914. AFGG, 2-2:286–87; Joffre, 1:359–60.
12. Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August (New York: Ballantine Books, 1962), 460.
13. Messimy’s undated “note,” probably around 25 August 1914. AFGG, 2-1:264–66.
14. Tyng, Campaign of the Marne, 187–88.
1
5. Joffre, 1:421.
16. Ibid., 1:370; Robert A. Doughty, Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operations in the Great War (Cambridge, MA, and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005), 85.
17. Edward Spears, Liaison 1914: A Narrative of the Great Retreat (London: Eyre & Spot-tiswoode, 1930), 384.
18. Moltke’s “top secret” report of 1 September 1914. HStA, M 1/2 Kriegsministerium 109, Mitteilungen des Chefs des Feldheeres Nr. 1–50, 27.7.1914–3.1.1915.
19. Julian A. Corbett, Naval Operations: History of the Great War Based on Official Documents (Uckfield: Naval & Military Press, n.d.), 1:95–97, 123–24; AFGG, 2:809.
20. BA-MA, RH 61/50661, Kriegserinnerungen des Generalleutnants v. [sic] Tappen, 32.
21. WK, 3:186, 220.
22. Ibid., 3:609.
23. Ibid., 3:225.
24. Diary entry for 31 August 1914. BA-MA, RH 61/948, Der Krieg im Westen 1914–1916.
25. Letter of 31 August 1914. Moltke, 383.
26. WK, 3:225–26.
27. Moltke, 383; WK, 3:227.
28. Dated 2 September 1914. Philipp Witkop, ed., Kriegsbriefe gefallener Studenten (Munich: Georg Müller, 1928), 309.
29. Holger Afflerbach, Falkenhayn. Politisches Denken und Handeln im Kaiserreich (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1994), 181–82.
30. Dated 4 September 1914. Karl Helfferich, Der Weltkrieg (Berlin: Allstein, 1919), 2:18.
31. WK, 1:605.
32. Diary entry for 21 August 1914. BHStA-KA, KTB 1914, Nachlaß Krafft von Dellmensingen 145.
33. Diary entry for 23 August 1914, ibid.; BHStA-KA, AOK 6, KTB 2.8.14–14.3.1915, 13. Also Crown Prince Rupprecht, Mein Kriegstagebuch (Munich: Deutscher National Verlag, 1923), 1:37–38, 41; Karl Deuringer, Die Schlacht in Lothringen und in den Vogesen. Die Feuertaufe der bayerischen Armee (Munich: M. Schick, 1929), 2:372–74, 583; WK, 1:575–76, 583.
34. Diary entry for 23 August 1914. Tagebuch Rupprecht, BHStA-GH, Nachlaß Kronprinz Rupprecht 699.
35. Joffre, 1:312–13.
36. Castelnau to XV and XVI Corps, 3 PM, 25 August 1914. AFGG, 2-1:291.
37. Dated 27 August 1914. GLA, S Kriegsbriefe und Kriegstagebücher 53.
38. Diary entry for 24 August 1914. BHStA-KA, Kriegstagebuch 1914/18, Nachlaß R. Xylander 12.
39. AFGG, 2:374.
40. Diary entry for 29 August 1914. BA-MA, RH 61/50661 Kriegserinnerungen des Generalleutnants v. [sic] Tappen.
41. Wenninger’s letter to his father, 30 August 1914, BHStA-KA, HS 2662 Wenninger; and Wenninger’s report to Munich, 31 August 1914, in Bernd Schulte, “Neue Dokumente zu Kriegsausbruch und Kriegsverlauf 1914,” Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen 25 (1979): 160.
42. Diary entry dated 30 August 1914, BHStA-KA, KTB 1914, Nachlaß Krafft von Dellmensingen 145; Deuringer, Die Schlacht in Lothringen, 2:584–85; WK, 1:593, and 3:285; Thomas Müller, Krafft von Dellmensingen (1862–1953). Porträt eines bayerischen Offiziers (Munich: Kommission für Bayerische Landesgeschichte, 2002), 352–53.
43. Diary entry dated 30 August 1914. BHStA-KA, KTB 1914, Nachlaß Krafft von Dellmensingen 145.
44. Diary entries dated 30 and 31 August 1914. Tagebuch Rupprecht, BHStA-GH, Nachlaß Kronprinz Rupprecht 699.
45. Diary entry dated 31 August 1914, BHStA-KA, KTB 1914, Nachlaß Krafft von Dellmensingen 145; BHStA-KA, AOK 6, KTB 2.8.1914–14.3.1915, 15. Also Rudolf von Xylander, Deutsche Führung in Lothringen 1914. Wahrheit und Kriegsgeschichte (Berlin: Junker und Dünnhaupt, 1935), 153; WK, 3:286–87.
46. Diary entry dated 2 September 1914. BHStA-KA, KTB 1914, Nachlaß Krafft von Dellmensingen 145.
47. Diary entry dated 2 September 1914; ibid.
48. Diary entry dated 31 August 1914; ibid.
49. Diary entry dated 1 September 1914, ibid.; BHStA-KA, Generalkommando I AK, KTB 31.7.14–28.2.15; diary entry dated 1 September 1914, Tagebuch Rupprecht, BHStA-GH, Nachlaß Kronprinz Rupprecht 699.
50. Diary entry dated 1 September 1914. BHStA-KA, Generalkommando II AK, KTB 1.8.1914–31.12.1914.
51. Diary entry dated 1 September 1914. BHStA-KA, Generalkommando III AK, Kriegstagebuch 29.7.14–31.12.1914. The comment concerning the “present” of Nancy to Ludwig III is in diary entry dated 26 August 1914, Tagebuch Rupprecht, BHStA-GH, Nachlaß Kronprinz Rupprecht 699.
52. Diary entries dated 26 August and 1 September 1914; ibid.
53. “Gebsattel wants to have his battle.” BHStA-KA, Kriegstagebuch 1914/18, Nachlaß R. Xylander 12.
54. Cited in Tyng, Campaign of the Marne, 68.
55. Douglas Wilson Johnson, Battlefields of the World War: Western and Southern Fronts; A Study in Military Geography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1921), 431, 437.
56. Reconnaissance report of 1 September 1914 by Colonel Karl von Nagel, chief of staff to I Corps. BHStA-KA, Generalkommando I AK, KTB 31.7.14–28.2.15.
57. Die Bayern im Großen Kriege 1914–1918 ed. Bayerisches Kriegsarchiv (Munich: Verlag des Bayerischen Kriegsarchivs, 1923), 1:61.
58. See AFGG, 3:1159–61.
59. Details in ibid., 2:388, 390, 393.
60. Ibid., 3:1244.
61. Dated 28 August 1914. Ibid., 2:509; and 2-2:667; Joffre, 1:337.
62. AFGG, 3:1154–56.
63. Diary entry dated 4 September 1914. Tagebuch Rupprecht, BHStA-GH, Nachlaß Kronprinz Rupprecht 699.
64. Deuringer, Die Schlacht in Lothringen, 1:635; AFGG, 3-1:579.
65. AFGG, 2:434, 445; ibid., 3:1165.
66. Ibid., 3-1:97; Joffre, 1:398–99.
67. AFGG, 3-1:193.
68. Johnson, Battlefields of the World War, 485.
69. AFGG, 3:1186.
70. Diary entry dated 14 September 1914. Tagebuch Rupprecht, BHStA-GH, Nachlaß Kronprinz Rupprecht 699.
71. Diary entry dated 7 September 1914. BHStA-KA, Generalkommando III AK, Kriegstagebuch 29.7.14–31.12.1914.
72. 7 September 1914. Joffre, 1:407–08.
73. AFGG, 3:1210ff.
74. See WK, 4:492–93.
75. Dated 6–7 September 1914. Adolf Wild von Hohenborn. Briefe und Tagebuchaufzeichnungen des preußischen Generals als Kriegsminister und Truppenführer im Ersten Weltkrieg, ed. Helmut Reichold (Boppard: H. Boldt, 1986), 17.
76. Terence Zuber, The Battle of the Frontiers: Ardennes 1914 (Stroud, UK: Tempus, 2007), 127.
77. WK, 4:148.
78. Diary entry dated 5 September 1914. BHStA-KA, KTB 1914, Nachlaß Krafft von Dellmensingen 145.
79. Diary entry dated 5 September 1914. Tagebuch Rupprecht, BHStA-GH, Nachlaß Kronprinz Rupprecht 699.
80. Ibid.; BHStA-KA, AOK 6, KTB 2.8.14–14.3.15.
81. Diary entry dated 5 September 1914. Tagebuch Rupprecht, BHStA-GH, Nachlaß Kronprinz Rupprecht 699.
82. Wenninger diary dated 6 September 1914. Schulte, “Neue Dokumente,” 167.
83. Diary entry dated 8 September 1914. BHStA-KA, KTB 1914, Nachlaß Krafft von Dellmensingen 145.
84. Ibid. Italics in the original.
85. Diary entry dated 7 September 1914; ibid.
86. Diary entry dated 8 September 1914. Tagebuch Rupprecht, BHStA-GH, Nachlaß Kronprinz Rupprecht 699.
87. Diary entry dated 8 September 1914. BHStA-KA, KTB 1914, Nachlaß Krafft von Dellmensingen 145.
88. Diary entry dated 9 September 1914. Tagebuch Rupprecht, BHStA-GH, Nachlaß Rupprecht 699.
89. Ibid.
90. Wenninger diary entry dated 10 September 1914. Schulte, “Neue Dokumente,” 172.
91. Diary entry dated 12 August 1914. BHStA-KA, KTB 1914, Nachlaß Krafft von Dellmensingen 145.
92. Wenninger diary entry dated 7 September 1914. Schulte, “Neue Dokumente,” 170.
93. Deuringer, Die Schlacht in Lothringen, 2:848.
94. Michael S. Neiberg, Fighting the Great War: A Global History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), 25, puts French casualties at two hundred thousand men and forty-seven hundred officers.
95. Der Sanitätsdienst im Gefechts-und Schlachtenverlauf im Weltkri
ege 1914/1918 (Berlin: E. S. Mittler, 1938), 2:342–43, 365.
96. Ibid., 2:421, 436.
97. Sanitätsbericht über das Deutsche Heer im Weltkriege 1914/1918 (Berlin: E. S. Mittler, 1934), 3:36.
98. WK, 4:524.
99. Sanitätsdienst im Gefechts-und Schlachtenverlauf im Weltkriege, 2:31.
100. Martin van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 124–30.
101. Tuchman, Guns of August, 476.
102. Walter Bloem, The Advance from Mons 1914 (London: Peter Davies, 1930), 101.
103. WK, 3:195, 227.
104. Ibid., 3:231.
105. Ibid., 3:232.
106. Entry dated 3 September 1914. Regierte der Kaiser? Kriegstagebücher, Aufzeichnungen und Briefe des Chefs des Marinekabinetts Admiral Georg Alexander von Müller 1914–1918 (Göttingen: Musterschmidt, 1959), 54.
107. WK, 3:236.
108. BA-MA, N 323/9, Nachlaß Boetticher, 5–7; Groß, “There Was a Schlifeffen Plan. Neue Quellen,” Hans Ehlert, Michael Epkenhans, and Gerhard P. Groß, eds., Der Schlieffen-plan. Analysen und Dokumente (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2006), 139–40.
109. WK, 3:241.
110. Spears, Liaison 1914, 322.
111. WK, 3:140, 248–49; Hermann von Kuhl, Der Marnefeldzug 1914 (Berlin: E. S. Mittler, 1921), 124, 126; Louis Koeltz, Le G.Q.G. allemand et la bataille de la Marne (Paris: Payot, 1931), 372–73.
112. WK, 3:193.
113. “Meine Erlebnisse u. Erfahrungen als Oberbefehlshaber der 3. Armee im Bewegungskrieg 1914,” SHStA, 12693 Personalnachlaß Max Klemens Lothar Freiherr von Hausen (1846–1922) 43a, 117, 135–36, 141, 148.
114. BA-MA, RH 61/50850, Die Tätigkeit der Fliegerverbände der 1. und 2. Armee 2–9 September 1914, 14–15, 18.
115. Tyng, Campaign of the Marne, 163.
CHAPTER 8. Climax: The Ourcq
1. See chapter 9, AFGG, 2:550ff.
2. Charles F. Horne, ed., Source Records of the Great War (USA: National Alumni, 1923), 2:200–03.
3. AFGG, 2:555. Galliéni formally replaced General Victor Michel on 27 August 1914.
4. Joffre to Sixth Army, 1 September 1914. AFGG, 2:529, 589; and 2-2:281.
5. Cited in ibid., 2:614; and 2-2:556.
6. Ibid., 2:557, 576–77.
7. Ibid., 2:571–72, 579; and 2-1:676.
8. Ibid., 2:609.