The Story of the Great War (Vol. 1-8). Various Authors
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French cathedral town of Noyon through Chauny to La Fère. There they were joined by reenforcements amounting to double their loss. Guns to replace those captured or shattered by the enemy were brought up to the new line. There was a breathing space for a day, while the British made ready to take part in the next great encounter.
This fourth week in August marked a decisive period in the history of the Great War. All the French armies, from the east to the west, as well as the British army, were in retreat over their frontiers. To what resolution had the French commander in chief come? That was the question on every lip. What at that moment was the real situation of the French army? Certainly the first engagements had not turned out as well as the French could have hoped. The Germans were reaping the reward of their magnificent preparation for the war. Their heavy artillery, with which the French army was almost entirely unprovided, was giving proof of its efficacy and its worth. The moral effect of those great projectiles launched from great distances by the immense German guns was considerable. At such great distances the French cannons of 75, admirable as they were, could make no effective reply to the German batteries. The French soldiers were perfectly well aware that they were the targets of the great German shells while their own cannon could make no parallel impression on the enemy.
The German army revealed itself as an extraordinary instrument of war. Its mobility and accouterments were perfect. It had over a hundred thousand professional noncommissioned officers or subofficers, admirably suited to their work, with their men marching under the control of their eye and finger. In the German army the active corps, as well as the reserve corps, showed themselves, thanks to these noncommissioned officers, marvelously equipped.
In the French army the number of noncommissioned officers by profession totaled hardly half the German figures. The German army, moreover, was much more abundantly supplied with machine guns than the French. The Germans had almost twice as many, and they understood how to use them in defense and attack better than the French. They had moreover, to a degree far superior to that of the French, studied the use of fortifications in the field, trenches, wire entanglements, and so on. The Germans were also at first better trained than the French reservists; they had spent longer periods in the German army, and their reserve corps were almost equal to the active corps.
In the French army, on the other hand, an apprenticeship and training of several weeks were required to give to the divisions of reserve their full worth. At the end of two weeks, nevertheless, thanks to the marvelous elasticity of the French soldier and the warlike qualities of the race, the training was completed. At the beginning of the month of September the reserve divisions fought with the same skill, the same keenness, and the same swing as the active army corps.
Moreover, certain incompetencies had revealed themselves in the French high command. These General Joffre attended to without the loss of an instant. Every general that appeared to him incapable of fulfilling the task allotted to him was weeded out on the spot, without considering friendships or the bonds of comradeship, or intimacy that might be between them.
As things were seen in Paris, all may be summed up in this formula: That the German army was better prepared for war than the French army, for the simple reason that Germany had long prepared for the war, because she had it in view, a thing which could not be said of France. But the French army revealed right from the beginning the most admirable and marvelous qualities. The soldiers fought with a skill and heroism that have never been equaled. Sometimes, indeed, their enthusiasm and courage carried them too far. It mattered little. In spite of losses, in spite even of retreat, the morale of the whole French army on the entire front from Alsace to the Somme remained extraordinarily high.
The violation of Belgian neutrality and the passage of the German armies through Belgium had been foreseen by the French General Staff, but opinions differed in regard to the breadth of the turning movement likely to be made by the German right wing in crossing Belgian territory. Among French experts some were of opinion that the Germans would confine themselves to the right bank of the Meuse, while others thought that they would cross the Meuse, and make a much vaster turning movement, thus descending on France in a direction due north and south.
If the violation of Belgian neutrality was no surprise to the French Staff, it was nevertheless hardly expected that the Germans would be able to put in line with such rapidity at the outset all their reserve formations. Each army corps was supported by its reserve corps, which showed itself as quick in mobilization and preparation as the active corps.
Germany, while maintaining sufficient forces on the Russian front, was still able to put in the field for its great offensive against France a more numerous body of troops than would have been believed in France. This permitted them to maintain in Alsace, in Lorraine, and in Belgian Luxembourg armies as numerous as those which faced them on the French side, and at the same time to mass the major part of their troops on the right so as to pour into the valley of the Oise their chief invading forces.
This explains why the French left, which was exposed to the offensive of the German right, was obliged to make a rapid retreat, permitting the German armies of General von Kluck and General von Bülow to advance with all speed in the direction of Paris.
The French military staff, as soon as they perceived the danger that threatened, proceeded to a new alignment of forces. As long as this alignment of forces could not be effected the retreat had to continue. As soon as it was accomplished, as soon as General Joffre had his armies well in hand and the situation of his troops well disposed, he checked the retreat, gave the signal for the offensive, and so followed the great Battle of the Marne.
The German plan consisted, therefore, in delivering the main blow through the medium of the right wing of the German forces, consisting of the army of Von Kluck, the army of Von Bülow, and the army of Von Hausen, which were to march with all speed in the direction of Paris.
What plan had the French staff in mind to oppose to this plan of the Germans? Its plan aimed at checking and holding the greatest possible number of Germans by a vigorous offensive in Alsace and Lorraine so as to prevent them from joining the three first German armies which threatened Paris. In support of this offensive of the armies of Alsace and Lorraine, the central French armies attacked in the direction of the Ardennes and Belgian Luxembourg with the object of checking the center of the German armies and then turning toward the west so as to cooperate in the offensive of the French forces which, aided by the British army and the Belgian army, were fighting in Belgium.
The French armies, which are numbered from the right to the left—that is, from the east to the west—comprised: A detachment of the Army of Alsace that was dissolved toward the end of the month of August; the First Army (General Dubail); the Second Army (General de Castelnau); the Third Army (General Ruffey, replaced at the end of August, 1914, by General Sarrail); the Fourth Army (General de Langle de Cary); the Fifth Army (General Lanrezac, replaced in the last days of August, 1914, by General Franchet d'Espérey). At the right of this army was stationed the British army under the command of General French.
To what resolution did General Joffre come? On that memorable evening of the 24th, and on that morning of the 25th, two alternatives presented themselves before him. Should they, rather than permit the enemy to invade the soil of France, make a supreme effort to check the Germans on the frontier?
This first apparent solution had the evident advantage of abandoning to the enemy no part of the national soil, but it had some serious inconveniences. The attack of the German armies operating on the right (Generals von Kluck, von Bülow, von Hausen) were extremely menacing. In order to parry this attack it was necessary considerably to reenforce the French left, and for that purpose to transfer from the right to the left a certain number of army corps. That is what the military call, in the language of chess players, "to castle" the army corps. But this movement could not be accomplished in a few hours. It required, even with all the perfection of organization shown by the French railways during this war, a certain number of days. As long as this operation from the right to the left had not been accomplished, as long as the left wing of the French army and even the center remained without the reenforcement of elements taken from the right, it would have been extremely imprudent, not to say rash, for the French high command to attempt a decisive battle. If General Joffre had risked a battle immediately he would have been playing the game without all his