Turning Point: 110 years since the First Battle of the Marne

110 years ago, British and French armies stopped Imperial Germany’s advance on Paris at the First Battle of the Marne. Discover the story of this decisive First World War battle with CWGC.

The First Battle of the Marne

A Memorial on the Marne

Image: La Ferte-Sous-Jouarre Memorial

The town of La Ferte-Sous-Jouarre is a small place, lying some 40 miles to the east of Paris.

The river Marne wends its way lazily though the town but along its banks, overlooking its cool calming waters, sits a memorial to when this part of the world was rent asunder by the chaos and carnage of the Great War.

La Ferte-Sous-Jouarre Memorial stands in its stone magnificence over a busy corner of the town. The names of officers and enlisted men of the British forces who lost their lives in the early stages of the First World War are inscribed upon its stone panels.

Those commemorated on this moving memorial have no known grave. Many lost their lives in one of the most climatic battles of the early war: The First Battle of the Marne.

What was the First Battle of the Marne?

The First Battle of the Marne was a First World War battle fought by the Allied French and British Armies and the Imperial German Army.

This major battle took place between 5-12 September 1914. It is considered one of the decisive battles of the early Great War.

It was here that the French and British armies stopped the German advance which had so far swept through Belgium and France. 

Following the Marne, a series of advances and counterattacks resulted in the establishment of trench warfare, but Marne essentially stopped any hopes of a fast German victory on the Western Front.

Who fought at the First Battle of the Marne?

Image: Soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force, circa 1914 (© IWM (Q 57450))

The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) at the First Battle of the Marne was commanded by Field Marshal Sir John French.

At the time of First Marne, the BEF was much smaller than its continental counterparts. It could put into battle around six infantry and cavalry divisions, split into three corps, and backed by some 600 or so pieces of artillery. 

Ahead of the Battle of Mons in August 1914, the BEF had landed in France with around 75,000 soldiers. 

While it had lost men at Mons and the subsequent retreat, replacements and reinforcements from Britain meant Field Marshal French had around 100,000 men under his command at the Battle of the Marne.

The French Army, on the other hand, numbered more than a million men and put in some 64 Divisions at Marne and the following actions and manoeuvres. 

At the Battle of the Marnes the three British corps were commanded by future British Commander-in-Chief Sir Douglas Haig and Lieutenant General Sir Horace Smith-Dorian.

A great many historic and storied regiments of the British Army fought at the First Battle of the Marne.

For example, 1st Division under Major-General Samuel Holt Lomax contained elements of the Coldstream Guards, Black Watch, The Welch Regiment, and the King’s Royal Rifle Corps to name just a few.

A significant number of Irish regiments were also present at the Battle of the Marne such as the Royal Irish Regiment, Irish Guards, and Royal Irish Rifles.

Opposing the Entente allies were some 51 German divisions split into three armies under the overall command of Head of the German General Staff General Helmuth von Moltke the Younger.

The German force numbered around a million men, with the Allies matching them in terms of numbers, although leaning very heavily towards the French.

The Great Retreat

Image: British troops on the retreat from Mons (Wikimedia Commons)

Before the First Battle of the Marne, the German Army had launched its ambitious invasion of Belgium and France.

This was part of its early war plan, known as the Schlieffen Plan. The plan was designed to land a knockout blow on France by charging through the country in a series of wide arcs to outflank French armies and capture Paris.

The Battle of the Frontiers, as the first battles on the Western Front are known, resulted in several German victories.

At the Battle of Mons, the British Expeditionary Force’s first significant battle of the First World War, the German Army had broken through French and British lines, putting them into full retreat.

Known as the Great Retreat, the Entente Powers were pushed back 250 miles from the French-Belgian border. Several important rearguard actions, such as the Battle of Le Cateau, were fought by both the French and BEF to hold off the seemingly unstoppable Germans.

The stand at the Marne

By 3 September 1914, the German Army was within 30 miles of Paris.

A German capture of the French capital was a very real possibility. If Paris were to fall, then it is likely the Germans would have achieved victory in the West.

The Allies had halted their advance along the Marne River. A wide, hard-to-cross waterway, the Marne provided a natural obstacle for the advancing Germans and the ideal place for the Allies to stop retreating and tentatively go on the attack themselves.

The BEF stopped its retreat by 5 September, after losing approximately 15,000 killed, captured or missing during the Great Retreat.

But the rapid sweep across France was also taking its toll on the Imperial German Army.

Many of its men were exhausted. The German Army was also at the extreme end of their supply lines. Morale, even after the spectacular successes of August, was low. 

In the build-up to the First Battle of the Marne, the German Army made several decisions that would have a decisive impact on the battle to come.

Firstly, as many as 11 German Divisions were removed from the Western Front and transferred to the east where Germany and Austro-Hungary were beginning their titanic clashes with the Russian Army.

With their removal, German Commander von Moltke realised he didn’t have enough men to enact the Schlieffen Plan as per its original intentions.

General Alexander von Kluck was ordered by Moltke to swing his army to bypass Paris from the north. The original Schliffen Plan strategy had called for von Kluck’s 1st Army to encircle the French capital from the southwest.

The German First Army’s flank would have to pass in front of French and British positions along the Marne defending Paris. 

A gap, some 30 miles wide, was now established between von Kluck’s 1st Army and the 2nd Army under General Karl von Bülow. The gap was only screened by a cavalry force. 

The great German wheel was spotted by French General and military governor of Paris Simon Gallieni on September 3. Realising what this meant, and the exposure of the German army’s flank, Gallieni appealed to the Commander-in-Chief of the French and Allied forces, Joseph Joffre, to begin a counter-offensive.

On 5 September, Joffre agreed. The Allies had turned from retreat into attack.

The BEF advances

On the left side of Allied lines, the French 6th Army were to engage with von Kluck. The French 5th and 9th Armies would engage von Bülow on the right flank. But what of the British? What of the gap?

While the French had been reorganising back into an offensive posture, the BEF had kept its retreat going.

As luck would have it, The British Expeditionary Force’s line of retreat had taken them directly into the 30-mile gap now established between the two German armies on the Marne.

On 5 September, Joffre visited Filed Marshal John French’s headquarters. French was technically not obliged to follow Joffre’s orders, but Joffre was sure cooperation would be the key to success on the Marne.

At a dramatic meeting, featuring Joffre banging his hands on the negotiating table and exclaiming “Monsieur le Maréchel, the honour of England is at stake!”, Joffre convinced French of his counter-offensive. The BEF would fight on the Marne.

British battles on the Marne

Image: Field guns of the Royal Artillery enter the battlefield  © IWM (Q 51488)

For the next two days, the BEF advanced to the Northeast.

The first British skirmishes at the Battle of the Marne were fought on the morning of 7 September. 

Five Cavalry Brigades moving ahead of the main force reached the town of Dagny on the Aubetin River. 

Leader of the 9th Lancers, Lieutenant Colonel Campbell, saw his squadron attacked by a unit of German 1st Guard Dragoons. The British covering machine gun jammed, leaving Campbell no option but to charge the oncoming German horseman.

The Germans, taking the 9th Lancers charge at a trot, were completely overwhelmed.

For most of 7 September, the British advance was slow. The BEF covered about seven miles, far from the speed desired by Joffre.

On 8 September, British infantry brigades on the left of the BEF’s line came under heavy fire from German machine gun and artillery positions at the town of La Ferte-Sous-Jouarre. Here, Imperial German Army units had established a bridgehead on the north bank of the Marne.

At first, the British were driven off but once the guns of the Royal Artillery arrived, the British began shelling La Ferte-Sous-Jouarre.

The way up to the Marne was covered in many smaller streams, canals, and tributaries, creating difficult obstacles for the British to cross. The Germans had destroyed two of the main bridges into of La Ferte-Sous-Jouarre, but crucially, not the main bridges in the centre of the BEF’s advance.

At 1 pm on 8 September, the British renewed their assault on of La Ferte-Sous-Jouarre. The Royal Engineers had been called up and quickly established a floating bridge over which British infantry could cross into the town. By 8 pm, the section of the town south of the Marne was in British Hands.

The French Armies were making progress on both flanks of the BEF’s position. Aerial reconnaissance reports from the evening of the 8th revealed the Germans were starting to withdraw en masse.

The British were ordered to keep advancing on the following day. More road and rail bridges over the Marne and her tributaries were fought over. 

In some cases, the German troops meant to be manning or building barricades were discovered to be completely drunk and taken prisoner. Discipline in the Imperial German Army was beginning to crack.

British units were now beginning to cross the Marne, despite coming under artillery and machine gun fire.

Image: The positions of each army at the First Battle of the Marne on 9 September 1914. The BEF's positions are marked in brown, the French in red, and the German Army in blue (Wikimedia Commons)

By 3 pm on the 9th, British aerial recon planes were reporting no German forces ahead of the British I Corps so it continued. Field Marshal French later ordered them to halt as, even though the British had advanced slowly on the 8th, the BEF was now outpacing the French 5th Army.

At of La Ferte-Sous-Jouarre, the assault was continued at 4.45 pm. The British 11th and 12th Infantry Brigades attack the town with orders to repair and cross any damaged bridges. 

This proved difficult. German forces occupied the buildings across the Marne river crossings in of La Ferte-Sous-Jouarre. Instead, the British infantry was withdrawn and the town bombarded. Attempts were also made to cross the river by boat but were driven off by machine gunners.

In the meantime, some British units had managed to find further undamaged crossings, driven off the defenders, and advanced over the Marne. Two battalions had formed up and climbed high ground around La Ferte-Sous-Jouarre.

They were too late to intercept the German retreat. The intense artillery barrage from British guns on high ground overlooking La Ferte-Sous-Jouarre had caused the Germans to finally abandon their defence.

By the evening, British III Corps was across the Marne and I and II Corps were making good progress.

The German Retreat

As the British Expeditionary Force fell back from Mons, it had advanced a further day’s march ahead of the French forces on its flanks.

This “disappearance” of the British in the Allied lines turned into one of the key moments of The First Battle of the Marne.

With the British advancing once more, they did so into the 30-mile gap established between the two German Armies battling the French.

On September 8, the French 6th Army had launched a night attack on von Bülow’s German 2nd Army. Von Bülow had subsequently ordered his men to execute a 12-mile withdrawal. The gap had been widened.

By now, German high command had become convinced that when the French and British crossed the Marne a full German retreat would have to be ordered.

On the morning of September 9, von Bülow ordered a second withdrawal. The British pouring into the gap was putting significant pressure on the German military with 2nd Army now close to breaking point.

This was news to von Kluck. His 1st Army had been holding well and was in a position to assault Paris if ordered. Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hentsch, visiting the German armies under orders from Commander von Moltke, informed von Kluck of von Bülow’s precarious position.

Reluctantly, von Kluck gave the order to withdraw. 

Come 11 September all German armies in France were in full retreat. The Allies were in pursuit but, already weakened by their own Great Retreat and now tired from a week of hard fighting, were advancing slowly.

Aftermath of the Battle of the Marne

Image: Soldiers of the BEF advance towards the Aisne (© IWM (Q 51496))

The Imperial German Army was now in full retreat, but any hopes of a decisive, war-ending Allied victory in 1914 were dashed once it stopped.

Occupying positions across the River Aisne, the German Armies on the Western Front turned to face the Allies on 13 September 1914.

The Germans, already holding terrain that favoured defence, soon dug in. They began building the great trench networks that would come to define the First World War on the Western Front.

The Allies would clash with the Germans again at the First Battle of the Aisne, where it quickly became clear that defenders now held the advantage.

The manoeuvring on the Western Front would last until October 1914 when the “Race to the Sea” was finally finished. 

The Race to the Sea was the attempt by each side to turn the opposition’s flank. What resulted was a trench network that stretched up northwestern France and into Flanders, Belgium.

By December, a stalemate had set in. Over the coming years, millions of men on both sides would be cut down on the blood-soaked battlefields of the Western Front.

Why was the First Battle of the Marne important?

The Allied effort at the Marnes effectively stopped the German advance. This had major repercussions for the course of the First World War.

Firstly, it marked the end of Germany’s aggressive two-front strategy. The Schlieffen Plan had failed. No knockout blow had been landed and France and Britain would remain in the war until its bitter conclusion.

Secondly, it put the Germans into a defensive posture. Typically, the Germans would remain as the defensive power on the Western Front for the remainder of the war, excluding the major offensives at Verdun in 1916 and the 1918 Spring Offensive.

The Battle of the Marne also put paid to the idea that this would be a quick war. With the trenches now being built, and technology and tactics favouring defence, this was now a war of attrition.

Historian Barbara Tuchman in her classic examination of early days of the First World War The Guns of August wrote: 

“The Battle of the Marne was one of the decisive battles of the world not because it determined that Germany would eventually lose or the Allies ultimately win the war but because it determined that the war would go on. There was no looking back, Joffre told the soldiers on the eve.

Afterward, there was no turning back. The nations were caught in a trap, a trap made during the first thirty days out of battles that failed to be decisive, a trap from which there was, and has been, no exit.”

Casualties of The First Battle of the Marne

Total British Expeditionary Force casualties up to 10 September are estimated at 15,000 or so killed, missing, captured or wounded. 

Proportionally, this was quite high, as the BEF was very small, compared with the other powers’ armies.

For the period of 6-10, British official histories put the total number of losses at some 1,700 killed during the First Battle of the Marne.

The French, being the larger allied force by some distance, are estimated to have lost taken losses of 250,000 men, of which 80,000 were killed. German losses are thought to be around the same.

All told, between 300,000 and 500,000 French, British, and German soldiers became casualties during the First Battle of the Marne.

Serjeant George William Hutson

Among the British dead of the First Battle of the Marne was Olympian George Hutson.

George had initially worked for a men’s outfitter upon leaving school, but soon found his calling as a professional soldier, joining the Royal Sussex Regiment in 1908.

George was also one of the most promising British long-distance runners of his generation.

He competed for Great Britain in the 1912 Summer Olympics held in Stockholm, Sweden in the 5000 metres where he won the bronze medal. He also joined teammates Joe Cottrill and Cyril Porter to win his second bronze of the games in the 3000 metre team race

Sadly, George’s career was tragically cut short by his First World War Service.

George was aged just 24 when was killed in action at the First Battle of the Marne. He became the first British Olympian to die in military service during the First World War.