An Cosantóir

www.military.ie the defence forces magazine | 29 be easily defeated; the French would concentrate their efforts in Alsace Lorraine; Belgium would not resist a German inva- sion; and Britain would remain neutral. While the assumption that France would concentrate its efforts on invading Alsace Lorraine proved correct, the other as- sumptions were wrong. Belgium put up a spirited defence of its territory, quickly aided by the British Expeditionary Force, which arrived in France within days of hostilities breaking out. More importantly, Russian mobilisation, far from taking six weeks, saw Russian armies invading East Prussia within the first week of the war. With things going slower than expected in the west and the Russians advancing in the east the German timetable was in serious trouble. The threat of losing East Prussia and even the Prussian capital Konigsberg caused von Moltke to transfer several divisions from the advancing German armies in the west. As it transpired, by the time the German reinforcements got to the Eastern Front the German 8th Army had won decisive victories over the Russians at the battles of Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes. It is a moot point that if the reinforcements had not been sent from the Western Front the Schlieffen Plan may have been successful. M eanwhile, on August 23rd Field Marshal French's British Expeditionary Force (BEF) had its first experience of combat at the Battle of Mons. Heavily out- gunned and outnumbered, the BEF, which although small comprised only professional soldiers, put up a staunch resistance. Such was the rate of fire from the BEF's riflemen that the German commander, General von Kluck, erroneously believed they were equipped with machine guns. When the sudden retreat of the French 5th Army exposed the BEF's flank, Field Mar- shal French ordered the BEF's withdrawal. What became known as the Great Retreat took place over the next two weeks as the BEF fell back about 250 miles while fighting a number of fierce rearguard actions at places like Le Cateau and Etreux, where three companies of the 2nd Battalion of the Munster Fusiliers held off an entire German army for over a day, allowing the remainder of the BEF to continue their retreat. Following the retreating Allies, German forces got to within 30 miles of Paris, which was evacuated as fears grew that the French capital would fall. At that point, General Joffre, the overall commander of the Allied armies decided on a last-ditch offensive to try to take the initiative away from the advancing Germans. The French 6th Army attacked the right flank of the German 1st Army along the river Marne. As von Kluck wheeled his army to face the threat to his right flank a gap opened up between the 1st Army and von Bulow's 2nd Army, which was spotted by Allied reconnaissance aircraft. Joffre immediately ordered the French 5th Army and the BEF to exploit the 45km gap and the Allied forces began to advance. Poor communications between the German armies meant that von Kluck was unaware of the situation that was devel- oping and continued to concentrate on his battle with the French 6th Army, which was on the edge of defeat before the arrival of about 6,000 reservists who were brought to the Front by Paris taxis. General von Bulow, who was in overall command of the two German armies, became extremely concerned by the pos- sibility of his forces being divided and enveloped and consequently ordered a German retreat as far as the Aisne where they constructed defensive positions. This action signalled the end of the Schlieffen Plan and, unknown to the participants, would usher in the era of trench warfare and four years of stalemate in which millions would die in futile offensives and counter-offensives. The Battle of the Marne had been a bloody affair, with approximately 500,000 dead or wounded; a casualty toll that was an ominous precursor of the carnage to come. Although it was still only 1914 some of the top German commanders knew that the war was already effectively lost as Germany would now face a long, drawn-out war on two fronts, the very thing the Schlieffen Plan had intended to avoid. I t would appear that the emergence of the trench warfare that came to dominate the Western Front developed more by accident than design. The Schlieffen Plan was one of rapid movement with no contingency for what to do if it stalled. When this indeed happened it seems the German commanders decided to just dig in and wait for the Allies to make the next move. Even at that point both sides still tried to gain the advantage by manoeuvre. At- tempts by both to outflank their opponents led to the Race to the Sea, which saw the Front extend westwards until it reached the English Channel. By contrast, trench warfare never played much of a part on the Eastern Front, mainly due to its vastness, stretching from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south. The dispersion of manpower along such a massive front meant that the troop concentrations required for effective trench warfare were rarely sufficient. In the next issue we will look at life in the trenches and the effects of industrialisa- tion on the conduct of war. British assault on German position at Mons 1914 General Sir John French

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