VI.

Phase One: Bid for Quick Victory

A.

Western Front, 1914

In 1914 the northern and eastern frontier of France was about 600 km (400 mi) long. It ran from northwest to southeast, with roughly 300 km (200 mi) facing Belgium and 300 km (200 mi) facing Germany. A formidable system of permanent fortifications defended the eastern, or German, half of the frontier. The French war plan in 1914, known as Plan XVII, called for a headlong French offensive into Alsace and Lorraine, in which it was imagined that French élan (fighting spirit) would carry the offensive.

However, the frontier facing Belgium was virtually unfortified. French planners did not believe that the Germans could bring enough troops into action to make a strong attack through Belgium and simultaneously attack the French fortress system. The fortresses of 1914 in both France and Belgium consisted of a circle of detached masonry forts built around a city or town. The intervals between the forts could be protected by crossfire from soldiers in the forts and could also be covered by fieldworks occupied by infantry. The forts themselves had been built mainly underground except for the turrets, or cupolas, in which guns of 3-inch to 8-inch bore were positioned on revolving mounts.

Belgium had two strong fortresses of this type in Liège and Namur. These fortresses covered the roads and railways that a German army attacking France through Belgium would need to use. As a result, the first German move had to be a quick knockout of Liège, in eastern Belgium. Liège guarded a narrow gap between the thickly wooded Ardennes region and was the junction from which four main highways led westward.

When the Germans began their assault on Belgium and France, they used some 1.5 million men, or about 20 to 25 percent more men than the highest French estimate. Of these men, almost 1,160,000 were assigned to the five field armies of the enormously strong German right wing, which was destined to drive into France by way of Belgium. The remaining 345,000 troops in the German Sixth and Seventh armies were to advance toward the French fortress system in the east.

A.1.

Commanders

The commander of the German forces was Colonel General Helmuth von Moltke, who as the chief of the general staff automatically became commander in chief in wartime. Moltke had been an ardent proponent of war during the assassination crisis. However, his leadership on the battlefield in the opening stage of the conflict left much to be desired.

The French commander was General Joseph Jacques Césaire Joffre, who had served a considerable amount of time in France's colonies. Joffre was France's foremost champion of the offensive, believing that the speed and morale of an advancing infantry was the key to victory. However, he ignored the effects of firepower from modern weapons and sent his troops in their traditional uniforms of blue coats and red trousers to face German machine guns and rapid-firing artillery. The results were devastating.

A.2.

Invasion of Belgium

On August 4, 1914, the Germans invaded Belgium. They encountered spirited Belgian resistance at and near Liège and suffered heavy losses in repeated attempts to storm the forts. However, the Germans had secretly built a number of heavy cannons that fired 931-kg (2,052-lb) shells and were the most powerful siege artillery to appear in Europe at the time. Forged in the Krupp munitions factories, the terrifying new weapon was dubbed “Big Bertha” after Gustav Krupp's wife. After the Germans dragged the huge guns into position, they knocked out the forts by August 16. The gray-uniformed tide of German troops swept on past Liège and fanned out into the wide plains to the west.

King Albert I of Belgium had wanted all six divisions of the Belgian field army concentrated to defend Liège to the last. If this had happened, the Germans would have had to overcome this resistance before they could have brought their big guns within range of the forts, and a serious delay might have resulted. However, Albert did not have time to enforce his commands on a reluctant staff, and as a result, the resistance of Liège served to delay the Germans only slightly. The Belgian field army withdrew into the fortified camp of Antwerp, where two German corps besieged it while the main German advance flowed past toward the open French frontier.

A.3.

Battle of the Frontiers

The first bloody encounters between Germany and France occurred in the last two weeks of August 1914, in a series of engagements known as the Battle of the Frontiers. On August 14 the French launched an offensive on its eastern border into Lorraine. The French First and Second armies had some initial success but a counterattack by the German Sixth and Seventh armies threw them back across the frontier on August 20. Losing 140,000 men in six days, the French army fell back toward Paris in disarray, with the Germans in hot pursuit.

Meanwhile, to the northwest the German Fourth and Fifth armies were moving slowly forward into the Ardennes forest. To the west of them the right wing, made up of the German First, Second, and Third armies, was still wheeling around to deliver the decisive blow. The French launched a series of desperate counterattacks against the advancing German forces as they crossed the Belgian frontier into France. These counterattacks cost the French enormous losses, and still the Germans forged on.

On the French line, the French Fifth Army held the extreme west, extending to the Sambre River. To the west of the French Fifth was the newly arrived British Expeditionary Force (BEF). Both the French and British forces began to feel the pressure of the advancing German right wing. The outer element of the advancing force was the German First Army, and next in line was the German Second Army. The German Third Army linked these two wheeling armies with the rest of the German troops. From August 20 through 23, there was bloody and rather confused fighting along the frontiers, notably at Charleroi and Mons and in the Ardennes. The Allied armies then retreated toward the Marne River northeast of Paris.

The Battle of the Frontiers ended the French hope of driving deep into Alsace and Lorraine in order to advance into the center of Germany. Moltke's headquarters considered the battle a decisive German victory. Joffre, on the other hand, knew that his armies had been badly mauled but were still full of fight. He energetically set to work to collect troops from his right and center in order to gather a new army, the Sixth, for a counterattack against the German right wing. Joffre planned to fight in the shelter of the fortifications of Paris. The French government had fled Paris, which was preparing to defend itself against the Germans.

Meanwhile, the German Second Army was checked for 36 hours by a violent French counterattack in the Battle of Guise, while the German First Army pressed forward eagerly. This opened a gap between the German First and Second armies, eventually exposing part of the First Army to attack by the French Sixth Army in the Paris area.

A.4.

First Battle of the Marne

With the gap opening between the two German armies, Joffre seized his opportunity. On September 6, he ordered all of the French armies and the BEF to launch a general counterattack. This action led to what became known as the First Battle of the Marne. The French Sixth Army moved out from Paris eastward against the German First Army's flank and rear, while the other armies advanced directly against the enemy’s front. Troops were rushed to the fronts from Paris by all available means, including taxicabs.

Most of the German First Army had crossed the Marne River. It then began hastily moving back north of the Marne River to face the French threat. The French Fifth Army threw back Germany’s Second Army. The gap between the two German armies widened. The BEF was opposite this gap, and if it had moved forward into it with speed and determination, the German First Army would probably have been destroyed. However, the BEF leadership was overcautious, and the opportunity was lost. Fierce fighting took place along most of the front during the next few days.

Moltke was alarmed by the First Army's situation, and because of faulty communications he was unable to find out exactly what was happening. So he sent a staff officer to visit the three right-wing armies (First, Second, and Third), with absolute power to give orders in his name. Although the Germans were making gains against the French on the Ourcq River, a tributary of the Marne, the British were threatening the German First Army's left flank. The Second Army was unable to advance. Moltke's representative ordered a withdrawal, which began on September 9. Moltke followed up the order by directing a general retreat for the whole German line behind the Aisne River.

The First Battle of the Marne, which the French called the Miracle of the Marne, was one of the pivotal battles in history. The battle destroyed the German war plan for a quick and decisive victory over France.

The Allies defeated Germany at the First Battle of Marne for two tactical reasons. The first was the fact that the German First Army drove north and east of Paris instead of following Schlieffen's original plan for a wide sweep to envelop the capital city from the south and west. The second was the opening of a 50-km (30-mi) gap between the German First and Second armies—a gap that the BEF and the French Fifth Army were able to exploit.

The more fundamental causes of Germany’s debacle were problems with logistics and communications, which paradoxically were the result of its stunning success on the battlefield at the beginning of the war. The exhausted German First Army under General Alexander von Kluck had swept 350 km (220 mi) from the German-Belgian frontier to the Marne River with such extraordinary speed that it outran its supply lines and communications network. Even if it had thrown the French army back at the Marne, it is unlikely that it would have been able to resume its offensive.

Some of Moltke’s decisions also weakened Germany’s position. When Russia invaded the German province of East Prussia in August, Moltke rushed several divisions to the eastern front; those divisions would have been of value to him on the Marne. In addition, he had allowed Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, who commanded the German left flank, to continue offensive operations against the French armies in Alsace and Lorraine, instead of shifting Rupprecht's troops to the decisive First Battle of the Marne. On September 14, after Joffre's armies had crossed the Aisne River and were attacking the new German positions, Moltke was relieved of his command and replaced by General Erich von Falkenhayn.

A.5.

Race to the Sea

The fighting on the Aisne continued inconclusively until September 18, 1914. During September and October, a succession of clashes, known as the Race to the Sea, took place as each side began shifting troops from east to west in an attempt to overwhelm the other’s western flank. Each attempt was outflanked when opposing reinforcements arrived in the nick of time. The process stopped when the western flanks of the two armies reached the North Sea. The BEF took up positions near Ypres (see Ieper), Belgium. The Belgian army, having escaped from Antwerp, which surrendered to the Germans on October 10, occupied a short front on the Yser River. Both sides made further violent, costly, and unsuccessful attempts to break through enemy lines. The final two-week series of German assaults, known as the First Battle of Ypres, was ended in mid-November by rain and snow. The opposing armies literally sank into the ground, facing each other in a line of trenches. Thus began the deadly stalemate on the western front, which endured for three bloody years.

B.

Events Outside the West

B.1.

Battles of Tannenberg and Masurian Lakes

The German war plan for a rapid victory over France was based on the gamble that Germany could temporarily protect its eastern frontier against the much larger Russian forces until it could transfer its armies in the west. That assumption was almost shattered from August 17 to August 22 when two Russian armies advanced into the German province of East Prussia.

The German general staff had taken a calculated risk in leaving the defense of East Prussia to an army of about 200,000 men. Although the two Russian armies that penetrated East Prussia in the second half of August numbered about 350,000 men, the total Russian soldiers under arms at the beginning of the war was 1.5 million. At the end of mobilization that number was swollen to 4.5 million, with another 2 million in reserve. It was evident that if the battle in the west was prolonged, the German forces in the east would be dangerously outnumbered.

The Russian war plan called for a two-pronged attack into East Prussia as soon as Russia could mobilize. The Russian commander in chief was Grand Duke Nicholas, a cousin of the tsar. One object of the Russian attack on East Prussia was to fulfill Russian promises to relieve the French by engaging the Germans in the east. Another object was to clear East Prussia of German forces, so as to straighten and shorten the Russian front by bringing it forward to the Vistula (Wisła) River. Such an offensive would ensure that the decisive battles in the war would be fought on German rather than Russian territory. Once ensconced on the Vistula, the Russian army would be well positioned to drive deep into the heart of Germany and force an early end to the war in the east.

The grand duke assigned two armies to this task. They were commanded by General Pavel Rennenkampf and General Alexander Samsonov. Rennenkampf was to attack straight to the west while Samsonov moved north from Poland around the water barrier of the Masurian Lakes. Each of these armies was marginally superior in strength to that of the German army in East Prussia, although it had the advantage of a central position.

Rennenkampf crossed the frontier on August 17, and on August 20 he gained a partial success at Gumbinnen. Rennenkampf’s troops inflicted heavy casualties on the German Eighth Army. This setback, plus the news on the same day that Samsonov was over the border and advancing, unnerved the German commander General Max von Prittwitz. Against the vigorous protests of his staff, he decided to withdraw to the Vistula River, thus abandoning all of East Prussia to the enemy. Moltke, informed by telephone of this decision, immediately ordered Prittwitz relieved of his command. Moltke sent two military leaders who would play a central role in directing Germany's military forces for the rest of the war: General Paul von Hindenburg and his chief of staff, Erich Ludendorff.

Hindenburg and Ludendorff endorsed a daring plan by a senior staff officer, Lieutenant Colonel Max Hoffmann. Because Rennenkampf, who thought that victory was already his, had halted to regroup, Hoffmann suggested diverting German troops to the south by train to destroy the Russian Second Army and then redeploying them to the north against the Russian First Army before Rennenkampf could react. From August 26 to August 30 the German Eighth Army, which had been sped southward by railway, overwhelmed and virtually destroyed the Russian Second Army at the Battle of Tannenberg. The Germans took over 100,000 prisoners, and most of the rest of the troops were killed. Samsonov, the Russian commander, committed suicide during what was to become one of the most decisive battles of the war. After defeating the Russian Second Army, the German army moved back to the north to smash Rennenkampf’s First Army. The Russians met the main force of the German Eighth Army on September 9 and quickly began to withdraw from East Prussia. The Russian First Army was back across the Russian border by September 15, but they had suffered heavy losses in what became known as the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes.

Although the Russian forces greatly outnumbered their German counterparts, they were inadequately trained, poorly led, and lacking in adequate weapons and supplies. The Russian armies' brief offensive into East Prussia helped the Allies in the west because Germany had to divert troops to the east. But the Battles of Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes dashed the Russian plan of driving deep into German territory. The ultimate consequence was the establishment of a stationary front on the Russian side of the frontier that would hold for the next three years. The brief campaign on the eastern front also established the reputations of Hindenburg and Ludendorff, who acquired increasing authority in the German war effort.

B.2.

Operations in Galicia

Meanwhile, in Galicia, a region of Austria-Hungary, Russian armies led by General Nikolai Ivanov, clashed with the advancing Austro-Hungarian forces of General Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, who was chief of the general staff of the Austro-Hungarian Imperial Armies. Conrad wanted to use military action to restore the fortunes of Austria-Hungary. He hoped to demonstrate in a dramatic way the vigor and vitality of the Austro-Hungarian army, whose effectiveness as a fighting force had long been considered doubtful. However, his goal was beyond the capabilities of his multinational armies: Over half of the army comprised soldiers who spoke a different language from their German-speaking commanders, and their loyalty to the Habsburg state was questionable.

In pursuit of his objective, Conrad assigned almost half of his forces to invade and destroy Serbia and deployed the rest against the Russians in Galicia. Austro-Hungarian forces, however, suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Serbs, while Conrad found himself with insufficient troops to deal with Ivanov. By September 11, the Russians had driven the Austro-Hungarians back to the Carpathian Mountains. The Austro-Hungarians suffered heavy losses, particularly among the officer cadre, and thereafter the Austro-Hungarian army was less effective.

The Russians now prepared to invade the German province of Silesia. Hindenburg and Ludendorff reacted to this threat by using the excellent German railroad system to shift troops from East Prussia to southern Poland to counter the Russians. The troops formed a new army, the Ninth, which launched a drive toward Warsaw, then a Russian city. The Russians halted the German effort, but their counterattack failed. A renewed German attack in mid-November began the Battle of Łódz, which ended with a Russian withdrawal and a temporary lull on the eastern front.

The Austro-Hungarians launched a new invasion of Serbia in the first week of November. They again encountered stiff resistance from the Serbs, who counterattacked on December 3. By December 15 the Serbs had driven the Austro-Hungarians out of Serbia.

The Hindenburg-Ludendorff team had used the prestige of their victory at Tannenberg to bring strong pressure on William II and General Falkenhayn for more troops in the east. This pressure evolved into a struggle for power between Falkenhayn on one hand and Hindenburg and Ludendorff on the other. This power struggle was to dominate and frustrate the German military effort throughout 1915 and much of 1916.

B.3.

War at Sea

In the war at sea, the British and German battle fleets confronted each other across the North Sea, as they would continue to do throughout the war. The British fleet operated from its bases in the islands and harbors at the northern end of Britain, and the German fleet was based on Germany's North Sea coast. On August 28, 1914, in the first major naval battle, the British sank or damaged several German cruisers and destroyers in the Heligoland (Helgoland) Bight (see Helgoland Bight, Battle of).

Britain implemented a sea blockade of Germany at the beginning of the war. Originally intended to deny the Central Powers access to munitions and other war-related material, the sea blockade was eventually extended to include most foodstuffs in an effort to starve the Germans into submission. Germany also began to use submarines called Unterseeboot (undersea boats, or U-boats) to try to prevent supplies from reaching the British Isles. At this time, Germany was conducting its submarine warfare by international rules, which included stopping and boarding merchant ships to check the cargo, then removing the crew before sinking the ship.

On November 1, 1914, a German cruiser squadron under Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee destroyed a British squadron off Coronel, Chile (see Battle of Coronel). On December 8, however, British battle cruisers destroyed a German squadron in the Battle of Falkland Islands. In 1914 Allied command of the sea remained relatively undisputed.

A naval operation in the Mediterranean Sea, however, turned out decidedly in Germany's favor. Two German warships, the Goeben and the Breslau, succeeded in evading British pursuers at the outset of the war and took refuge in the waters at Constantinople (now İstanbul). When the warships arrived, Ottoman leaders, anxious to recover lands they had lost in the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, were encouraged by German promises to restore their lost territory. In October 1914 the Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of the Central Powers. The two German ships, flying the Ottoman flag, bombarded ports along the Russian Black Sea coast on October 30. Russia, Britain, and France declared war on the Ottoman Empire. In November British troops from India encountered minimal resistance when they landed in Ottoman-controlled Mesopotamia (later Iraq and Syria). In December 1914 the Russians defeated the Ottomans in an action at Sarikamis, near the Caucasus Mountains.

B.4.

The Entry of the Ottoman Empire

When the Ottoman Empire joined the war on the side of the Central Powers in October 1914, it dealt the Allies a harsh blow. Through its control of the Dardanelles, a strait that connects the Aegean Sea with the Sea of Marmara, the Ottoman Empire was able to cut off Russia from the Mediterranean Sea and make it much more difficult for Russia’s British and French allies to send supplies and munitions. It also forced Britain to divert troops that might otherwise have been used on the western front to Egypt and Mesopotamia for use against the Ottoman Empire.

Officials in London and Paris were also concerned that when the Ottoman Empire, an Islamic state, intervened on the side of Germany, it would inspire the Muslim populations of the British and French empires to rise up against their colonial masters. The sultan of the Ottoman Empire also held the Islamic title of caliph, the supreme leader of the Muslim community (see Caliphate). After the Ottomans entered the war, the sultan proclaimed a jihad (holy war) against those countries at war with the Ottoman Empire.

The Ottoman Empire’s entry into the war, however, did not dramatically tip the balance in favor of the Central Powers. While Britain diverted troops to the Ottoman front, it still honored its commitment to the French in the west. The sultan's call for an Islamic jihad against the Allies fell on deaf ears among the Muslims in French North Africa and British India. Many North Africans and Indians fought valiantly in the French and British armies on the western front. At the same time, some leaders of the Arabic-speaking Muslims in the southern portion of the Ottoman Empire began to view the war as an opportunity to gain independence from the empire.

B.5.

War in Asia and the Pacific

Japan declared war on Germany on August 23, 1914. It joined the Allied coalition in the hope of obtaining the scattered German possessions in East Asia and the Pacific. Japanese forces promptly attacked the German-controlled islands in the Pacific north of the equator—the Marshalls, the Marianas, and the Carolines—as well as the German economic concession of Kiaochow on China's Shantung Peninsula. Since Germany was fighting for its very existence in a two-front war in Europe, it could not spare resources and manpower to defend its far-flung holdings in Asia. Japan was therefore ideally situated to expand the frontiers of its colonial empire.