Battle of the Frontiers (1) - Plan and Counter Plan

The frontier between France and a recently unified Germany was redrawn after the 1870 Franco Prussian war. German acquisition of Alsace and Lorraine gave a more linear frontier stretching south to north from Belfort by the Swiss border to Longwy at the junction of Luxembourg and Belgian borders, and into the Ardennes. To the south, the Vosges mountains formed a natural barrier, and the remainder of the border through to Longwy was strongly fortified. 

French military thinking was still dominated by Napoleon's doctrine of attack, and it was unacceptable to them, in particular Joffre their commander, to employ a defensive strategy to resist German invasion. It was dogma that led to hundreds of thousands of casualties.

Moltke the Younger

The German belief was that only by a swift envelopment could they secure a speedy decision in France and then turn to the East. Moltke had preached and practised this doctrine, as worked out in detail by Schlieffen. But Moltke did not throw as much strength to his right as Schlieffen required. He did allocate 35 corps to the Western front, whereas the French predicted only 22. These great numbers would enable an army deluge through Belgium utterly beyond the French calculation, while still leaving sufficent forces to press hard on the French right wing to the south and east, so as to bring about a complete encirclement.

The total German strength was underestimated by the French Staff, who accordingly did not allow for the magnitude of the wheel of the German right wing. For the violation of Belgium they were prepared, but they looked for the attack by the Ardennes and the Meuse valley. They had never dreamed that Germany could muster sufficient forces for a wide sweep through the Belgian plain.

Plan XVII to counter Schlieffen.

Faced with so many unknown quantities Joffre chose, instead of a strategic defence combined with tactical offensives, the hopeless course of a general offensive in widely separated fields. The mind of Joffre (and France) had been trained to see, in the catastrophe of 1870 as well as the Napoleonic legacy, a warning against passive defence, and to believe that resounding attack at all times would lead to victory.

 The French believed that their plan to place 4 French armies in a north easterly direction either side of Metz, with one reserve army centrally behind, would thwart the Germans. They thought that they could not be turned by a major German move either side of the River Meuse. They proved to be totally wrong (as had been predicted by British military) with major German advances one both the Right (Northern) and Left (Southern) wings, with relatively little in the centre. It turned out to be a disaster for the French left, with relatively less action on their right.

General Joffre

By the time of retreat along Meuse and Sambre to Charleroi the French found themselves outnumbered by 3 to 1. There were 300, 000 French casualties. “Although the Germans invaded, it was more often the French who attacked” (Churchill). The wheeling German right was overwhelming, and the French left, led by Lanrezac, and the newly arriving British Expeditionary Force walked straight into it. This led to the defeat at Mons, and the start of the great retreat to the Marne (to be covered later)

On 25th August Moltke withdrew two Divisions and one cavalry Division to reinforce the Eastern Front. This was shortly followed by the stunning victory at Tannenberg, which, added to the general allied retreat in the West seemed to justify his decision. However, Moltke remained concerned by the strong resistance slowing the German advance through Belgium and France, since speed was of the essence in the Schlieffen plan.

For the allies Joffre came under major political pressure at this stage on account of the huge losses incurred, and was almost replaced by Gallieni, soon to play a crucial role at the Marne..