The Marne - Part 4: Lt Colonel Richard Hentsch

As we have seen, the overall outcome of the battle hung in the balance as late as the 8th September, and the communications on both sides were poor and confused. Whereas Joffre was close to the action, the German Staff Headquarters was a long way behind the lines in Luxembourg. Churchill writes that the euphoria greeting the reports up to 3rd September had turned to panic by 8th. At this point, Moltke, in a highly stressed condition, resolved to send a relatively junior liaison officer, Lt. Col. Richard Hentsch, to visit each headquarters. Hentsch's motoring tour was to prove famous as one of the pivotal events of the entire war.

Richard Hentsch

It appears that Hentsch was given only vague orders to assess the situation at the front, and he made a personal decision to visit all the army headquarters, rather than merely those of Bülow and Kluck. To junior officers accompanying him, he expressed concern that Moltke had not given him his orders in writing, but he thought (and was correct) the the various general would accept his instructions. He began his travels in the Argonne, and at 4 p.m. on 8^th September he made a first telephone call to Luxembourg, to report that in the centre of the front he found both Fourth and Fifth Armies in satisfactory condition. 

Moltke the Younger

He moved on to the HQ of Hausen’s Third Army, which earlier in the day had made significant advances around Chalons-sur-Seine. Hausen himself did not appreciate that the advance of the morning had run out of steam, and still believed that he was close to breaking through Foch’s line. Accordingly Hentsch sent Moltke another reassuring message at 8pm, and moved on. 
It was in the small hours when Hentsch reached the headquarters of Bülow’s Second Army at the Château de Montmort, a few miles south of Rheims. The radio message he sent at 2am was the crucial communication that changed the tide of the battle. Hentsch had found that Bülow was acutely alarmed about his situation. His right wing was cracking under pressure from Franchet d’Espèrey and Foch. The French heavily outnumbered Bulow's forces, whose effective fighting strength had fallen from 260,000 men to 154,000 during the course of its journey through Belgium and southwards. Bülow had heard nothing from Kluck, but reported there was at least an eighteen-mile gap between First and Second Armies. This gap was still widening, and the French and British were advancing towards it. At some point in discussion with Hentsch, either Bülow or one of his staff used the word ‘Schlacke’ – ‘ashes’ – to describe the threatened fate of Second Army. 
This was the content of the 2am message that was taken to Moltke, who was still at his desk. Records show that he writing to his wife at the time, already in a distressed state:‘I cannot find words to describe the crushing burden of responsibility that has weighed on my shoulders during the last few days, and still weighs upon me today. The appalling difficulties of our present situation hang before my eyes like a dark curtain through which I can see nothing. The whole world is in league against us; it would seem that every country is bent on destroying Germany'. He must have been in a whole lot worse state after reading Hentsch's message.  

In the following exchanges, Hentsch almost certainly exceeded his authority. Bülow had asked him to use Moltke’s authority to order Kluck to close up on his flank and reduce the perilous gap. Hentsch, addressing one of the senior generals of the German army, told the

Gen Karl von Bulow

Bulow this was impossible when Kluck’s army was heavily engaged, and facing in the opposite direction. Even as they were speaking, a message arrived reporting further attacks and gains by the French in the centre of Bulow's front approaching Montmirail. As matters were clearly deteriorating,  Hentsch, (a mere lieutenant-colonel), at this point told Bulow that he had Moltke’s personal mandate to authorise a withdrawal by First and Second Armies. He proposed that such a movement should commence forthwith, so that Kluck and Bülow’s forces should reunite at Fismes on the Vesle river some thirty miles east, just short of Reims. Bülow appeared relieved by this proposal despite its huge implications for the battle, and the war. 

Gen Alexander von Kluck

On leaving Bülow, Hentsch set off to motor fifty miles to Kluck’s headquarters at Mareuil, approx 50 miles NW of Paris. He drove through chaotic and crowded rear areas of two embattled armies and a terrorised and fleeing civilian population. He found Kluck in attacking mood, and unwilling to withdraw and line up with Bulow (the two generals did not get on). Hentsch persisted. He realised the severe danger posed by the now thirty-mile gap between the two German armies, even though the allies had not appreciated the extent of it.  He invoked Moltke’s authority again, to insist that First Army must disengage from its battle with Maunoury, and start falling back towards the river Aisne, between Soissons and Compiègne, and Kluck reluctantly complied. 

Heavy rain had fallen during the night, worsening conditions, but on the morning of 9th September, the French infantry advancing on Montmirail met no opposition. They found Bülow’s soldiers gone, leaving behind all the detritus of an army, together with an astounding number of empty wine bottles – broken glass apparently carpeted the road. In a major tactical error, reflecting their disarray and demoralisation, the Germans failed to destroy the Marne bridges. 

The Hentsch episode was a turning point, a decisive moment of the First World War.

The Marne - Part 3. Outcome uncertain in the fog of war

The Taxi Cabs of the Marne

Although the stage was set for the great counter offensive, it still seemed that the Germans were advancing. On 7 September they captured the key village of Sainte-Geneviève, due north of Paris, and were close to achieving a breakthrough against the beleaguered French outside Paris, within sight of the Eiffel Tower. Encouraged by Gallieni, Joffre took the decision to despatch emergency troop reinforcements from Paris.

The famous 'taxi cabs of the Marne' were despatched on 7 September using a fleet of Parisian taxi cabs, some 600 in all, ferrying reserve infantry troops to the front. The cabs carried forward just 4,000 men, a single brigade, to join the 150,000 soldiers of Sixth Army but the morale boost provided was much greater. Gallieni deserves his place among the inspirational figures of those moments. 

The battle was not won at a stroke. Complex actions took place, and the fate of the war hung in the balance for days. 




Even while Joffre was still cajoling Sir John French to fight, Maunoury began to push eastward, crowding Kluck’s right flank along the river Ourcq, a tributary of the Marne.
Although the battle started officially on 6^th, it was this action of Maunoury on the 5^th against Kluck’s flank guard that was decisive. Later that night Kluck moved his whole 1^st Army back to north of the Marne, and this in turn impacted on Bulow’s 2^nd army on Kluck’s left, which was also force to wheel to west and face Paris. This opened up a dangerous 30miles gap between 1^st and 2^nd armies.

 

Gen Michel-Joseph Maunoury's interventions
at the Marne were decisive

Nevertheless, the German order of the day on the 6^th was for a general offensive across the whole front. Over at the eastern end, the Germans could make little progress against Verdun and strong defence from the French armies. There were huge numbers of casualties - this time more of them German rather than the slaughter of French that had occurred in late August. Through the centre, Joffre’s forces held firm, despite gruesome fighting. On the left, d’Esperay’s 5^th and Maunoury’s 6^th attacked strongly. On 5 September, Kluck’s formations held a west–east front. By the close of the 6th, his army was redeploying on a north–south line, and he was counter-attacking Maunoury fiercely. Kluck's response to Maunoury's attacks was the most significant event of 6 September. The German commander shifted men fast from his left, in front of the BEF, which was doing nothing to inconvenience him, to reinforce the threatened sector

Foch’s newly formed Ninth Army held a ridge line sixty miles south-east of Paris behind a poplar-lined stream named Le Petit Morin, in the marshes of Saint-Gond. It was a desolate, uninviting region, offering attackers only a few causeway crossing places. At 11.40 a.m. on 7 September, Franchet d’Espèrey issued a general order: ‘the enemy is in retreat along the whole front. The Fifth Army will make every effort to reach Petit Morin river [at Montmirail] tonight.’ The fighting in the marshes of Saint-Gond continued bitterly. The French 75s halted Bülow’s attempts to advance, and later that day the German commander ordered a withdrawal behind the Petit Morin.

By the following day, the central and eastern parts of the German front were at a complete standstill, and the beginnings of trench warfare were developing as they dug in. At the western end, the opposite was happening. D’Esperay (and the BEF, arriving belatedly) were pouring through the gap created by Maunoury’s attack on the German right flank. 120,000 men pushed north, and cavalry charges were used successfully to support the advance. Kluck had left a single weak corps of 22,800 reservists to screen his rear, facing Paris in positions centred upon the heights of Monthyon, north-west of Meaux.  

Throughout this day, the outcome of the battle, perhaps also of the war, still hung in the balance. In the confused melee both sides found themselves faced with a succession of revolving doors – they advanced in one sector, only to find themselves driven back in another. 

French soldiers get limited protection
from a ditch at the Marne

This was the moment when the fate of the Western Front hung by a thread: Castelnau was telling Joffre that he might have to abandon Nancy; Ninth Army’s right wing had crumbled; Maurice Sarrail’s Third Army was conducting a ferocious struggle to defend the Revigny Gap covering Verdun. Messages of elaborate courtesy but increasing urgency flew from Joffre to British GHQ, pleading with Sir John French to hasten the advance of the BEF. Yet at every approach to woodland, British commanders halted to reconnoitre. Their units crossed the Petit Morin almost unopposed, but by the evening of 8 September had still not reached the Marne.

The Marne - Part 2 Joffre meets French, and the role of Edward Spears

One of the fascinations of WW1 is learning about the features (and flaws) of the key players - and not always the obvious key players. On the German side, the extraordinary role played by Hentsch comes up in part 4. In this part, meet Edward Louis Spears, another amazing guy. Many years ago I read 'Assignment to Catastrophe' by Spears - an account of the fall of France in 1940. I little realised at that time he had held such a central role in the Western Front dramas of 1914.  I now have his book Liaison 1914 on order, although he is widely quoted in many other books about this period. Joffre, French and the enigmatic Gallieni were the senior military men calling the shots, and Spears was the liaison officer - only 28yrs old - enabling the interactions that took place.     

Edward Louis Spears

He appears to have been highly intelligent; a brilliant linguist, and an inventive, courageous officer. On one occasion he presented a full evening report to Sir John French and retired from the C-in-C's presence before collapsing from blood loss caused by a bullet in the side received during his hazardous journey to HQ.

Gen Joseph Gallieni

Gallieni had waived his claims upon France’s supreme command back in 1911, deferring to Joffre. He was, in the words of Lloyd George, who met him in those days, ‘evidently a very ill man; he looked sallow, shrunken and haunted. Death seemed to be chasing the particles of life out of his veins.’ Gallieni had retired from the army that April, but when recalled to the colours in this supreme emergency he summoned up reserves of energy, resolution and insight – not to mention wit – which served France well. He was appointed Governor of the defence of Paris, and had nominal control of the new 6th Army led by Maunoury, although he needed to argue his case to amend any of Joffre's orders to Maunoury. He was the instigator of the famous 'taxi-cabs of the Marne' legend. However, even as troops poured out of Paris towards the front and Maunoury’s men took up their new positions, uncertainty persisted about the exact deployments of Fifth and Sixth Armies and the BEF.

Gen Joseph Joffre French C-in-C 1914-16

Sir John French British C-in C 1914-15

 
On the afternoon of September 4th, Joffre drove to the château of le-Pénil, at Melun, where Sir John French was billeted. The story of what followed, vividly recounted by Spears, is a great picture of this vital moment of 1914. Entering the hall, Joffre exchanged greetings with the small group of French and British officers present, all the men still standing. ‘At once,’ wrote Spears, ‘he began to speak in that low, toneless, albino voice of his, saying that he had felt it his duty to come to thank Sir John personally for having taken a decision on which the fate of Europe might well depend.’ The British field-marshal bowed. Then Joffre expounded his plan. We hung on his every word. We saw as he evoked it the immense battlefield over which the corps, drawn by the magnet of his will, were moving like pieces of intricate machinery until they clicked into their appointed places. We saw trains in long processions labouring under the weight of their human freight, great piles of shells mounting up by the sides of the ready and silent guns … Joffre seemed to be pointing the Germans out to us – blundering blindly on, hastening to their fate, their huge, massive, dusty columns rushing towards the precipice over which they would soon be rolling. As a prophet he was heard with absolute faith. We were listening to the story of the victory of the Marne, and we absolutely believed … Then, turning full on Sir John, with an appeal so intense as to be irresistible, clasping both his own hands so as to hurt them, General Joffre said: ‘Monsieur le Maréchal, c’est la France qui vous supplie.’ His hands fell to his sides wearily. The effort he had made had exhausted him. French witnesses attributed different words to Joffre: ‘Il y a de l’honneur de l’Angleterre, Monsieur le Maréchal!’ This phrase warned that Britain’s honour was at stake. What is beyond doubt is that Joffre appealed passionately to Sir John. The British C-in-C struggled to say something in response in the Frenchman’s own language. Then, abandoning the attempt, he turned to a staff officer: ‘Damn it, I can’t explain. Tell him that all that men can do our fellows will do.’ On that note, the two commanders-in-chief parted.

The Marne - Part 1. Joffre's Finest Hour

One of the factors bestowing 'miracle' as descriptor for the Marne was that it followed a long disastrous month of reverses, defeats and retreat. The seemingly unstoppable German armies continued with their advances, and showed little sign of weakening. In fact the clashes and battles fought all along the way were having an impact on their energy and resilience. The further they advanced, the longer their supply lines became.
Joffre, for all his earlier misjudgements, was magnificent in this phase.

Georges Bouillot

The image of him being chauffeured by Georges Bouillot a former Grand Prix driver and criss crossing the front is a powerful one. The most significant move was the creation of a new 6th Army under Maunoury, which wheeled from the right of the front in the south east to the north of Paris, to strengthen the position of Gallieni (defender of Paris) and the BEF on the left, and made the decisive counter stroke against Kluck.

Bouillot later became a fighter pilot

French’s defeatism threatened dire consequences, and brought the previously noted strong reaction from Kitchener. In reality, Joffre had achieved some strategic gains from the events of August. Albeit at dreadful cost, the French onslaughts in Alsace-Lorraine, such as at Nancy on 25 August, had made it impossible for the Germans to shift troops to reinforce their right flank in Belgium and northern France where the ‘hammer’ of Kluck and Bulow’s armies was getting to the state of exhaustion and short supply at the extreme of its advance.

Joffre’s car was chauffeured at breakneck speeds around the front by a former racing driver, Georges Bouillot, who had earned the appointment by winning the 1912 and 1913 French Grand Prix. The commander-in-chief’s hurtling convoy became a familiar sight in the rear areas of the armies, boosting morale.

 On 31^st August, the advancing German army was seen to turn south east towards Compiegne rather than pass to the west of Paris. By evening of 1^st September there were no German troops to the west of a line North to Senlis from Paris. Gallieni was in the perfect position to capitalize on this. He had the massive artillery of the  6^th army at his disposal to use for the defense of Paris. He could not believe his luck. Could he persuade Joffre and the BEF led by French to join him in attacking the right flank of the Germans and to allow him to use the artillery? Joffre’s original plan was to retreat further, and then hold the line between the two great fortresses of Paris and Verdun, stretching the German line to make it more vulnerable to attack.

On the morning of 1 September, for the first time since Le Cateau excepting skirmishes, the Germans caught up with elements of the BEF. Kluck was not looking for the British, in whose affairs he had lost interest; he was pushing south-eastwards towards Lanrezac's 5th Army. The right wing of the German army was passing across the allied front, exposing itself to counter-attack, and in consequence his leading elements crossed the British sector as they headed towards Château-Thierry and bridges across the Marne. 

Gen. Louis Franchet d'Esperey

On September 3^rd at Bar-sur-Aube, where Joffre had now transferred his HQ, Lanrezac was fired, and replaced as General of the 5^th Army by his foremost corps commander, d’Espèrey. D'Esperey was a tigerish officer who had distinguished himself in the fighting at Dinant and Guise, and would eventually become one of the most admired French generals of the war. The British envoy at the meeting, Lt Louis Spears, wrote that ‘his head reminded me of a howitzer shell’.

By 4^th September, Gallieni was still waiting for a response from Joffre, so he drove off in his car to find French at the BEF HQ at Melun. Although French was not unwilling to fight on the Marne, he was of the view that the French army was on the edge of collapse, and would retreat much further. In any case, he was out with his troops when Gallieni arrived to speak with him. While Gallieni was searching for French, Joffre was pondering his letter urging the attack on Kluck’s flank. At noon on 4^th September he agreed Maunoury’s army could be used for Gallieni’s purpose, and also involve d’Esperay, commanding the 5^th Army on Maunoury’s right. Unfortunately,  there were delays in co-ordinating these orders for a general counter-attack, and by the morning of 6^th  the BEF was still retreating further south.

In the midst of this communication confusion,  in London on September 4th representatives of the British, French and Russian governments emphasised their solidarity by signing an agreement, which became known as the Declaration of London, whereby each pledged not to conclude a separate peace with Germany.

No more retreating - the build up to Battle of the Marne

The ‘Miracle of the Marne’ was the greatest counter-attack in history, and the most decisive battle of WW1.
How did France - with some (initially) reluctant help from the BEF - turn around the desperate defeats of the first month to save Paris and the Allied cause? Sir John French was so disillusioned after the long retreat, and his inability to get on with Joffre, he was keen to withdraw the whole BEF way beyond Paris, perhaps even taking them back to England via western French ports. French's behaviour prompted the famous arrival of Earl Kitchener at the Western Front, and no doubt was a major factor in his replacement as C-in- C of the BEF in 1915.


According to Buchan, “Sir John had plunged into a chasm of despair. French defeats and the seemingly unstoppable German advance had shaken his nerve. The Battle of Le Cateau tipped him over the edge. French was furious that Smith-Dorrien had chosen to fight rather than retreat, and was convinced that II Corps had been virtually destroyed. At the very moment that the fortunes of the BEF were beginning to turn, the commander of the army was mired in a mental defeat”. 
What French failed to understand was that this campaign was a life and death struggle for a nation. The fate of France hung in the balance. By this stage British commitment was not optional – it was essential. Sir John could not simply withdraw the BEF and then return as and when he chose: he might find there was nothing but a victorious German army left to greet his return. He sent a garbled message to London about withdrawing the entire BEF south of Paris to recover, and this was too much for Kitchener, who announced his intention to visit the front in person. Kitchener's presence there infuriated French, who felt undermined, but it served to convince him that he must support Joffre, who had travelled to the British HQ to make an emotional appeal for unity, and support for France’s future.

(Hastings) Joffre had presided over catastrophe in the ‘Battles of the Frontiers’ (in this sector, the French had suffered grievous defeats at Charleroi, Dinant and Virton, and things were worse in the centre and right of the French lines), but at least there was no doubt of his authority over his armies, and close supervision of their operations. Also his move of the additional army of Maunoury to the western flank made a huge difference to the progress of Kluck and Bulow, enabling the French 5^th army and (later) the BEF to exploit the gap created between German 1^st and 2^nd armies. Moltke, by contrast, left his subordinates in the field to execute his plans almost without intervention or coordination, and the lack of good communication between them contributed to the German failure at the Marne.

Von Kluck, the German 1st Army commander, had responded to events by turning his army from a south westerly course to a south easterly one which would bring him closer to Second Army. This meant that the German advance would no longer sweep around Paris, as the original Schlieffen Plan had required, but would instead pass to the north east of the city. This seemingly minor change had major implications, but the German Staff HQ was still in a state of euphoria after the earlier successes, and the overly optimistic reports still reaching them. They felt the BEF was finished, and that Kluck could continue as originally planned to the west of Paris, with Bulow to the east. Kluck either disagreed or did not receive orders, and chose to change the direction of his advance. 

Paris in 1914 was the largest fortress in the world, and despite their rapid successes the Germans (including Kluck) were anxious that they had enough men to take it directly. They remembered the frustrating months siege of Paris in the 1870 Franco-Prussian war. As a result, Kluck decided to modify the Schlieffen plan and to pass to the north of Paris. Moltke, although not in direct communication with Kluck, probably felt confident that the Germans could drive the whole French army back towards Switzerland, and destroy it between Nancy and Verdun.

The consequence of the Marne was not a single battle, and nor was it fought on one battlefield. It was a series of engagements, many of them tumultuous, at points along a wide front between Paris to the west and the German borders to the south east, and it turned the eventual outcome of the war. The most critical sector of the front was between Paris and the Marne. There, the full battle would rage for four days. Much of it was fought in a maze of waterways that serve as tributaries of the Marne: the Ourcq, which flowed north and south on both sides of Maunoury’s advance; the Petit Morin and Grand Morin, which ran east and west across the line of advance of the French 5^th Army and the BEF; and finally the Saint-Gond Marshes, from which arose the Petit Morin river, and where Foch’s 9^th Army stood.