The Guns of August (71 page)

It was September 2, Sedan Day, and “the hateful moment had come.” When he learned that arrangements had been made for the government to leave in the middle of the night instead of by day in the sight of the public, Poincaré’s “grief and humiliation” increased. The Cabinet insisted that his presence was legally required at the seat of government; even Mme. Poincaré, who begged to continue her hospital work in Paris as a public gesture, was not allowed to remain. Ambassador Myron Herrick of the United States, his face all “puckered up” came to say goodbye with tears in his eyes.

To Herrick, as to everyone inside the French capital at that moment, “the terrible onslaught of the Germans,” as he wrote to his son, “seems almost beyond resistance.” He had received
a warning from the Germans advising him to leave for the provinces as “whole quarters” of Paris might be destroyed. He was determined to stay, however, and promised Poincaré to protect the museums and monuments of Paris under the American flag as being “in the custody of humanity at large.” Already he had formed a plan, fitting the desperate and exalted mood of the hour, that “if the Germans reached the outskirts of the city and demanded its surrender, to go out and talk with their army commander and, if possible, the Kaiser.” As custodian of their embassy, at their request, he could demand a hearing. In later days, when friends who had lived through the first week of September in Paris used to count themselves a select number, Gallieni would say, “Don’t forget, there was also Herrick.”

At seven o’clock Gallieni went to take farewell of Millerand. The War Ministry in the Rue St. Dominique was “sad, dark and deserted” and the courtyard filled with huge moving vans in which the archives were being piled for shipment to Bordeaux. The remainder were burned. The process of packing up created a “lugubrious” atmosphere. Climbing the unlit staircase, Gallieni found the Minister alone in an empty room. Now that the government was leaving, Millerand did not hesitate to allow Paris and everyone in it to come under fire. His orders to Gallieni, who hardly needed to be told, were to defend Paris
“à outrance.”

“Do you understand,
M. le Ministre,
the significance of the words,
à outrance?
” Gallieni asked. “They mean destruction, ruins, dynamiting bridges in the center of the city.”

“À outrance,”
Millerand repeated. Saying goodbye, he looked at Gallieni as at a man he was unlikely ever to see again, and Gallieni felt “pretty well persuaded, myself, that I was remaining to be killed.”

Some hours later, in darkness and self-imposed secrecy that afflicted many of them with a sense of shame, ministers and members of Parliament boarded the train for Bordeaux, clothing the inglorious moment in a noble statement to the public next morning. “To hold out and fight,” it said, must
now become the order of the day. France would hold out and fight while on the seas England cut the enemy’s communications with the rest of the world and the Russians “continue to advance and carry the decisive blow to the heart of the German empire!” (It was not considered the moment to add news of a Russian defeat.) In order to give the greatest “
élan
and effectiveness” to French resistance, the government, at the demand of the military, was moving “momentarily” to a place where it could remain in unbroken and constant contact with the whole country. “Frenchmen, let us be worthy of these tragic circumstances. We will obtain the final victory—by unfaltering will, by endurance, by tenacity—by refusing to perish.”

Gallieni was content with a short sharp notice worded deliberately to dispel rumors that Paris had been declared an open city and to let the people know what to expect. His proclamation appeared on the walls of Paris in the morning:

The shock to the public was all the greater since GQG’s policy of issuing only the least explicit communiqués had left people uninformed as to the seriousness of the military situation. The government appeared to have decamped without due cause. Its nocturnal going off left a painful impression which was not dispelled by what proved to be an extended and tenacious affection for Bordeaux. Puns were made at the expense of the government, calling them
“tournedos à la
Bordelaise,”
and the crowds who stormed the railway stations in their wake inspired a parody of “The Marseillaise”:

These were “days of anguish” for the Military Government of Paris. With the armies retreating north and east of the city, the problem of how long to hold and when to destroy the eighty bridges in the region caused increasing tension and anxiety. Commanders in each sector, as soon as they had assured passage of their own troops, were anxious to blow up the bridges behind them in order to cut off pursuit. GQG’s orders were to let “no bridge fall intact into enemy hands”; at the same time the bridges would be needed for a return to the offensive. Three different commands were operating in the area: Gallieni’s, Joffre’s and, geographically between them, that of Sir John French whose chief concern since Kitchener’s visit was to make a show of his independence of everybody. Engineers of the Paris camp guarding the bridges were beset by a conflict of orders. “A disaster is preparing,” reported an officer of Engineers to General Hirschauer.

By nightfall of September 2 the British had reached the Marne and got across next day. Below Compiègne the troops discovered they were marching off their maps, and now it dawned on them that this was not after all a “strategic retreat” as they had been told by their officers. Their bases at Boulogne and Havre had by now been evacuated and all stores and personnel moved down to Saint-Nazaire at the mouth of the Loire.

About a day’s march behind them the Fifth Army was still not yet out of danger of envelopment. In the continuing hot weather, retreat and pursuit went on, prey as tired as pursuers. Since the Battle of Guise the Fifth Army had been marching eighteen to twenty miles a day. Along its route groups of deserters pillaged farms and homes and spread panic among the population with tales of German terror. Executions took place. Lanrezac thought no army ever underwent such an ordeal as his. At the same time a British officer said of the BEF,
“I would never have believed that men could be so tired and so hungry and yet live.” Trying to find a source of encouragement during these days, Henry Wilson said to Colonel Huguet, “The Germans are over-hasty. They urge the pursuit too fast. The whole thing is overdone. They are bound to make a big mistake and then your hour will come.”

Up to this point Joffre and his advisers at GQG, although aware of Kluck’s inward wheel, did not see in it an important or early opportunity for attack on his flank. Kluck’s shift in pursuit of the British on September 2 left them uncertain whether he might not be turning back against Paris. In any event their minds were not on Paris but were fixed on a general battle along the Seine, not to take place until they had reestablished a solid front. After further anxious consultation at GQG, Joffre came to a decision to continue the retreat “several days’ march to the rear” of where the armies then stood, which would allow time to bring up reinforcements from his right wing. Despite the risk of weakening the barely held line of the Moselle, he decided to bring over a corps each from the First and Second Armies.

His decision was embodied in secret instructions issued to the army commanders on September 2 which made the Seine and Aube definitive as the line to be reached. The object, Joffre explained, was “to extricate the armies from the enemy’s pressure and enable them to reorganize,” and when this had been accomplished and reinforcements from the east brought up, “at that moment to pass to the offensive.” The British Army would be “asked to participate in the maneuver” and the garrison of Paris “will act in the direction of Meaux,” that is, against Kluck’s flank. Still omitting a date, Joffre said he would give the signal “within a few days.” Commanders were ordered to take “the most draconian measures” against deserters to ensure orderly retreat. Asking each to understand the situation and extend his utmost efforts, Joffre made it clear that this would be the battle “upon which the salvation of the country depends.”

Gallieni, receiving the orders in Paris, condemned Joffre’s plan because it sacrificed Paris and was “divorced from
reality.” He believed the pace of the German pursuit would allow the French Armies no time to reach or reform upon the Seine. Scattered reports of Kluck’s southeastward march were reaching him, but he had not been informed of the vital confirmation found by Captain Fagalde. On the night of September 2, expecting attack next day, he slept at his Headquarters, which were now established in the Lycée Victor-Duruy, a girls’ school across the street from the Invalides. A large building set back behind trees, it was isolated from the public and, having fewer entrances and exits than the Invalides, was easier to guard. Sentinels were posted at the doors, field telephones connected with all divisional headquarters of the fortified camp, offices set apart for the Operations and Intelligence staffs, mess and sleeping quarters arranged, and Gallieni was enabled, with great relief, to move into “a regular field Headquarters just as at the front.”

The following morning, September 3, he learned definitely of Kluck’s movement toward the Marne, away from Paris. Lieutenant Watteau, an aviator of the Paris garrison making a reconnaissance flight, saw the enemy columns “gliding from west to east” toward the valley of the Ourcq. Later a second airplane from the Paris camp confirmed the report.

In the staff room of Gallieni’s
Deuxième Bureau
an unspoken excitement communicated itself among the officers. Colonel Girodon, an officer wounded at the front who, however, “considered himself fit to do staff work,” was lying on a chaise longue with his eyes fixed on the wall map on which colored pins traced the direction of the German advance. General Clergerie, Gallieni’s Chief of Staff, entered the room just as another air reconnaissance report from British aviators was brought in. As once more the pins were moved, the track of Kluck’s turn appeared unmistakably on the map, and Clergerie and Girodon cried out together: “They offer us their flank! They offer us their flank!”

G
ALLIENI INSTANTLY SAW
the opportunity offered to the Army of Paris. Without hesitating he made up his mind to launch an attack on the flank of the German right wing at the earliest moment and induce Joffre to support the maneuver by resuming the offensive at once, on the entire front, instead of continuing the retreat to the Seine. Although the Army of Paris, of which Maunoury’s Sixth Army was the core, was under Gallieni’s command, the camp of Paris with all its forces had been, since the day before, under Joffre’s command. To launch the Sixth Army upon the offensive two conditions were necessary: Joffre’s consent and support of the Sixth Army’s nearest neighbor, the BEF. Both stood between Paris and Kluck’s flank, Maunoury north and the British south of the Marne.

Gallieni summoned his Chief of Staff, General Clergerie, to what Clergerie called “one of those long conferences he holds on grave issues—they usually last from two to five minutes.” It was now 8:30
P.M.
of September 3. They agreed, if Kluck’s line of march were maintained next morning, to exert every pressure upon Joffre for an immediate combined offensive. Aviators of the Paris camp were ordered to make early reconnaissance flights, upon which “grave decisions would depend,” and to report before 10:00
A.M.

Success of a flank attack, as General Hirschauer warned, “depends on the spearhead penetrating,” and the Sixth Army
was not the strong sharp instrument Gallieni would have liked. It had reached the positions assigned to it in a generally exhausted condition. Some units had marched thirty-seven miles during the day and night of September 2. Fatigue depressed morale. Gallieni, like his colleagues, considered reserve divisions, of which Maunoury’s Army was largely composed, as of “mediocre value.” The 62nd Reserve, which had not had a day of rest or one day without combat during the retreat, had lost two-thirds of its officers and had only reserve lieutenants as replacements. The IVth Corps had not yet arrived. Only the “calm and resolution” of the people of Paris—those who did not flee south—was a source of satisfaction.

Von Kluck reached the Marne on the evening of September 3 after Lanrezac’s Army, which he was pursuing, and the British on his outer flank, had got across earlier in the day. Between them, in the haste, weariness, and confusion of retreat, and despite, or because of, the rain of telegrams about demolitions, they left bridges intact or only partially destroyed. Kluck held the bridgeheads and, disobeying the order to remain level with Bülow, intended to cross in the morning, continuing his inward wheel in pursuit of the Fifth Army. He had sent three messages to OHL announcing his intention to cross the Marne but as wireless communication with Luxembourg was even worse than with Coblenz, they did not get through until the following day. Out of contact with the First Army for two days, OHL did not know Kluck had disobeyed the order of September 2; by the time they found out, his leading columns were across the Marne.