Read The Guns of August Online
Authors: Barbara W. Tuchman
The Schlieffen plan had failed, but it had succeeded far enough to leave the Germans in occupation of all of Belgium and all of northern France down to the Aisne. As Clemenceau’s paper was tirelessly to remind its readers, month after month, year after year,
“Messieurs les Allemands sont toujours à Noyon.”
For their presence there, deep within France, the error of Plan 17 was responsible. It had allowed the enemy to penetrate too far to be dislodged by the time the French regathered their strength at the Marne. It permitted the breakthrough that could only be stemmed, and later only contained, at a cost of the terrible drain of French manhood that was to make the war of 1914–1918 the parent of 1940.
*
It was an error that could never be repaired. Failure of Plan 17 was as fatal as failure of the Schlieffen plan, and together they produced deadlock on the Western Front. Sucking up lives at a rate of 5,000 and sometimes 50,000 a day, absorbing munitions, energy, money, brains, and trained men, the Western Front ate up Allied war resources and predetermined the failure of back-door efforts like that of the Dardanelles which might otherwise have shortened the war. The deadlock, fixed by the failures of the first month, determined the future course of the war and, as a result, the terms of the peace, the shape of the interwar period, and the conditions of the Second Round.
Men could not sustain a war of such magnitude and pain without hope—the hope that its very enormity would ensure that it could never happen again and the hope that when somehow it had been fought through to a resolution, the foundations of a better-ordered world would have been laid. Like the shimmering vision of Paris that kept Kluck’s soldiers on their feet, the mirage of a better world glimmered beyond the shell-pitted wastes and leafless stumps that had once been green fields and waving poplars. Nothing less could give dignity or sense to monstrous offensives in which thousands and hundreds of thousands were killed to gain ten yards and exchange one wet-bottomed trench for another. When every autumn people said it could not last through the winter, and when every spring there was still no end in sight, only the hope that out of it all some good would accrue to mankind kept men and nations fighting.
When at last it was over, the war had many diverse results and one dominant one transcending all others: disillusion. “All the great words were cancelled out for that generation,”
wrote D. H. Lawrence in simple summary for his contemporaries. If any of them remembered, with a twinge of pain, like Emile Verhaeren, “the man I used to be,” it was because he knew the great words and beliefs of the time before 1914 could never be restored.
After the Marne the war grew and spread until it drew in the nations of both hemispheres and entangled them in a pattern of world conflict no peace treaty could dissolve. The Battle of the Marne was one of the decisive battles of the world not because it determined that Germany would ultimately lose or the Allies ultimately win the war but because it determined that the war would go on. There was no looking back, Joffre told the soldiers on the eve. Afterward there was no turning back. The nations were caught in a trap, a trap made during the first thirty days out of battles that failed to be decisive, a trap from which there was, and has been, no exit.
*
In the chapel of St. Cyr (before it was destroyed during World War II) the memorial tablet to the dead of the Great War bore only a single entry for “the Class of 1914.” The mortality rate is further illustrated by the experience of André Varagnac, a nephew of the cabinet minister Marcel Sembat, who came of military age in 1914 but was not mobilized in August owing to illness, and found himself, out of the twenty-seven boys in his lycée class, the only one alive by Christmas. According to
Armées Françaises,
French casualties in the month of August alone amounted to 206,515, including killed, wounded, and missing out of total effectives for the armies in the field of 1,600,000. As these figures do not include officers or garrison and Territorial divisions, the number is believed to be nearer 300,000. Most were incurred during the four days of the Battle of the Frontiers. No separate figures have been published for the Battle of the Marne, but if the estimated losses through September 11 are added to those of August, the total through the first thirty days is equivalent to a daily loss of the whole population of a town the size of Soissons or Compiègne. No exact figures can be given because in line with GQG’s fixed policy against releasing any information of possible value to the enemy, casualty lists were not published. Nor is it possible to give comparable figures for the other belligerents because they tabulated losses at different intervals and on different basis. When the war was over, the known dead per capita of population were 1 to 28 for France, 1 to 32 for Germany, 1 to 57 for England and 1 to 107 for Russia.
The following list contains only titles cited in the Notes. It is confined to primary sources, including those biographies and special studies, like Ritter’s
Schlieffen Plan,
which include primary material. A short list of secondary works is given separately. All titles are given in English or French translation where these exist.
A full bibliography of the subject would fill a book. No other episode in history has been more fully documented by its participants. They seem to have known, while they lived it, that like the French Revolution, the First World War was one of the great convulsions of history, and each felt the hand of history heavily on his own shoulder. When it was over, despite courage, skill, and sacrifice, the war they had fought proved to have been, on the whole, a monument of failure, tragedy, and disillusion. It had not led to a better world. Men who had taken part at the command level, political and military, felt driven to explain their decisions and actions. Men who had fallen from high command, whether for cause or as scapegoats—and these included most of the commanders of August—wrote their private justifications. As each account appeared, inevitably shifting responsibility or blame to someone else, another was provoked. Private feuds became public; public controversies expanded. Men who would otherwise have remained mute were stung to publish, as Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien by Sir John French. Books proliferated. Whole schools of partisans, like those of Gallieni and Joffre, produced libraries of controversy.
Through this forest of special pleading the historian gropes his way, trying to recapture the truth of past events and find out “what really happened.” He discovers that truth is subjective and separate, made up of little bits seen, experienced, and recorded by different people. It is like a design seen through a kaleidoscope; when the cylinder is shaken the countless colored fragments form a new picture. Yet they are the same fragments that made a different picture a moment earlier. This is the problem inherent in the records left by actors in past events. That famous goal,
“wie es wirklich war,”
is never wholly within our grasp.
Official Government Publications
C
ARNEGIE
E
NDOWMENT FOR
I
NTERNATIONAL
P
EACE
,
Diplomatic Documents Relating to the Outbreak of the European War,
2 vols., ed. James Brown Scott, New York, Oxford, 1916. Contains the official publications of the various Foreign Offices which appeared at intervals after the outbreak, beginning with the hurriedly assembled and highly selective
German White Book
issued on August 4, 1914. Included are the
Austro-Hungarian Red, Belgian Grey, French Yellow, German White, British Blue I and II, Italian Green, Russian Orange I and II
and
Serbian Blue
Books.
F
RANCE
, Assemblée Nationale, Chambre des Deputés, Session de 1919.
Procès-Verbaux de la Commission d’Enquète sur le rôle et la situation de la metal-lurgie en France: defense du Bassin de Briey,
1
re
et 2
me
parties.
———.
Rapport de la Commission d’Enquète
par M. Fernand Engerand, deputé. 1
re
partie: “Concentration de la metallurgic française sur la frontière de l’Est.” 2
me
partie: “La perte de Briey.”
These hearings (referred to in Notes as “Briey”), at which the principal chiefs of the French General Staff as well as field commanders were called to testify, are the basic source for French military policy in August, 1914. They grew out of the loss of the Briey iron ore basin which became critical as the war went on. Certain sinister underpinnings of the munitions industry with its interlocking Franco-German directorates led a deputy, M. Fernand Engerand, to pursue a persistent investigation into the circumstances of the loss of Briey and this led by natural stages to an investigation of French strategy at the outset of the war. When the war was over, M. Engerand succeeded in getting a Committee of Inquiry appointed of which he was named
rapporteur.
“As our inquiry unrolled with all its illustrious witnesses,” he wrote in his Report, it was plain that the truth about the origins and failure of Plan 17 was being “obstinately hidden” from the government and the Chamber of Deputies, but “we have tried to unravel the tangled and hidden threads of this month of August, 1914, the most tragic, perhaps, in all history of France.”
F
RANCE
, Ministère de la Guerre; Etat-major de l’Armée, Service Historique,
Les Armées Françaises dans la grande guerre,
Tome I, Vols. 1 and 2 and
Annexes
Paris, Imprimerie Nationale 1922–1925. Referred to in Notes as AF. The first volume of the Official History, beginning with the pre-1914 war plans and the Michel incident of 1911, covers the war through the Battle of the Frontiers. The second volume covers the Retreat up to the eve of the Battle of the Marne. The real value is in the two volumes of Annexes containing the texts of orders and communications between GQG and the armies. These are the most vivid and immediate source material of all.
G
ERMANY
, Foreign Office,
Outbreak of the World War;
German documents collected by Karl Kautsky and edited by Max Montgelas and Walther Schucking, translated by Carnegie Endowment, New York, Oxford, 1924. Referred to in Notes as “Kautsky.” Assembled and published by the Weimar Government to supplement the original German White Book.
G
ERMANY
, Genralstaab,
Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege
(Usages of War on Land), translated as
The German War Book
by J. H. Morgan, London, Murray, 1915.
G
ERMANY
, Marine-Archiv,
Der Krieg zur See, 1914–18,
No. 5, Band 1,
Der Krieg in dem Turkische Gewassen; Die Mittelmeer Division,
Berlin, Mittler, 1928.
G
ERMANY
, Reichsarchiv,
Der Weltkrieg 1914–18,
Band 1,
Die Militärische Operationen zu Lande; Die Grenzschlachten im Westen,
Band 3,
Von der Sambre bis zur Marne,
Berlin, Mittler, 1924.
G
REAT
B
RITAIN
, Committee of Imperial Defence, Historical Section, C
ORBETT,
S
IR
J
ULIAN
,
Naval Operations: History of the Great War Based on Official Documents,
Vol. I, New York, Longmans, 1920. Referred to in Notes as “Corbett.”
———, E
DMONDS
, B
RIGADIER
-G
ENERAL
J
AMES
E.,
Military Operations: France and Belgium,
1914, Vol. I and volume of maps, 3rd ed., London, Macmillan, 1933. Referred to in Notes as “Edmonds.” This work of superb scholarship is particularly valuable for its selections from German and French sources, showing for a given date the actual situation of the BEF’s enemies and allies and how each appeared to the other.
———, F
AYLE
, C. E
RNEST,
Seaborne Trade,
Vol. I, London, Murray, 1920.
G
REAT
B
RITAIN
, Foreign Office.
British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898–1914,
11 vols., eds. G. P. Gooch and H. W. V. Temperley, London, 1927–38. Referred to in Notes as “BD.”
U
NITED
S
TATES
, Department of State.
Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the U. S. Supplements,
World War, 1914, Washington, G.P.O., 1928
Non-Official Sources
On Belgium
B
ASSOMPIERRE,
B
ARON
A
LFRED DE
,
The Night of August 2–3, 1914, at the Belgian Foreign Office,
tr. London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1916.
B
EYENS,
B
ARON
,
Deux Années à Berlin, 1912–14,
2 vols., Paris, Plon, 1931.
C
AMMAERTS
, E
MILE
,
Albert of Belgium,
tr. New York, Macmillan, 1935.
C
ARTON DE
W
IART
, H
ENRY
(Belgian Minister of Justice in 1914).
Souvenirs politiques,
Brussels, Brouwer, 1948.
C
OBB
, I
RWIN
S.,
Paths of Glory—Impressions of War Written at and near the Front,
New York, Dutton, 1914.
D
AVIS
, R
ICHARD
H
ARDING
,
With the Allies,
New York, Scribner’s, 1914.
D
EMBLON
, C
ELESTIN
(deputy of Liège),
La Guerre a Liège: Pages d’un témoin,
Paris, Lib. Anglo-Française, 1915.
D’Y
DEWALLE
, C
HARLES
,
Albert and the Belgians,
tr. New York, Morrow, 1935.
E
SSEN
, L
éON
VAN DER
,
The Invasion and the War in Belgium from Liège to the Yser,
tr. London, Unwin, 1917.
G
ALET
, G
ENERAL
E
MILE
J
OSEPH
,
Albert, King of the Belgians, in the Great War,
tr. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1931. This record by King Albert’s personal military adviser and later Chief of Staff, is authoritative, thorough, detailed, and indispensable.
G
IBSON
, H
UGH
(First Secretary of the American Legation),
A Journal from Our Legation in Belgium,
New York, Doubleday, 1917.
K
LOBUKOWSKI
, A. (French Minister in Brussels), “Souvenirs de Belgique,”
Revue de Paris,
Sept.-Oct., 1927.
———, “La Résistance belge à l’invasion allemande,”
Revue d’Histoire de la Guerre,
July 1932.
M
ALCOLM
, I
AN
, ed.,
Scraps of Paper: German Proclamations in Belgium and France,
New York, Doran, 1916.
M
ILLARD
, O
SCAR
E.,
Burgomaster Max,
London, Hutchinson, 1936.
P
OWELL
, E. A
LEXANDER
(correspondent of the
New York World
attached to the Belgian forces in 1914),
Fighting in Flanders,
New York, Scribner’s, 1914.
S
CHRYVER
, C
OL
. A.
DE
,
La Bataille de Liège,
Liège, Vaillant-Carmanne, 1922.
S
UTHERLAND
, M
ILLICENT
, D
UCHESS OF
(leader of a volunteer ambulance corps of nurses to Belgium in August, 1914),
Six Weeks at the War,
Chicago, McCluny, 1915.
V
ERHAEREN
, E
MILE
,
La Belgique sanglante,
Paris, Nouvelle Revue Française, 1915.
W
HITLOCK
, B
RAND
,
Belgium: A Personal Narrative,
Vol. I, New York, Appleton, 1910. President Wilson’s appointment as Minister to Belgium of the lawyer and former journalist who had won fame as Independent mayor of Toledo for four terms proved fortunate for history. A progressive in politics, outspoken and courageous, Whitlock was also a writer of distinction. His book, together with that of Hugh Gibson who, though a professional diplomat, wrote without wraps, constitute a remarkable record of a fatal month in the history of a nation.
On England and the BEF
A
DDISON
, C
HRISTOPHER
(Parliamentary Secretary to Board of Education),
Four and a Half Years: A Personal Diary from June 1914 to January 1919,
London, Hutchinson, 1934.
A
NGELL
, N
ORMAN
,
The Great Illusion: A Study of the Relation of Military Power to National Advantage,
4th ed., New York, Putnam’s, 1913.
A
RMY
Q
UARTERLY
, London. Referred to in Notes as AQ. This journal’s reviews of foreign books on the war, as they came out during the 1920s, provide the most inclusive and informative guide in English to the literature of the First World War.
A
RTHUR
, S
IR
G
EORGE
,
Life of Lord Kitchener,
Vol. III, New York, Macmillan, 1920.
———,
George V,
New York, Cape, 1930.
A
SQUITH
, E
ARL OF
O
XFORD AND
,
Memories and Reflections,
2 vols., London, Cassell, 1928.
A
STON
, M
AJOR-
G
ENERAL
S
IR
G
EORGE
,
Biography of the Late Marshal Foch,
London, Hutchinson, 1930.
B
ACON
, A
DMIRAL
S
IR
R
EGINALD
,
Life of Lord Fisher,
London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1929.
B
EAVERBROOK
, L
ORD
,
Politicians and the War, 1914–16, New York,
Doubleday, Doran, 1928.
B
ERTIE
, L
ORD
,
Diary of Lord Bertie of Thame,
Vol. I, London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1924.
B
IRKENHEAD
, V
ISCOUNT
,
Points of View,
Vol. I, London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1922.
B
LAKE
, R
OBERT
, ed.,
Haig: Private Papers, 1914–18,
London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1952.
B
RIDGES
, L
IEUT
.-G
ENERAL
S
IR
T
OM
(Officer in the 2nd Cavalry Brigade of the BEF and formerly military attaché in Brussels),
Alarms and Excursions,
London, Longmans, 1938.
C
ALLWELL
, M
AJOR
-G
ENERAL
S
IR
C
HARLES
E. (Became Director of Operations and Intelligence at the War Office in August, 1914, when Wilson and Macdonogh went to France),
Experiences of a Dug-Out, 1914–18,
London, Constable, 1920.