The Marne, 1914: The Opening of World War I and the Battle That Changed the World (45 page)

Lauenstein, while in the rank of captain, had developed chronic thyroid eye disease,
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which attacked his heart as well as nervous system; its symptoms included extreme nervousness, muscular tremors, palpitation of the heart, and protrusion of the eyeballs. Although only fifty-seven years old in 1914, the stress and strain of four weeks of constant combat had severely tested his nerves. Captain Koeppen, who was at the critical meeting in Montmort, later informed the Reichsarchiv that on 8 September, Lauenstein had made a “sick, almost apathetic impression” on him.
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Bülow’s chief of staff seemed to suffer from heart palpitations during the meeting and managed to get through it only “with strong means, especially alcohol.” Lieutenant Colonel Matthes, in fact, had taken Lauenstein’s place in decision making. Incredibly, Wilhelm II awarded Lauenstein the Iron Cross, First Class, for his role in the Battle of the Marne. Lauenstein died of heart disease in 1916. The degree to which these physical ailments affected their decision making that 8 September remains an interesting, but open, question.

HENTSCH ARRIVED AT MAREUIL-SUR-OURCQ
at 11:30
AM
on 9 September after a five-hour detour via Reims, Fismes, and Fère-en-Tardenois. If the sight of wagon shafts turned away from the front had already alarmed him at Montmort, what he witnessed en route to Mareuil unnerved the staff officer.
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At Fère-en-Tardenois, he encountered ammunition and supply trains, horse-drawn artillery, weary infantrymen, and columns of wounded cavalrymen fleeing from the front helter-skelter for fear of being cut off by advancing French forces. At Neuilly–Saint-Front, he could not get through, as the town was “plugged up” by countless people running in terror of what they thought to be bombs falling. Finally making his way through Neuilly “by the repeated use of force,” Hentsch headed south. At Brumetz, he had to turn around when informed (incorrectly) that British cavalry was already in the area. Then panicked Landwehr soldiers fired at his car, taking it to be part of a French advance guard. At every stop, he was told that the enemy had driven German cavalry from the Marne and had crossed the river in pursuit.

General von Kuhl, First Army’s chief of staff, met Hentsch on a dusty road at Mareuil. He quickly brought his former assistant up to speed: First Army that morning had been seriously threatened by Maunoury’s attacks on the Ourcq; aviators had reported the British advance into the gap between the two German armies in the area north of the Petit Morin River stretching from Montmirail west to La Fertésous-Jouarre; and Hans von Gronau’s IV Reserve Corps had been ground down in the fighting. But the arrival of Ferdinand von Quast’s IX Corps and Friedrich Sixt von Arnim’s IV Corps had stabilized the situation.
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The two officers then entered Kuhl’s operations room. No protocol was kept. Neither cared to send for General von Kluck, who was a mere two to three hundred meters away at his command post. Obviously, two General Staff officers could decide First Army’s operations without its commander. Kuhl announced that First Army’s right wing was about to turn Maunoury’s left flank, and that he viewed the BEF’s advance into the gap “not at all tragically” since the British had reeled back in confusion ever since Mons and Le Cateau. “We knew from previous experience,” one of Kuhl’s staff officers later stated, “how slowly the British operated.” In any case, the two German cavalry corps would be able to “deal” with the BEF. A second staff officer recalled that Hentsch was “dumbfounded” by this optimistic evaluation of the situation.

Hentsch then made his formal presentation. Fifth Army was tied down at Verdun; Sixth and Seventh armies likewise were pinned at Nancy-Épinal; and Bülow’s VII Corps had not “withdrawn” behind the Marne but had been “hurled” back across the river. To wit, the time for a general retreat had come. Third Army was to withdraw northeastward of Châlons, Fourth and Fifth armies via Clermont-en-Argonne to Verdun, Second Army behind the Marne, and First Army in the direction of Soissons and Fismes to close up with Second Army. A new German army was being formed at Saint-Quentin, whereupon the offensive could be renewed. Knowing that Bülow had ordered Second Army to fall back on Dormans, Hentsch took a charcoal pen and drew the lines of retreat for First Army on Kuhl’s staff map.

Kuhl “vigorously” objected.
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First Army’s right wing was about to break Maunoury’s left; the attack had to be given a chance to succeed; a retreat by his exhausted and disorganized forces was out of the question. And how, he demanded to know, had Bülow come to retreat behind the Marne? Hentsch obfuscated. “The decision to retreat,” he coldly replied, “had been a bitter pill for Old Bülow to swallow.” He then repeated the unsubstantiated but critical comment made by either Bülow or Matthes at Montmort that Second Army had been reduced to “cinders” by Franchet d’Espèrey’s vicious attacks. Finally, Hentsch pulled his ace out of his sleeve: He had come with “full power of authority” and “in the name of the Oberste-Heeresleitung” ordered First Army to retreat. It was less than a clinical staff performance.

Kuhl was thunderstruck. If Second Army had indeed been reduced to “cinders” and was being forced to withdraw from the Marne, then “not even a victory over Maunoury” could spare First Army’s left flank from certain destruction. In the terse verdict of the German official history, “The dice were cast.” Kuhl had no direct telephone line to Luxembourg, and he chose not to use one of his aircraft to send a staff officer to Montmort to confer with Bülow or Lauenstein. Later on, he simply informed Kluck of his discussion with Hentsch. “With a heavy heart, General von Kluck was obliged to accept the order.”
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Kuhl, who understood the inner workings of the General Staff system better than anyone, conceded at Hentsch’s requested Court of Inquiry in April 1917 that the lieutenant colonel had “not exceeded his authority.” Erich Ludendorff, then deputy chief of staff of the German army, concurred. “He [Hentsch] merely acted according to the instructions he received from the then Chief of the General Staff [Moltke].”
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Hentsch, “psychologically deeply shaken” by the gravity of his action and fearful that he would be “blamed for the unfortunate termination of the [Schlieffen-Moltke] operation,”
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departed Mareuil at 1
PM
—not to brief Second Army on his discussions with Kuhl but to inform Third, Fourth, and Fifth armies of the decision to retreat. Fifteen minutes later, Kluck issued formal orders “at the behest of the OHL” for First Army to break off the battle with French Sixth Army and to withdraw “in the general direction of Soissons.”
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Thus ended First Army’s bloody thirty-day, six-hundred-kilometer advance on Paris.

There are times when senior military leaders have the right and the duty not to obey orders that make no sense, but to act in the best interests of their army and country. General Ludwig Yorck von Wartenburg was one such commander, who in December 1812 had signed a neutrality pact with Russia at Tauroggen rather than to continue to have the Prussian army serve as a hoplite force for Napoleon I. On 9 September 1914, Kluck and Kuhl owed it to their soldiers and their country to see the battle with French Sixth Army through to conclusion. For the last chance to win the campaign in the west rested with their decision. A simple demand for formal written orders from the kaiser or the chief of the General Staff would have done the trick since, given the deplorable state of German communications, it would have taken two days to send the message and to receive a reply from Moltke. Instead, we are left with the great “what if?” on the Ourcq.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL HENTSCH RETURNED
to L
UXEMBOURG
at 12:40
PM
on 10 September. The atmosphere at the OHL was highly charged. The day before, while Hentsch was making his rounds, Moltke, hearing of the BEF’s advance into the infamous gap by way of an intercepted wireless, had lost his nerve and recommended a withdrawal all along the line. The senior generals in the kaiser’s entourage counseled continuation of the offensive. Wilhelm II agreed. He adamantly rejected Moltke’s advice and demanded precise information on the status of the German right wing. But the discussions were “all superfluous,” Chief of the Military Cabinet Moriz von Lyncker noted, since there existed no means of communication with Kluck.
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Moltke, according to Deputy Chief of Staff von Stein, thereupon cracked. It was 1 August all over again, when the kaiser, upon receiving the (false) news that London would hold Paris out of the war if Germany did not attack France, had brusquely demanded that Moltke alter his entire operations plan and deploy against Russia alone. And as on that day, Moltke on 9 September became “extremely agitated.” He reminded Wilhelm II that Bülow had already come out in favor of a withdrawal, and that Bülow “is one of the most experienced generals in the army.”
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The discussion raged furiously. The kaiser refused to cave in. “Despite [what I have heard], I will lead the army into
[sic]
France.”
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Unsurprisingly, Colonel Tappen sided with his Supreme War Lord. “Whoever now perseveres,” he concluded, “is the victor.”
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Hentsch’s report on 10 September decided the issue. First Army, he informed Moltke, “was responsible for the entire retreat” because by removing III and IX corps from Bülow’s right wing, it had allowed the distance between the two armies to widen by fifteen kilometers, and the enemy was now exploiting it. Disingenuously, he reported that First Army had already “issued orders to withdraw,” and that he, Hentsch, had merely tried to steer that withdrawal into the direction desired by the OHL! Specifically, First Army was falling back on Soissons-Fismes and Second Army behind the Marne. Third Army could regroup south of Châlons-sur-Marne, while Fourth and Fifth armies could remain in their present positions.
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Although we have no documentary evidence concerning Hentsch’s claim that Kuhl had already “issued orders to withdraw,” it is clear that he was putting the best possible spin on a decision that he had forced on First Army’s chief of staff. Hentsch had left Luxembourg on 8 September convinced of the need for a general retreat and realignment of the armies in the west. His talks with Bülow and Lauenstein at Montmort had only reinforced that conviction. At Mareuil, Hentsch—with his talk of Second Army being little more than “cinders,” of its already ongoing withdrawal, and of his “full power of authority” to issue orders to retreat “in the name of the Oberste Heeres-Leitung”—had left Kuhl no choice but to withdraw from the Ourcq. For that action, Hentsch was fully responsible.

Moltke was “pleasantly surprised” by Hentsch’s report. The danger of Kluck’s left wing being crushed by the BEF and the French cavalry corps had been removed; First Army’s withdrawal to Fismes would allow it to link up with Second Army again and thus eliminate the fifty-kilometer gap; and Fourth and Fifth armies could hold their lines. “Thank God,” Moltke cried out, “then the situation seems much better than I thought.”
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The offensive could be resumed just as soon as the new Seventh Army had been formed at Saint-Quentin. And when news arrived around 9
PM
on 10 September that Paul von Hindenburg’s Eighth Army had defeated P. K. Rennenkampf ’s Russian First Army at the Masurian Lakes, the mood swing at the OHL was complete. Still, the savvy Hentsch asked Moltke to visit Third, Fourth, and Fifth armies “to make sure that I did the right thing.”
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The chief of the General Staff agreed to set off early next morning. Württemberg’s war minister, Otto von Marchtaler, caustically noted, “He should have done that earlier; too late!” on his envoy’s report of Moltke’s decision.
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Perhaps to “punish” Kluck for his bold initiative (against express orders) in crossing the Marne ahead of Second Army, Moltke once again placed First Army under Bülow’s command. He simply refused to accept that his most senior commander in the field had set in motion the entire chain of action that would lead to a general retreat from the Marne.

Moltke’s temporary recovery of spirits belied his true state of mind. For there is no question that by 8–10 September, Helmuth von Moltke was a broken man, mentally and physically. The heart problems for which he had been treated in 1911, 1912, and 1913 and that had led to arteriosclerosis had returned, aggravated by the onset of a gallbladder infection.
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His closest associates at the OHL noted his loss of energy, declining willpower, and inability to make decisions. To them, he looked tired and lethargic. They were not alone. Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, concerned that “the OHL has lost its nerves,” had traveled to German headquarters on 8 September to discuss the assault on Nancy. He was shocked. Moltke gave the impression of being “a sick, broken man. His tall frame was stooped and he looked incredibly debilitated.” He ruminated about “many mistakes having been committed,” from the foolish rush of Josias von Heeringen’s XIV and XV corps into Mulhouse in Alsace early in August, to Rupprecht’s “failure” to shift parts of his Seventh Army to the German pivot wing
(Schwenkungsflügel)
near Paris.
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Rupprecht left Luxembourg convinced that the German operations plan had failed.

The next day, War Minister Erich von Falkenhayn again wielded his acid-dripping pen. “Our General Staff has totally lost their heads,” he noted in his diary. “Schlieffen’s notes have come to an end and therewith also Moltke’s wit.”
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Karl von Wenninger, Bavaria’s military plenipotentiary to the OHL, also took up the theme of a squandered “Schlieffen Plan.” Twice he sarcastically noted in his diary that Moltke and his “minions” had merely known how “to roll the camera” and let “Schlieffen’s film play through.” The “beaming faces” that he had encountered at Berlin on 31 July had turned to “down-cast eyes” at Luxembourg. “It is as quiet as a mortuary,” he recorded on 10 September. “One tip-toes around … best not to address [General Staff officers], not to ask.”
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