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The Battle of the Marne was the bloodiest battle of the war to date on the Western Front, with an estimated 250,000 casualties on each side. It is generally reckoned a victory for the (French and British) Allies, as they successfully halted the German advance toward Paris and thus thwarted the realization of the Schlieffen Plan. The German armies retreated after the battle, and their overall commander, General Helmuth von Moltke, is said to have told his sovereign, Kaiser [[Wilhelm II]], "Your Majesty, we have lost the war." The Allies were unable to follow up their victory by breaking through the German lines, though, and by the end of the year, both sides would have entrenched, beginning the stalemate of [[trench warfare]] that would characterize the Western Front for most of the next four years.
The Battle of the Marne was the bloodiest battle of the war to date on the Western Front, with an estimated 250,000 casualties on each side. It is generally reckoned a victory for the (French and British) Allies, as they successfully halted the German advance toward Paris and thus thwarted the realization of the Schlieffen Plan. The German armies retreated after the battle, and their overall commander, General Helmuth von Moltke, is said to have told his sovereign, Kaiser [[Wilhelm II]], "Your Majesty, we have lost the war." The Allies were unable to follow up their victory by breaking through the German lines, though, and by the end of the year, both sides would have entrenched, beginning the stalemate of [[trench warfare]] that would characterize the Western Front for most of the next four years.
==Background==
Following the assassination of the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand in [[Sarajevo]] and the subsequent July Crisis, the major powers of Europe went to war at the end of July and the beginning of August, 1914. Germany, facing a two-front war against [[Russia]] in the east and France in the west, had long since decided to resolve the situation via the Schlieffen Plan, which called for a rapid invasion of France from the northeast via neutral Belgium to capture the capital city of Paris, encircle and crush the French armies, and thus quickly knock the country out of the war; it could then throw the bulk of its military against Russia.
In accordance with this plan, German armies crossed into Belgium on August 3, an act which brought [[Great Britain]] into the war the following day, as it was a guarantor of Belgian neutrality. The French, for their part, had committed most of their forces against their direct border with Germany further south, in a bid to regain [[Alsace-Lorraine]], which they had lost after the [[Franco-Prussian War]] of 1870-71. This left them especially at risk of being enveloped from the north and west. However, stiff resistance from the small Belgian army significantly slowed the German advance, giving the Allies time to marshal their resources and regroup. (Out of frustration, German soldiers increasingly resorted to such terror tactics as arson, vandalism, and the shooting of Belgian civilians; this so-called "Rape of Belgium" drew global outrage, turning public opinion in many noncombatant countries--including the [[United States of America|United States]] against Germany.)
===Battle of the Frontiers===
Despite the mounting evidence of the Germans' intention to outflank them, the French armies, under the leadership of General Joseph Joffre, for some time continued their eastward offensive into Alsace-Lorraine, with accompanying thrusts northeastward into the Ardennes region. Attacks around Metz and Mulhouse had been decisively stopped by German defenders by August 20, however, and the offensive into the Ardennes was even more bloodily halted. By August 24, the same day on which soldiers of the German 1st Army crossed from Belgium into France, it was recognized at Joffre's headquarters that these attacks, collectively known as the "Battle of the Frontiers," had failed, and that the five French armies were in danger of being cut off from Paris by the larger German offensive. Only the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) under Sir John French, then only about 70,000 strong, and part of the French 5th Army, stood in its way.
===The Great Retreat===
On August 24, Joffre issued orders canceling the French offensives; instead, the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Armies were to conduct a fighting retreat westward, while the 4th and 5th (soon joined by a new army, the 6th, formed out of detachments from other units) supported the BEF in blunting the German advance between Lille and Sedan. General Order No. 2, issued the following day, outlined plans for a defensive stance along the Somme river, between Paris and the existing front line. The military governor of Paris, General Joseph Gallieni, made plans for a close-up defense of the capital, though there were relatively few available troops to defend it with.
[[Category:World War I]]
[[Category:World War I]]