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===The Great Retreat===
===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.
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. However, the German armies were advancing too rapidly; by the 29th, after heavy losses suffered by the French 5th Army around St. Quentin and the retreat of the BEF from around Compiègne, Joffre was forced to abandon the idea of a stand on the Somme, and ordered a further withdrawal southward, towards the Marne, and entertained the possibility of retreating as far as the Seine river. By September 1, elements of the German First Army, under General Alexander von Kluck, were only thirty miles from Paris, and there was serious talk of evacuating the capital.
===Preparations===
Despite the impressive German advance--more or less in keeping with the timetable laid out by the Schlieffen Plan--the attackers' situation was more delicate than it appeared. Troops had been detached east to reinforce efforts against the Russians, while others had been committed to the Alsace-Lorraine front due to Moltke's belief that he could achieve a breakthrough around Nancy and then attempt a great double envelopment. As a result, the five German armies advancing through northeastern France were significantly weaker than originally envisioned.
The practical effect of this was that the German line was increasingly thin, with sizable gaps between some of its units. To close up these gaps, and in the belief that the core of the French army was retreating to the southeast, von Kluck had already on August 31 begun angling his First Army that same direction, towards the Marne, rather than swinging west of Paris as earlier planned. However, the Allied forces, though still retreating, were not as disorganized as the German high command assumed, and Kluck faced stiff resistance from the BEF in particular over the next several days. In the process, his right flank became exposed from the direction of Paris, now to his west, where Gallieni was building up the new 6th Army, to which the city's garrison forces were added.
Learning of the changed tactical situation on September 3, Gallieni at once urged Joffre to permit an immediate flank attack upon the Germans, which Joffre personally favored but was unwilling to undertake without the active participation of the BEF. The British and French armies were separate commands, and Sir John French, the BEF's commander, was not only on poor terms with Joffre and his other counterparts, but had become increasingly pessimistic in the past weeks of fighting and seemed to prefer a retreat back to Britain altogether. After receiving what he understood as assurances from BEF headquarters that the British would join in a counterattack, though, Joffre on the evening of the 4th issued orders for an attack by his left wing on September 6. The French 5th and 6th Armies, together with the BEF, would attack Kluck's First Army, now astride the Marne river east of Château-Thierry, with the 3rd and 4th Armies engaging in a frontal attack against the German lines farther east.
French had not, in fact, committed the BEF to Joffre's counterattack, and in fact that same evening indicated his plans to resume his retreat, back toward Fontainebleau. Joffre was forced to travel to French's headquarters at Melun on the 5th, and made a personal appeal to the British general, emphatically protesting, "''Monsieur le Maréchal'', the honor of England is at stake!" Moved by his words, French reversed himself and promised "we will do all we possibly can." By late afternoon, then, Joffre had achieved the necessary conditions for his planned offensive the following morning.
[[Category:World War I]]
[[Category:World War I]]