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The withdrawal of the First and Second Armies forced Hausen's Third to follow suit, which spurred the other German formations to fall back as well. After Moltke himself visited the front line on September 11, he ordered all the armies to retreat as far as the Aisne river, some 40-50 miles behind the Marne, and to entrench along the high ground there. It was around this time that Moltke supposedly told Kaiser Wilhelm, who was at the Supreme Headquarters in Luxembourg, "Your Majesty, we have lost the war." Whether Moltke actually said this or not is uncertain; but he did seem to understand that German forces had suffered a defeat and would have to abandon the offensive. Already in poor health when the war started, he also suffered something akin to a nervous breakdown, and on September 14 was relieved of his command, replaced as Chief of the General Staff (the official title for the overall German military commander) by General Erich von Falkenhayn.
The withdrawal of the First and Second Armies forced Hausen's Third to follow suit, which spurred the other German formations to fall back as well. After Moltke himself visited the front line on September 11, he ordered all the armies to retreat as far as the Aisne river, some 40-50 miles behind the Marne, and to entrench along the high ground there. It was around this time that Moltke supposedly told Kaiser Wilhelm, who was at the Supreme Headquarters in Luxembourg, "Your Majesty, we have lost the war." Whether Moltke actually said this or not is uncertain; but he did seem to understand that German forces had suffered a defeat and would have to abandon the offensive. Already in poor health when the war started, he also suffered something akin to a nervous breakdown, and on September 14 was relieved of his command, replaced as Chief of the General Staff (the official title for the overall German military commander) by General Erich von Falkenhayn.
==Aftermath==
===Casualties===
The week of fighting along the Marne was very bloody on both sides. Exact figures are difficult to determine, as many units reported casualties for extended periods of time that included the Marne as well as other actions. The traditional estimates are about 500,000 killed, wounded, captured or missing for all armies, with about 250,000 German casualties, a similar number among the French, and an additional 13,000 British casualties.<ref>Roger Chickering, ''Imperial Germany and the Great War, 1914-1918'' (2004), p. 31. Though the British figures are much lower, the BEF was also by far the smallest of the combatants at this time, and losses among individual units were proportional to those in the French and German armies.</ref> More recent analyses have disputed these numbers, suggesting that the actual toll was closer to 300,000.<ref>Holger Herwig, ''The Marne, 1914: The Opening of World War I and the Battle that Changed the World'' (2009), p. 315-16.</ref> It has also been remarked that since the action along the Marne was both preceded and followed by heavy fighting, isolating the cost of that battle alone is of questionable value.
==References==
==References==