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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.
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.
===Stalemate===
On September 10, after the German withdrawal towards the Aisne had been detected by aerial reconnaissance, Joffre ordered a pursuit. It was relatively slow, however, covering only about a dozen miles a day, and the Germans had time to reach the high ground along the Aisne and establish fortified defensive positions, from which they repulsed French and British attacks from September 14-16. This initiated the so-called "Race to the Sea," as both the Allied and the German armies sought to gain a tactical advantage by turning each other's flank. As a result, both sides' lines extended farther and farther in both directions, until by late October they had each run out of room to maneuver, blocked by the [[North Sea]] to the northwest and the border with neutral [[Switzerland]] to the southeast. By year's end, therefore, with only frontal assaults (and defending against said assaults) still possible, the Western Front had settled into the "trench warfare" that would characterize it until 1918.
==References==
==References==