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Moltke himself visited the front on September 10 and reached the same decision as Hentsch, issuing orders the following day for a general withdrawal (including the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Armies, positioned farther east) from the Marne River to the Aisne, some 25 miles to the north. "The lines so reached," his orders read, "will be fortified and defended."<ref>John Keegan, ''The First World War'' (1998), p. 122.</ref> Suffering a nervous breakdown on account of the Schlieffen Plan's failure--he is supposed to have informed Kaiser [[Wilhelm II]], "Your Majesty, we have lost the war!"--Moltke was relieved of command on September 14 and replaced as Chief of the General Staff, and therefore as German military commander, by General Erich von Falkenhayn.
Moltke himself visited the front on September 10 and reached the same decision as Hentsch, issuing orders the following day for a general withdrawal (including the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Armies, positioned farther east) from the Marne River to the Aisne, some 25 miles to the north. "The lines so reached," his orders read, "will be fortified and defended."<ref>John Keegan, ''The First World War'' (1998), p. 122.</ref> Suffering a nervous breakdown on account of the Schlieffen Plan's failure--he is supposed to have informed Kaiser [[Wilhelm II]], "Your Majesty, we have lost the war!"--Moltke was relieved of command on September 14 and replaced as Chief of the General Staff, and therefore as German military commander, by General Erich von Falkenhayn.
==Prelude: First Battle of the Aisne==
On September 10, the day after the Germans began their retreat, the French and British armies advanced northward, though at first not very aggressively, covering only about 12 miles a day; the march of the BEF was particularly slow. Joffre ordered flanking attempts by the French 5th and 6th Armies on his left, in order to roll up the German right; but the Germans had already gained too great a head start, and by the 14th, most of their units had reached the far bank of the Aisne and begun entrenching. The north bank of the Aisne is significantly higher in elevation, overlooking the country to the south through which the Allied armies were marching, and most bridges over the river had already been destroyed or heavily damaged, making it difficult even to get into position for a frontal assault on the German lines.
British and French troops began crossing the Aisne on September 13 to the north and northeast of [[Soissons]] and attacked German positions the nest day along one of the strongest portions of their new defensive line, a steep ridge known as the Chemin des Dames. Though the French 4th, 5th, and 9th Armies made slight progress to the east, they were unable to dislodge the Germans, and the BEF troops in particular suffered very heavy casualties. Inferior British artillery and a lack of proper entrenching equipment only aggravated the difficult position of the attackers.
Although the "First Battle of the Aisne," as a distinct military operation, would continue until late September, the failure on September 14 marked the end of its most significant phase, as well as that of the Allied "pursuit" from the Marne. On the 14th, Sir John French ordered his troops to start entrenching as the Germans had already done, freezing the Aisne front more or less in place until 1918 and marking the first appearance of the famous "[[trench warfare]]". With the lines likewise stabilizing further east, Joffre looked northwest to the comparatively open country between Compiègne, where the Aisne emptied into the Oise, and the North Sea for a new opportunity for a flanking maneuver, and ordered his 6th Army to cross to the west bank of the Oise on September 17 and march northeast to turn the German right. Simultaneously, at German headquarters, General von Falkenhayn had ordered his own Sixth Army west from Alsace-Lorraine to extend his right and, if possible, envelop the Allied left. These orders are generally considered to inaugurate the "Race to the Sea."
==References==
==References==