Decisive Battles: Frontiers 1914 - Part 5b: First Encounters

We're a week or so into the Great War - 7 AUG or so - and the German Imperial forces and those of the Republic of France and the Kingdom of Belgium have fought the first encounters of the opening moves of that war, the so-called "Battle of the Frontiers".

Recall in the previous post we divided the timespan of this opening engagement into four parts:
1. "Preparations" (1 AUG - 7/8 AUG) - covered in Part 5a,
2. "First Encounters" (8 AUG - 21 AUG) - which is covered in this post,
3. "The Crisis" (21-24 AUG), and
4. "The Great Retreat" (24 AUG - 5 SEP)

And the geographic space into three areas:
1. "Northwest" - primarily central and eastern Belgium (and, later, northern France)
2. "Center" - southeastern Belgium, Luxembourg, and north-central France, and
3. "Southeast" - the Franco-German border between roughly Nancy and the Swiss frontier.

In the previous post we discussed:

The German invasion of Belgium that centered on the assault on the Belgian fortress city of Liege (in the Northwest area) as well as the small engagement west of that city where reconnaissance elements of the German 4te Kavalriedivision found out the hard way that mounted fighting for intelligence was a non-starter in 1914, and

The initial French assault around the town of Mulhouse in Alsace (in the Southeast), which gained back some ground lost in 1870 and, seemingly, validated the concept of GEN Joffre's Plan XVII.

In the center the opposing forces had not yet collided. The primary activity we discussed was the long ride of Sordet's Cavalry Corps, which pushed into Belgium as far as just south of Liege but found no major German units there, suggesting to Joffre that his attack plan for 3eme and 4eme Armee was workable in driving into the flank of the German drive into Belgium and dislocating the "hinge" of the big Schlieffen right wing.

Now we're going to try and quickly review the actions over the next two weeks - between the end of the first week and the beginning of the third week of August 1914 - because they involve a lot of moving and searching and not a whole lot of fighting across the general frontier.

Oh, there was fighting, but largely at the ends of the lines. The middle of August was largely a time of movement and maneuver as the two (and, later in the month, the British becoming the third) powers pushed through their operational plans.

Remember that the principal focus of this series of posts is on the contributions to the operations along the frontiers of the elements tasked with reconnaissance (and counter-reconnaissance), which in 1914 largely meant the traditional horse cavalry but now included aviation, both heavier- and lighter-than-air; aircraft and dirigibles.

Let's look first at the places where actual fighting was going on.

First Encounters - Northwest (8 AUG - 21/22 AUG)

It's not really correct to call the operations in this and the Southeast areas as "First Encounters"; both sectors had seen action in the first week of the war. 

In the Northwest the German Maasarmee - a reinforced armeekorps - had invested Liege, and the strategic reconnaissance elements of Höhere Kavallerie-Kommando (HKK) 2 pushed into east-central Belgium.

In the Southeast a reinforced French corps - VII Corps d'Armee (VII CA) - pushed into the German marches around the Alsatian town of Mulhouse. This attack succeeded in pushing the advance units of the German 7. Feldarmee back, but good recon by both ground and air elements discovered vulnerabilities in the French deployment that Generaloberst von Heeringen, commander of 7. Feldarmee, planned to use to give the impudent Frogs their conge'.

Let's start in the northwest.

The city of Liege itself was occupied on 8 AUG - the Belgian 3rd Army (along with assorted maneuver elements defending the city proper) had pulled out to safety in the west - but the ring forts around it held out. Between 8 and 12 AUG the true siege train including the superheavy 350mm/420mm artillery and two additional armeekorps, arrived and started hammering the Belgian fortresses.

Finally on 8 AUG the aviation unit attached to the German X. Armeekorps - Feldfliegerabteilung (FFA) 9 - began operations over Liege. These expanded on 11 AUG when the FFA's attached to the arriving armeekorps began operating. 

Two of these; FFA 1 (attached to the Gardekorps), and FFA 9, were tasked with strategic reconnaissance deep into central Belgium. According to Bowden (2017) these flights were generally successful; the German fliers located the bulk of the Belgian field army as well as determining that the French maneuver forces had not crossed the Belgian frontier in strength.

The remaining fixed-wing units were tasked with local reconnaissance over Liege, which Bowden (2017) says:

"...often saved the siege batteries from needlessly wasting their valuable armor-piercing ammunition on an already neutralized target."

So well done, flyboys.

Meanwhile, things weren't going so well for German recon troopers on the ground.

On 11 AUG elements of HKK 2 were pushing northwest towards the line of the Gette River towards the Belgian left and the main roads to Brussels. To hold down this flank the Belgian Cavalry Division posted the crossings of the Gette, including the most dangerous avenue of approach that led northwest from the town of Diest through the town of Halen (sometimes spelled Haelen), about 47km northwest of Liege.

The Belgian engineers failed to drop the bridge at Halen and four cavalry regiments of 4te Kavalriedivision from HKK 2, attached jäger infantry from 2te and 4te Kavalriedivisionen, and two battalions of horse artillery got across the Gette the following day.

Then, however, the German cavalry learned the hard lesson their counterparts had learned earlier at Waremme; that dismounted rifle and machinegun fire made mounted reconnaissance both unenlightening and lethal. 

Apparently the German cavalry - dragoons, cuirassiers, and uhlans - made as many as eight mounted attacks on the Belgian troops - cyclist infantry and dismounted Guide and lancer cavalry, with regular infantry arriving later in the day - and were shot to pieces.

The Belgians were roughly handled but the attackers lost some 500 troopers and over 800 horses (effectively ruining the four cavalry regiments involved), learned nothing they hadn't known before, and had to leave the Belgians in temporary possession of the ground.

It was turning out that mounted operations were pretty dangerous in the presence of 20th Century munitions. The setback ended what might have developed into a turning maneuver of the Belgian field army's left by HKK 2.

But in the big picture German operations in the Northwest weren't really going anywhere until Liege was reduced. That meant a German major-operational pause between 8 AUG and 16 AUG, when the siege was closed out and the German right wing forces released to push into central Belgium.

As Bowden (2017) notes, "...as of August 17th the German leadership was entirely unaware of where the allied forces opposite their right wing were located. Only the Belgian Army, standing opposite (German) First Army along the Gette River, was known..."

The map below gives you an idea of the progress of the German cavalry between 16 and 24 AUG. HKK 2 (operating in concert with 1. Feldarmee) is to the north of the green line, HKK 1 (with 2. Feldarmee) to the south. 

The Bowden (2017) assessment continues:

 "...in order for the German right wing's grand enveloping attack..to be successful, it was absolutely critical that the...allied left wing (was) located as quickly as possible. (W)hile the position of the French left could be safely assumed to be in the vicinity of Namur, the location of the BEF was a complete mystery."

The possibilities ranged from far to the west, to threaten 1. Feldarmee's "open" right flank, to tucked in next to the French 5eme Armee, or even hovering offshore to land behind the German advance. Bowden (2017) concludes:

"Only after the BEF was located could (1. Feldarmee commander) Kluck begin to concentrate his widely dispersed forces and take the offensive. Thus, with the success of the right wing's offensive at stake, it was imperative for the Fliegertruppe to locate the BEF as well as French Fifth Army as quickly as possible."

As you can see, this was a task for the fliers; it would take almost a week for the weary horse soldiers just to get to where the French and British might be.

 

 We'll discuss what happened when these forces met in the next part of this series. In between the fall of Liege and the end of the third week of August;

The Belgian Army eluded German encirclement to fort up in Antwerp. This was annoying for the OHL because it meant having to drop off a full armeekorps to mask the Belgians and prevent raids on German supply lines. 

German air recon units searched to the west, south, and southwest...but were largely confined to the immediate front of the 1. and 2. Feldarmee. This meant that while 2. Feldarmee aviation located advance elements of the French defenses around Dinant and Charleroi, 1. Feldarmee's fliers weren't far enough forward to find the British. 

French reconnaissance appears to have been either absent - the Armee de l'Air doesn't appear to have been very active over the German operational areas - or timid, in the case of the Sordet unit. As we mentioned earlier, the French cavalry reached the southern outskirts of Liege late on 8 AUG. The lead elements bumped into German lines, and rather than attempt to fight through them, pulled back to the southwest.

The worst part of that operation was the weather conditions - extremely hot and dry - and the distance covered, as much as 100km or more that day. Most of the cavalry mounts got little fodder and no water that day, and the long, hot march was hard on the relatively fragile troop horses.

Worse, Sordet's units got little rest after that; by 12 AUG the corps had retired southwest to Neufchateau. Still no Germans, so by 15 AUG Sordet's command had re-crossed the French border to fall in with 5eme Armee.

Interlude: Horses and Industrial War

One thing worth noting about the anabasis of Sordet's cavalrymen; the scope of war in 1914 was becoming too big, and the pace too demanding, for the most vulnerable piece of the recon elements, the animals that made cavalrymen what they were. Not just the French cavalry. All cavalry, and the horse-drawn armies it supported.

European cavalry (as opposed to the sort of horse-nomad riders of the Asian steppes) depended on big, "warm-blooded" horses bred to the work. These had to be strong enough to carry the heavily-equipped trooper, and sturdy enough to stand up to the hard riding of campaigning.

But horses are surprisingly fragile. Their legs and hooves didn't evolve to stand up to long plodding road marches, and the wear of even the best saddlery and tack caused galls and similar injuries. Cavalry mounts were also raised on grains - primarily oats - and couldn't and didn't stay healthy on browse alone. The war diary of HKK 2 noted that:

 "...nothing (from logistical support) happened to supply enough oats. Repeatedly it was asked for help...and finally, when we were told that there would be no oat supplies for three days, (we were directed to) slow down movement, if necessary..."

All the major combatants on the Western Front had similar problems with their mounts even before encountering enemy fire at places like Waremme and Halen. The problem with 1914 logistics was that once away from the railheads supplies had to be transported primarily by horse-drawn wagons; none of the armies had enough trucks (and France and Belgium largely lacked truck-passable roads) to move significant supplies.

That meant that the draft horses were under much the same constraints as the cavalry mounts; they needed water, fodder, and rest that the relentless pace and brutal marches demanded of 20th Century warfare just didn't allow. 

(The always-invaluable Bret Devereaux describes this as "the tyranny of the wagon" and does a terrific job explaining it here).

The opening month of the Great War showed how hard modern war was on the recon vehicle of the pre-industrial era. Horses were lamed, broken, and killed by more than bullets and shells; simply moving at the pace and over the distances required of operations in 1914 was debilitating, crippling, or lethal to the cavalry mounts if not their riders.

The track of the armies was signposted with the bodies of dead animals as well as people.

The BEF landed in the second week of August. This included the Cavalry Division as well as the four squadrons of the Royal Flying Corps. These air reconnaissance units assembled in Amiens on 11-13 AUG and from there transferred northeast to forward airfields around Maubeuge between 16-19 AUG. The first reconnaissance flights began after 19 AUG to find German troop units approaching the BEF position around the town of Mons.

Keep your eyes on this part of the front, because we'll be back here in the next post.

First Encounters - The Center (8 AUG - 21/22 AUG)

The real story of the central area was, in the words of Conan Doyle's detective, the dog in the nighttime.

French planning assumed that German mobilization would put maneuver units along the LD sometime around 13 AUG. That was the premise behind the Sordet reconnaissance; to find and surveil these troops.

Instead, the French cavalry found nothing because there wasn't anything there yet to find. As this little article notes:

"In order to find the German 3rd, 4th and 5th Armies, the French cavalry would have had to advance across the Belgian Ardennes to the border with Germany and Luxembourg; it was unable to do so. The German deployment was not completed until 17 August and the German 5th and 4th Armies did not begin their advance until 18 August. The French had great difficulty understanding why the Germans were not as far to the west as they expected them to be."

The other difficulty with the Central area was the terrain; little developed, heavily wooded, badly broken with hill-and-valley topography, the Ardennes was a reconnaissance nightmare. The tree cover meant that troop movement or bivouac areas were nearly invisible to aerial observation, while the topography meant that sightlines were lethally short; a cavalry patrol could easily find itself practically on top of an enemy unit before hearing or seeing it. 

But if the cavalry didn't bump into that enemy, it was unlikely to hear or see it at all.

Terence Zuber's 2007 Ardennes 1914 does a good job of describing the issues that piled up at Joffre's GQG to precipitate the eventual disaster in the forests, a combination of tactical misallocation or mistakes and strategic fixation.

The strategic part was influenced by where the fighting was; it looked obvious that German forces were active - meaning, probably, concentrated - at the "ends" of the frontier lines; in Belgium around Liege, and in Lorraine near Mulhousen.

Zuber (2007) says that the French intelligence estimate on 16 AUG placed a total of seven German AKs - armeekorps - along the Meuse in two feldarmees, three AKs (one army) in the Belgian Ardennes, three more AKs (one army) in Luxembourg, and seven AKs (two armies) in the southeast around Alsace and Lorraine. Five AKs were assumed to be in the East, and one AK (Guard Reserve) couldn't be found.

This conformed to the apparent actions along the frontiers; weighted up in northwest and southeast, thin in the center. So for the French higher, GEN Joffre at GQG, the German Army dog was doing nothing in the Central area night (and day) time.

In fact, the estimate was off by a full three armeekorps in a whole army - 5. Armee - in the center near Metz along with the six AKs known to be there in 3. and 4. Armee. 

And, worse, that the mass of troops known to be in the central area was thought to be intended to reinforce the German right wing attack through Belgium:

"The French assumed that VIII AK and XVIII AK (that is, two of the three AKs in 4.Armee) were covering the movement of the German mass of maneuver from the area of Luxembourg and the rear of Metz to the northwest. (Zuber, 2007, p.95)"

The French central area maneuver units did themselves no favors tactically, either:

"General Arbonneau, with the 4th and 9th divisions of cavalry, was sent forward on 17 August to the area of Virton and Neufchateau and in 18 August pushed back the German 3. KD (kavalriedivision). No attempt at deep reconnaissance was made by either 4 DC or 9 DC, which stationed themselves a safe 10km in front of the French infantry corps." (Zuber, 2007, loc. cit.)

Again, the problem wasn't that there were no German maneuver units in the central front area; the problem was that the German units weren't where the French reconnaissance elements thought they should be;

"French cavalry and aerial reconnaissance could find no German units in the area of Longuyon-Virton-Tintingny-Arlon...which was essentially correct." (Zuber, 2007, loc. cit.)

You can kind of understand this. GQG was being carpet-bombed by paperwork; status reports, requests for orders (or amplification/explanation of earlier orders), intelligence reports. And the immediate attention of the higher was drawn to where the fighting was already; eastern central Belgium - the "Northwest" - and the Southeast in Lorraine and Alsace.

So if the Central area was quiet? Fine! Let's assume that the damned Boche are holding there to load up the northwestern attacks and southeastern defenses. We've got enough to do there without haring our recon troops after a corporal's guard holding down the lines in Luxembourg.

That was the French situation. What about the Germans?

Showalter (2020) notes that while the cavalry was struggling with dead, dying, and stricken horses the aviators were working hard; FFA 9 and other aviation units were doing good service tracking the Belgian main army west of Liege.

But the same short-range focus was affecting the Imperial commanders.

"While effective at the close reconnaissance, the airmen did nothing to extend out long-range and find the BEF or the left wing of the French Army. Due to the structural lack of an aviation staff officer, aviation reports, messages, and intelligence...frequently did not find their way to the army intelligence staff officer. It is claimed that (the German) First Army was never made aware of about fifty percent of the air reports."

This was true for the other armeekorps and feldarmee as well. So it's here that we should discuss headquarters staff organization and how that affected the reconnaissance operations of August 1914.

The Life of The Staff: One Long Loaf.

Let's take a random German armeekorps as an example.

The corps commander - an O-9/three-star generalleutnant, usually - had what a U.S. Army corps would call the "headquarters and headquarters company (HHC)" of about 300 all ranks. This included everyone, from the privates assigned as runners and guard-post rotations to the chief of the corps staff, probably a senior colonel/O-6.

Below the stabschef were three (or four) "operational" staff sections, presumably run by O-5 oberstleutnants;
Section Ia ("operations and tactics" - the equivalent of a U.S. ops section, or G-3); this was run by an officer designated the 1.GSO, who was considered the "senior staff" officer,
Section Ib ("affairs behind the lines" - seems to be sort of a combined G-1/G-4/G-5 position, personnel/supply and civil affairs)
Section Ic ("intelligence" - the G-2 equivalent)
Section Id ("assistant to Ic" - the source I have for this doesn't explain the duplication here. My guess is that this was a blank file activated in wartime if needed.

The problem here is two-fold.

In principle what a modern U.S. operation would call the "air-tasking order" would be generated by the Stabs Ia, operations staff from the corps commander's intent. 

Then the intelligence gathered by those aerial operations would be forwarded from the forward airfield to the Armeekorps Ic, intelligence, for use in preparation of the next operations order.

But both phases were complicated by the inadequate staff training and preconditions of 1914.

As reported in Bowdon, 2007:

"On many occasions the various HQ staffs failed to dispatch instructions to their flying sections. As a result, the airmen remained grounded during decisive moments in the fighting. In other cases...flying sections dispatched critically important intelligence that never reached...the army commander." (p. 123)

So overworked staffs - unfamiliar with the aviation branch and it's needs, capabilities, and limitations, failed to use it effectively - an operational failure - or collect the information it provided when it was well-used, an intelligence failure.

The same limitations would have affected the FFAs flying for the feldarmees.

This was largely remedied by the creation of an "aviation staff officer" (Stabsoffizier der Flieger, Stofl) at the feldarmee level in the spring of 1915, as well as presumably similar staff positions at the armeekorps.

But that didn't help our German - and, very likely, French and British - staff officers in August, 1914.

First Encounters - The Southwest (8 AUG - 21/22 AUG)

When we last looked at the activities in and around the Alsace/Lorraine vicinity these included:
1) a French offensive which pushed a portion of the 1er Armee - VII Corps (14re, and 41er Divisions de Infantrie (DI) and one brigade from 57eme Reserve DI) and 8eme Division de Cavalerie (DC) - across the border into the valley of the river Ill around Mulhouse, driving back the defenders from the 7.Feldarmee, and
2) German aerial and cavalry recon efforts that identified soft sectors in the French final advance lines that offered opportunities for counterattack.

This succeeded; the initial French incursion was successfully shoved bloodily back on 9-10 AUG.

That's where the two sides paused until French deployment was completed on 13 AUG when, in accordance with Plan XVII and GEN Joffre's intent, the French 1er and 2eme Armees pushed across the German frontier.

Opposing this move were the 6. and 7. Feldarmee; notionally separate commands the two had been combined under the commander of 6.Feldarmee to ensure prompt coordination before the anticipated French offensive.

That commander was perhaps the most Imperial of all Imperial commanders, GEN Rupprecht Maria Luitpold Ferdinand, Crown Prince of Bavaria, Duke of Bavaria, Franconia and in Swabia, Count Palatine by the Rhine.

This boyo wasn't just an idle royal body, though. He's still considered one of the best of the Imperial general officers. He'd been instructed to fight a delaying action on the German left to suck the French maneuver forces into the kill sack for the "strong right wing" to encircle, and did.

From 14 AUG to 16 AUG the two German armies did just that. 

By 16 AUG, however, German reconnaissance (mostly aerial, augmented by cavalry patrols and ground contact reporting) had determined that the French strength attacking into Lorraine was much smaller that anticipated; seven corps d'armee rather than fifteen. Bowdon (2017) says that:

"It was at this moment that the mentally weak Moltke started to lose control over his subordinates and the overall situation. Instead of firmly ordering Rupprecht to continue the withdrawal and take up a defensive position...he dispatched a cryptic message that allowed Sixth Army HQ to...launch a counter-offensive whenever the opportunity presented itself." (p.76-77)

Bowdon (2017) notes that poor weather and the press of retrograde displacements had limited air activity between 15 and 17 AUG, but that on 18 AUG a patrol from FFA 20 (the XIV.Armeekorps flying detachment) found an untenanted gap in the French FLOT. The 1er Armee was still attacking to the east towards Strassburg, while 2eme Armee had turned north to envelop Metz.

After a day to prepare the counterattack, now known as the "Battle of Morhange-Sarrebourg", kicked off on 20 AUG.

(This site, crafted by "Pierre Grande Guerre" in 2019, provides a terrific little tour of the Lorraine engagement sites and history of the actions here, if you want to take a look. I've stolen the little snapshot of the Oron Memorial above from him. Go; it's worth it.)

Bowdon (2017) notes that "(h)aving had plans to renew their advance...the French troops neglected to establish defensive positions during the evening of the 19th." so that when the 6.Feldarmee artillery prep began at 0400 20 AUG the surprised fantassins were hammered even before the German and Bavarian infantry tore into them.

By 21 AUG the French right was in headlong retreat. This would continue until the front stabilized inside French territory.

Summary: First Encounters - Reconnaissance Operations

Northwest: German air operations were locally quite successful, both spotting and directing artillery fire. The German cavalry was discovering how lethal modern weapons were for ginormous targets who couldn't low-crawl. French air operations were still nonexistent and Sordet's cavalry wandered around aimlessly. Belgian cavalry and aircraft appear to have, like the Germans, had local value but (unsurprisingly given their small numbers) little insight into the bigger grand tactical and strategic picture.

Center: The important things were the things that weren't happening; the French recon elements - air and particularly Sordet's Cavalry Corps - not looking hard enough for, and not finding, the German 3., 4. and 5. Feldarmee in the Ardennes sector, giving Joffre and GQG the confirmation they sought that German strength was meager and German operations largely confined to linking the left and right.

Southeast: Air recon, much the same as we saw in the preparation phase: German fliers kicking ass, the French aviators nonexistent. 

The German cavalry seems to have been doing what it could within the sort of tactical limitations we've discussed.

But here the French cavalry really began to show it's problems. There's no way the counter-offensive of 20 AUG should have been undetected until the moment the German howitzer rounds began to impact. Some sort of aggressive patrolling should have revealed the buildup of German and Bavarian infantry. You can ding the German horsemen for stuff like Waremme and Halen, but at least they were trying to follow their doctrine. We'll discuss this in detail in the next chapter, but the French cavalry seems to have been defeated before they mounted up.

Next: The Moment of Decision: 21-24 AUG