First, I apologize for the long delay.
I have no excuse except laziness and the appalling condition of my nation and its government; I've just been too angry and frustrated and depressed watching the fucking MAGANazis speed-run 1933-1939 in the so-called "Land of the Free".
I haven't felt much like discussing battles long ago when I felt more like we should be fighting Confederate scum here and now.
But.
I do want to wrap up the "Frontiers" series before the New Year 2027, and we're at the critical point in the narrative, the collision of the Imperial German right - the "strong right wing" of Schlieffen dreaming - and the Franco-British left in the lowland areas between the Ardennes and the Channel.
The last time we discussed the actions along the French frontier was back in July (Part 6a), when we went over the events that too place in the "central" (Ardennes) and "southeastern" (Lorraine) parts of the front.
Before that we digressed to discuss SIGINT (Part 5c) and then went back to addressing the initial meeting engagements (Part 5b) in May.
We went over the "Opening Moves" of early August 1914 (Part 5a) in February 2025.
Two years ago we talked about aerial reconnaissance assets and organization in November 2024 (Part 4b) and ground reconnaissance (mostly cavalry, since the much larger range and lethality of direct fire weapon had made the "light infantry" effectively nothing more than a local patrolling asset) in September (Part 4a).
We went over war plans; the French GQG's road to what eventually became "Plan XVII" in August (Part 3) and the German OHL's plan - a derivative of von Schlieffen's 1905 memo that's usually referred to simply as the "Schlieffen Plan" - in July (Part 2), and started the whole thing off earlier in the same month by setting up the geopolitical and military setting of 1914 (Part 1).
Here's where we come to what Frank Zappa would have called the Crux of the Biscuit; the collision of the German "strong right wing" that was the supposed decisive element of the plans that formed the basis of the OHL grand tactical operations in August 1914 with the Allied left, by this time largely composed of the British Army in France, the British Expeditionary Force or BEF, and the northwestern-most French field army, 5re Armee.
Because we've come a ways since we talked about our "forces engaged" we should probably stop and discuss the maneuver elements and - since our thesis here revolves around the successes (and failures) of the various combatant reconnaissance efforts - the organizations and units involved in obtaining the tactical intelligence that, at least in theory, would drive the movement, and engagement, of those maneuver units.
Forces Engaged (western Belgium and northern France): 20-25 AUG, 1914
German Empire (Kaiserliche Deutsches Heer):
1.Feldarmee: 12 Feldfliegerabteilung (FFA)
II Armeekorps (II.AK); 20FFA, 3ID, 4ID
III.AK; 7FFA, 5ID, 6ID
IV.AK; 9FFA, 7ID, 8ID
IX.AK; 11FFA, 17ID, 18ID
III.Reserve-Korps (III.RK); 5RD, 6RD
IV.RK; 7RD, 22RD
Couple of notes here for the German armies:
1. As we discussed in the "aviation" post in this series, a typical FFA fielded six operational aircraft. Typically one FFA was assigned directly to the feldarmee, and one was assigned to each subordinate active armeekorps.
2. However, the reserve-korps, presumably because of their lack of familiarity with the fliegertruppen, were not assigned an aviation unit.
2.Feldarmee: 23 FFA
Gardekorps; 1FFA, 1GD, 2GD
VII.AK; 18 FFA, 13ID, 14ID
X.AK; 21 FFA, 19ID, 20ID
Garde RK; 3GD, 1GRD
VII.RK; 13RD, 14RD
X.RK; 2GRD, 19RD
Notes for 2.Feldarmee:
1. So far as I can tell the "Guard" designation did not mean a significantly better-quality unit. As with most "royal" militaries the Guard got first pick of equipment and recruits, and, presumably, more money for training. In the 19th Century and earlier this likely translated into notably better combat performance by individual Guards units, but by 1914 I suspect that the difference in quality between a regular "Guard" division and a regular line infantry division were pretty marginal.
2. The "2. Garde-Reserve-Division" was an oddball outfit; despite the name only one regiment of the four-line-battalions-plus-a-jager-battalion was formed from pre-1914 guardsmen. That's why it was thrown into a reserve armeekorps.
Army Cavalry: The German right wing ground reconnaissance was the primary responsibility of one of the Höhere Kavallerie-Kommando (HKK) units, in this case HKK 2, composed of three kavalrie-division (KD); 2KD, 4KD, and 9KD. HKK 2 also contained seven battalions of infantry, specifically jager "light infantry". As we noted in the earlier post, this added significant direct fire strength to the German cavalry corps.
The HKKs were directly under the Imperial Army flagpole, assigned to the Army HW, Oberste Heersleitung (OHL). In practice they were opconned to the armeekorps commander they were tasked to support, so in this case largely GEN von Kluck of 1. Feldarmee. Later in the campaign HKK 1, tasked to support 3. Feldarmee, turned up adjacent to the French 5eme Armee, but until then von Bulow's 2. Feldarmee had only the divisional cavalry which - as noted below - was not much more than a local recon force.
Interestingly, OHL did not assign aviation units to any of these cavalry corps. Presumably this was because the horse soldiers were supposed to be the "recon" element itself, but you have to wonder whether the fliers would have been useful scouting ahead of the horse soldiers.
It's also worth noting that per the Imperial MTO&E each infantry division had an assigned cavalry regiment. So far as I can tell these units were typically used for purely local reconnaissance and security; the overall grand tactical and operational intelligence gathering function depended on the HKKs and the FFAs.
So two field armies, one cavalry corps, 9 aviation detachments; something like 580,000 troops in the two feldarmees and 22,000 in HKK 2, with about 54 aircraft. By late August this would have included some of 3. Feldarmee's 180,000 troops as well as HKK 1's 13,000.
Third French Republic (Armée de terre, Troisième République Française):
The main force that GQG deployed to met the German right wing was the Fifth Army, 5re Armee, under GEN Lanrezac.
5re Armee:
1er Corps d'Armée (ICdA); 1DI, 2DI
II CdA; 3DI, 4DI
III CdA: 5DI, 6DI
X CdA; 19DI, 20DI
XI CdA; 21DI, 22DI
Army troops included two reserve divisions, 52DR and 60DR, and a cavalry division, 4DC.
Aviation (Aéronautique Militaire): Six aviation squadrons (escadrille) were directly attached to 5re Armee; DO 4, DO 6, C.11, N 12, REP 15, and V 24. As we discussed in the "aviation post", these squadrons were authorized six active aircraft each, and the abbreviation before the squadron number indicated the aircraft type; Dorand DO-1 two-seat biplanes for Escadrilles 4 and 6, Caudron G.3 single-seat biplanes in Escadrille 11 (the only squadron flying this aircraft in 1914), Nieuport VI.M monoplanes in Escadrille 12 (also the only French squadron outfitted with this type**), REP Type N two-seat monoplanes for Escadrille 15, and Voison L two-seat pusher biplanes in Escadrille 24.
**(Note - I can't find a definite answer to the complement of the Nieuport VI M. The earlier civilian version (VI G) is supposed to have had a capacity for three; pilot and two passengers. This could easily have been adapted to a pilot-observer two-seat configuration for wartime service, and several sites imply this was the case but I can't find any online source that definitively states the service crew.).
Army Cavalry: We'll talk about this in some detail when we get to the engagement narrative, but the Franco-British left wing included the only true "strategic cavalry" force on the Allied strength, the French 1er Corps d' Cavalrie (1CdC), usually and better known as "Sordet's Cavalry Corps" after its commander, Général de Division Andre Sordet.
At the beginning of the last phase of the Battle of Frontiers 1CdC consisted of three cavalry divisions, 1DC, 3DC, and 5DC, originally probably about 5-6,000 troops each (including engineers, bicycle troops, and horse artillery) so about 15,000-18,000 for the corps but by the third week in August suffering badly from hard marching, poor resupply and maintenance, and attrition.
The unit was bolstered by the attachment of an infantry brigade around the time of the Battle of the Sambre (21 AUG).
So roughly one field army, 300,000 troops in 5re Armee, and another 15,000-odd in 1CdC, a total of 36 active aircraft of varying types, notionally under the control of GEN Joffre' of GQG, but, as we'll see, with some fairly significant command-and-control issues.
Great Britain (British Expeditionary Force):
The "contemptible little army"*** that landed at Le Havre between 7 and 16 AUG comprised the bulk of the professional Royal Army then serving in the Home Islands; four infantry divisions in two corps and a single cavalry division.
The two infantry corps amassed roughly 40,000 all arms each and the cavalry came to roughly 10,000, so about 90,000 total. With army troops, aviation assets, ash and trash thrown in probably added up to something like 100,000 or so, which as you can tell, really was "little" by continental standards.
Army aviation: Four squadrons (#2, 3, 4, and 5) of 12 active aircraft each, mostly B.E. 2a and Farman F.20 two-seat biplanes, along with a smattering of Bleriot XI single-seat monoplanes and Avro 504 two-seat biplanes. All assigned directly to BEF HQ.
So about 100,000 all arms, and about 48 aircraft, under the command of Field Marshal Sir John French.
***(Note - I've heard that term - "contemptible little army" - ever since I first learned anything about the Great War. It was attributed to some sort of public statement from Emperor Wilhelm II, with the caveat that supposedly the original wording was something like "...verächtlich klein..." which can be translated either as "contemptible little" or "contemptibly little", and that the German wording was intended to mean the latter and that British propagandists twisted it to read the former so as to insult the BEF and by inference the British in general.
Well.
Apparently there is no "original German". Here's a long thread on the "Great War Forum" discussing the lack of any sort of German source despite over a century of investigation. So, no. Kaiser Bill (and noone else in Germany) called the BEF "contemptible", small or otherwise. It is British propaganda, pure and simple.)
Together the Allied totals were about 400,000 main force (5re Armee and the BEF's I and II Corps) troops, about 15,000 "strategic" cavalry, and about 80 aircraft against Germany's two (and parts of a third) feldarmee (about 580,000 all arms) and parts of two "strategic" (HKK) cavalry corps (probably about 25,000-odd including jager infantry) and 54-odd aircraft.
Now that we've got these two forces coming together along the Franco-Belgian border, to figure out where our reconnaissance elements fit in we need to discuss...
What were the opponents trying to do, and how was reconnaissance important to the uccess of each side's operations?
Germany: Remember we're out at the far right hand of the big swing around the French Séré de Rivières fortress line, the "strong right wing". The idea that had been presented in Schlieffen's 1905 memo, anyway, was to swing wide outside - west - of the end of the French (now including British) main forces defending the frontiers (and, presumably, attacking in Alsace and Lorraine) to get in behind the Allied armies.
Once between the Allied main line of resistance and the lines of supply and communication, largely running southwest towards Paris, the right wing could envelop and cut off the Allied defenses, much as the French armies of 1870 had been encircled at Sedan, and, presumably, cause a similarly speedy collapse and capitulation...before the Russian armies could fully mobilize and attack East Prussia in strength.
To do this OHL needed to know:
1. Where were the left-side Allied forces? And, in particular,
2. Where was the far-left-end of the Allied line (so as to know how much further west to go to loop around it)?
One thing that Schlieffen had added in his memo that he considered an important part of #2 was the need to cut off and destroy, or at least neutralize, the Belgian Army...meaning that there was a third somewhat secondary task,
3. Where were the Belgians? Specifically, to find an crush them before they could fort up in Antwerp and force the right wing to divert troops to form a covering force there.
That was pretty much it; find the far left end of the Allied line (while finding the rest of the Allied forces, mind you...) while keeping an eye on the Belgians.
This meant that at least one of the HKKs - in this case, HKK 2 - should have been sent out west in front of 1. Feldarmee underneath as big a cloud of aircraft as could be spared from searching for the Belgians as well as the French (and British) MLR. Better yet, HKK 1 should have been released from 3. Feldarmee, whose axis of advance was fairly narrow and well-defined as a search corridor.
Did that happen?
We'll see in a bit.
Britain and France: Kind of the reverse of the German problem. The "enemy's most dangerous course of action" was masking/engaging the Allied left-wing armies to keep the attention of GQG snd the BEF to their front while looping a significantly large force around the outside of the Allied left.
The Allies had to know that their left was pretty much "in the air". The left-most element - the BEF - had nobody to their left outside a fairly thin screen of French reservists and those not really active-reserve-type units but local "territorials" that would be capable of little more than defending in place.
The logical place for the cavalry - both Sordet's Corps as well as the BEF's small cavalry "corps" - as well as the bulk of the RFC - would therefore be spun out to the north and west of the Allied MLR to find and report any German activity there. All the while sending local cavalry/aviation patrols out to the north and east to find the advance elements of the German main forces, mind. I'm not saying this was easy in execution, just simple in concept.
(Insert Clausewitz's (drink!) observation about simple things in war here...)
Again, we'll see what actually happened in a bit.
Situation - 17 AUG 1914:
We'll start on the 17th because the last of the Liege forts capitulated on 16 AUG, freeing the right wing armies to drive west past the Meuse into the central Belgian plain.
The Belgian Army had dropped behind the line of the river Gete, outnumbered and outclassed by the German troops now approaching from the east. The Belgian command knew this, and didn't intend to die in place, given that their new Franco-British allies could offer little or no help.
On 17 AUG the 1. Feldarmee air and cavalry recon efforts had done well to locate the Belgian main line of resistance; Bowdin (2017) cites the OHL orders on that date as identifying the MLR as "Diest-Tirlemont-Wavre" which was pretty close to correct (the Belgian right didn't quite extend quite as far south as Wavre).
This order directed 1. Feldarmee (and HKK 2) conform to the direction of 2. Feldarmee in order to "...drive the enemy troops...back from Antwerp, while covering on our left flank toward Namur."
This is where the first problems confronting the German right wing emerged, and they were operational, not because of reconnaissance or intelligence failures.
Remember, the "problem" the dinky little Belgian Army presented was just in being. If it was allowed to evade envelopment and capitulation by - as the 17 AUG OHL order noted - skipping back and north to Antwerp, it would be in position to make trouble for German rear areas and lines of supply and communications and force detachment of some body of German troops to mask it.
To prevent this the 1. Feldarmee staff (specifically the Stabschef, MG von Kuhl) proposed driving his army directly forward to engage the Belgians to tie them in place.
This worried the 2. Feldarmee command and staff; GEN Bulow directed 1. Feldarmee to detach one corps (II. Armekorps) to swing wide to the north to turn the Belgian left before the body of 1. Feldarmee went in to attack on 18 AUG.
Von Kuhl went off; the proposed maneuver would be too slow and too obvious. The Belgians would see it coming and grab a hat for Antwerp, the very thing OHL didn't want.
No joy; Bulow insisted on the move, the unit ordered to swing wide, II. AK, got bogged in bad wet ground and was spotted there by Belgian cavalry scouts, and the Belgian Army march-ordered before the end of the day 18 AUG.
Situation - 18 AUG 1914:
So here we are, with the Belgians skating away to the northwest while the three German right-wing armies push directly west. The BEF is still assembling near Le Cateau off-map to the west.
Note the deployment of the German reconnaissance elements, though,
Aviation was directed entirely at the Belgian retreat (though supposedly 3. Feldarmee sent some of its FFA patrols out west and southwest, but not far enough to find the French 4eme and 5re Armee (and missing the French 1 CdC (Sordet) out in front of 2. Feldarmee). OHL, and the feldarmee command and staff, didn't throw any air assets out to the southwest and west to try and figure out where the left end of the Allied main force elements were.
Three cavalry divisions of HKK 2 were spread out all over the advancing German armies but were tucked in too close to the infantry; 2te Kavalrie Division (KD) on the right flank of 1. Feldarmee, largely to keep an eye on the Belgians, while 4te KD and 9te KD were too close to the German infantry columns of 2. Feldarmee to do more than skirmish with Sordet's retreating troopers. The entirety of HKK 1 was trying to work it's way forward through the clogged roads behind 2. Feldarmee.
Neither of the HKKs, the supposed "strategic cavalry" of the German right wing, were where they could be most useful, finding the positions of the Allies outfits most dangerous to the right wing sweep, 5re Armee and the BEF.
The German aviation units were doing their rather limited assignments well. Where the French aviators were I have no idea, but their contributions, if at all, seem to have been of limited usefulness; GQG still didn't seem to have grasped what was going on to their northwest front.
Situation - 19 AUG 1914:
The biggest difference in the overall conditions was the arrival of the first British maneuver units, and operational squadrons of the RFC, into their assembly areas around Maubeuge.
The British aviators flew patrols to the north as far as Brussels and northeast as far as Gembloux. The Roads to the Great War site has a nice post that provides narratives from the pilot and observer of one of the aircraft that helps us understand one of the technical troubles that made 1914 aerial reconnaissance so difficult:
"First reconnaissance, with Mapplebeck. Lost myself most thoroughly. Landed at Tournai, where I had lunch with the governor and again at Courtrai, where I was taken for a German, until rescued by the Irish inhabitants. Finally achieved my task and returned after six and a quarter hours flying."
On the other side of the hill, 1. Feldarmee's air tasking order sent aircraft from FFA 12 (under the 1.FA flagpole) patrolling southwest to Namur and from there northwest to Ostend along the Channel coast and from there looping back to Bruges...where another hazard of early military aviation showed up; the pilot overshot the Dutch border, ran out of fuel, and was interned after a successful dead-stick landing.
HKK 2's three cavalry divisions were still trying to fight their way out front; 2KD to the north of 1.Feldarmee, 4KD and 9KD out front of 2. Feldarmee; none of them were in position to make contact with French infantry, though Sordet's cavalry corps withdrew before the latter two KD's towards Gembloux.
2. Feldarmee's cavalry and aviation assets were employed close to the army's own FLOT; fortunately for OHL 3. Feldarmee's fliers were searching out to the west along the Meuse, where their reports placed several French heavy units, including several 5re Armee corps in the area.
This, in turn, produced several directives from the OHL staff:
2. and 3. Feldarmee were ordered to close up around Namur (which would be enveloped and besieged as Liege had been) to attack the French lines along the Meuse west and south of the fortress city.
1. Feldarmee was tasked to continue moving west but, because the west end of the Allied MLR (particularly the BEF) hadn't been located, the army was forced to slow it's movements and refuse it's flanks ("echelon" the left and right flank units) in case the British turned up unexpectedly.
Finally realizing that the critical task of finding the BEF and the west end of the Allied MLR was understaffed OHL ordered HKK 1 released from 3. and 4. Feldarmee control to slide to the right to the north bank of the Meuse and operational control of 2. Feldarmee when it arrived.
Again, the German fliegertruppe seems to have been doing the best of the recon units.
Neither side's "strategic cavalry" was well-employed (Sordet because his earlier anabasis had wrecked many of the 1CdC's horses and crippled it's mobility, the HKKs because of poor tactical positioning and similar issues with the pace of movement versus the endurance of the mounts; many German cavalry units reported problems with supply, including fodder and remounts.
Remember, the HKKs were "Army" assets, so their logistical support didn't come from the closest major command - the feldarmees - but all the way from OHL to the east. Meaning "meager at best or not at all").
The Allied aviators were doing...something. The BEF/RFC seems to have had the right ideas but was struggling with navigation. Where the Armee de l'Air was, I have no idea. Whatever the activities, the result was that the Allied decision-making was brutally hampered by a lack of strategic information. GQG and Joffre were stuck in the pre-war Plan XVII mindset. As Stewart (1967) lays out;
"...despite the...intelligence appraisal of August 18th suggesting that thirteen to fifteen German army corps were engaged in Belgium, Joffre still held to his plan of attacking Neufchateau with his Third and Fourth Armies.
He both underestimated the size of the German forces engaged and was unduly overconfident that the British Expeditionary Force would arrive in time to contain the northernmost German elements."
Situation - 20 AUG 1914:
At this point the lack of strategic intelligence - on both sides - began to show effects on the western ends of both the combatants' maneuver forces.
On the German right, separation between the left flank units of 1. Feldarmee (still moving mostly westward trying to find the end of the Allied lines) and the right wing of 2. Feldarmee (beginning to pivot south around Namur to find and attack the French 5re Armee reported to be nearing the Sambre) was increasing.
The failure of German reconnaissance units to locate the BEF was largely responsible; until 1. Feldarmee could be sure that the British weren't out there to the west somewhere Kluck had to hedge his bets, casting eyes out to his right and right rear rather than closing up on Bulow's right.
Further east 3. Feldarmee was lagging behind schedule, hindered by bad roads and congestion.
The strategic cavalry units were still fighting to get through the logistical mess on the Belgian roads. HKK 2 was finally clear of the infantry and artillery columns, but just barely, and spread out all over hell's half acre; 2 KD looping around northwest of Brussels, while 4 KD and 9 KD were moving north and west past the Sambre with the intent to reform the corps somewhere northwest of Mons.
HKK 1 was still trapped in the traffic behind 2. Feldarmee's maneuver forces.
1. Feldarmee's fliegertruppe were still largely shadowing the Belgian retreat to Antwerp, while 2. Feldarmee's fliers were mostly patrolling the immediate front of the army's advance outside a single flight by FFA 21 (attached to 2. Feldarmee's X Armeekorps) that scouted the Belgian coast.
One bright spot was the work of 3. Feldarmee's fliers, who spotted "...trenches, artillery batteries, and bivouacs near Onhaye..." (Bowdon, 2017) along the Meuse.
But without understanding of the larger Allied deployment - that is, lacking the whereabouts of the BEF and the Allied movements west of the Sambre/Meuse confluence - OHL was issuing orders based on a conviction that the area south and west of Namur would be the location of the decisive enveloping engagement.
That the area would be where the "strong right wing" won - or lost - the war.
The lack of solid reconnaissance and intelligence-collection on the German right wing meant that the German overall command - OHL - took the absence of evidence of the British out to the west as evidence of absence.
The 1. Feldarmee commander von Kluck worried that the British were out there somewhere. Kluck wanted to keep moving west and southwest to find the BEF and envelop them and the Allied left.
Moltke at OHL was more concerned about the developing contacts along (as we'll see below) the Sambre and Meuse, between 2. and 3. Feldarmee and the French 5th Armee.
Kluck kept bugging OHL about moving west, OHL kept insisting Kluck's 1. Feldarmee slide south and east to cover 2. Feldarmee's right because Moltke - in perhaps what was the beginning of his descent into physical and emotional breakdown that would lead to his relief in September - seemed fixated on the enemies he knew about rather than the ones he didn't.
On the Allied left 5re Armee was pushing forward to the junction of the Sambre and Meuse, but the BEF was a godless stramash, columns of II Corps pushing slowly north of Maubeuge towards the "Canal du Centre" north of Mons while the 1 Corps was still strung out around Maubeuge behind them.
The British cavalry division had moved north and east into the significant gap between II Corps and Lanzerac's leftmost corps (18 Corps d'armee) as Sordet's 1CdC drifted back, first to the open country between the BEF and 5re Armee, and from there into the rear areas between the British and French forward infantry lines.
Allied reconnaissance failures included technical and tactical problems similar to those hampering the German aviators and cavalrymen, although particularly worsened on the ground by the combination of poor tactical and logistical planning, command and control that meant that Sordet's cavalry corps - the only true "strategic" Allied cavalry - was by this point utterly ineffective as anything beyond a local recon and security unit because of its aimless wanderings across Belgium and northern France as well as criminally inadequate C3I by its nominal "commander" Joffre at GQG.
The British cavalry is said to have been poorly employed, as well. Terence Zuber is particularly scathing;
"In reconnaissance, counter-reconnaissance and rear-guard operations the British cavalry from 21 to 27 August was utterly ineffectual. Whether the British cavalry was superior fighting dismounted...is a moot point, because it didn’t fight dismounted, but made a practice of withdrawing before the Germans could make contact. Compared to the 2nd Cavalry Brigade fiasco at Audregnies, the Light Brigade’s charge at Balaclava was a signal success – at least some of the Light Brigade got to the Russian guns."
Keep in mind that Zuber's relentless admiration for German tactical training makes him a somewhat unreliable narrator. But the overall performance of the British cavalry in August 1914 makes his general point - that the BEF's commander French was badly served by his cavalry relative to the support the German cavalry gave their maneuver commanders - difficult to refute.
The British aerial recon efforts were, as we noted, hampered significantly by the difficulty of navigating above an unfamiliar landscape and the inexperience of the fliers. What the hell the French aviation units were doing I can't tell...but the difficulty with blaming the Allied aviation efforts is that when both Joffre at GQG and French at BEF were correctly informed of German activity they often disregarded that intelligence in favor of their own prejudices, hopes, or fears.
Summary of Operations, 20 AUG 1914: It was this day that the real "crisis" of the western portion of the "Battle of the Frontiers" began to develop.
At 1430hrs OHL sent a message to the three right wing feldarmee commanders that read, in part:
"Both army headquarters (1. and 2. Feldarmee) must reach agreements to synchronize the imminent attack against the enemy west of Namur (principally 5re Armee) with Third Army's attack on the Meuse between Namur and Givet." (italics mine)
This, in turn, would shape the coming engagements between the French and British on the Allied left and the Imperial right wing, as we will see.
Situation - 21 AUG 1914: Several events, some by design, some by accident, made this and the following day something of a pause in operations. This is also typically considered the first day of the three-day engagement that is called the Battle of Charleroi.
(I should note here that for the following several days I will use the wonderful tactical maps provided by Bowden (2017) to orient the descriptions of the actions of both the maneuver and reconnaissance elements.)
So the "story" of 21 AUG was the collision between what everyone planned, and what actually happened.
The German Plan: OHL's thinking was that:
1) 1. and 2. Feldarmee would close up the gap between them and move south towards the Sambre, with 1.Feldarmee shuffling to it's left while continuing to refuse it's right just in case the damn Brits turned up to the west, but wouldn't engage the French defenses along the river lines.
2) 3. Feldarmee would complete it's advance to the Meuse.
3) HKK 1 would finally cut itself loose from opcon of 3. and 4. Feldarmee and loop around Namur where it would begin recon for 2. Feldarmee.
The French Plan: as envisioned by GQG, was...
1) That 5re Armee would move forward to support the main attack of 3eme and 4eme Armee in the Ardennes - remember, Joffre's aggressive Plan XVII was still the overarching grand tactical concept of operations.
2) The BEF would move into line with 5re Armee and then the two would fix the German right with attacks until the Ardennes breakthrough would allow the French armies to pivot left and fall on the lines of communication and supply in Belgium (and the rear areas of the right wing feldarmees.
GEN Lanrezac's caveat to GQG's offensive focus was based on 1) the slow meandering pace of the BEF's advance, and 2) the delay that GQG had nailed his army in place until late on 15-16 AUG, meaning that the lead elements of 5re Armee didn't reach the Sambre until 20 AUG.
This meant that Lanrezac had nobody to his left, and that created a terrain problem to his front.
The north bank of the Sambre was better, higher ground than the south.
But without support to the west pushing the bulk of his forces north of the river risked being outflanked and attacked from north and west with a river at his back.
So Lanrezac compromised, sending detachments across the Sambre to fortify the north bridge abutments while digging in the bulk of his army to the south (and refusing one corps to face 3. Feldarmee across the Meuse).
What actually happened: Instead of pulling up on the north bank of the Sambre, the lead elements of Bulow's 2. Feldarmee - the 2te Garde Infantrie Division of the Imperial Guard - attacked right off the line of march and took the bridge crossing at the town of Auvelais and established a solid bridgehead on the south bank.
Later in the day another 2. Feldarmee infantry division from X Armeekorps did the same further east at Tergne.
This German aggression bothered GEN Lanrezac not a whit; he'd instructed his corps and division commanders not to fight for the bridgeheads, preferring to dig in deep on the high ground some distance south of the Sambre.
So, in theory, the actions on 21 AUG should have set up a German attack on French (or Anglo-French, had 1. Feldarmee and the BEF moved more quickly) defensive positions on 22 AUG.
Since, as the military aphorism says, no plan survives contact with the enemy, the reality was somewhat different.
Reconnaissance activities, 21 AUG: So far as I can tell, these fall into two categories: German aerial reconnaissance, which was extremely successful in one area and largely absent in the rest, and Allied strategic reconnaissance (both air and ground) and German strategic cavalry recon, all of which did very little, and some random British infantry - specifically a bicycle recon unit of the 4th Middlesex Regiment - encountered German 1. Feldarmee cavalry patrols near Obourg north of Mons (which the BEF commander, French, seems to have ignored (see 22 AUG).
Both German HKKs were out of contact all day, HKK 2 ranging out to the west between Tournai and Ath, far from the nearest British units along the Canal de Centre near Mons, and (as we've mentioned) HKK 1 in the process of changing fronts.
The Allied cavalry - both Sordet's 1CdC and the British Cavalry Division - were out of position, behind their own infantry lines; Sordet between and behind 5re Armee's left and the BEF I Corps right, the British in behind their own II Corps.
German aviation did quite well - for 2. Feldarmee. FFA 1 (supporting the Guard corps) and FFA 30 (supporting X.AK) provided accurate intel that helped the attacks across the Sambre succeed. Later in the day all of 2. Feldarmee's fliers were involved in finding and reporting 5re Armee's defenses.
However, 1. Feldarmee's aviation units seem to have been either unable to find, or unable to report, the whereabouts of the BEF, which contributed to the overall hesitancy of Kluck's army's move to the southeast.
Allied aerial reconnaissance seems to have informed the Allied commanders, from French and Lanrezac at the front up to Joffre at GQG, of German activities, locations, or strengths (as we'll see in just a bit...). This wasn't really as much a problem as it could have been - Lanrezac pretty much knew where his enemies were coming from - but it added to the overall lack of focus and understanding at GQG.
Situation - 22 AUG 1914:
The "big story" of this day was the damn French infantry commanders screwing the pooch again as the Battle of Charleroi continued.
Here's how Bowden (2017) describes it:
"Lanrezac's corps commanders...expressed their intentions in their nightly reports of the 21st-22nd to order an immediate counterattack at dawn to reclaim the lost bridges. Despite vehemently disagreeing, Lanrezac felt it was too late in the evening to countermand his subordinates' orders before the attacks woul begin."
The French corps commanders compounded their grand tactical incompetence with tactical clusterfuckery; their cunning plan was to try and "surprise" the German south-bank bridgeheads by a mass infantry rush, having not bothered to ascertain that the Gardekorps and X. Armeekorps defenses had been dug in and wired hard overnight and were well supported by artillery.
Predictably the French infantry was butchered.
And, equally predictably, the French infantry officers refused to accept defeat, instead bringing up their own artillery to try and shoot more infantry into the German defenses.
That failed, too.
Instead, 2. Feldarmee's armeekorps pushed out of their defenses and drove back the decimated French II and X corps d'armee, leaving Lanrezac's main line of resistance further south and in poorer ground than that he'd planned to defend.
Well, sod that for a game of soldiers.
Meanwhile, 3. Feldarmee was dragging ass, so OHL ordered 1. and 2. Feldarmee to hold in place, wait for their buddies to show up, and make a general attack along the Meuse/Sambre/Mons line.
Reconnaissance activities, 22 AUG: It's worth noting that, as is often the case, reconnaissance intelligence is only as valuable as the degree to which the receiving commander(s) credit it. Here's a summary of some of the British recon actions that day (from the Wiki article on the Battle of Mons):
"At 6:30 a.m. on 22 August the 4th Royal Irish Dragoons sent two officers' patrols from Obourg northwards towards Soignies and one drove off a German outpost. A troop advanced later and engaged German cavalry advancing south from Soignies towards Mons, repulsing it near Casteau and began a pursuit until stopped by German return-fire. Three to four German cavalry were killed and three taken prisoner from the 4th Cuirassiers of the 9th Cavalry Division (9KD was part of HKK 2, remember?). That day, having used British reconnaissance aircraft along with Lanrezac's messaging to his army staff, the BEF's chief of intelligence, Colonel George Macdonough, warned (Field Marshal) French that three German corps were advancing towards the BEF. French chose to ignore these claims, instead proposing to advance towards Soignies."
Yeah, well, there's a reason that French has been roundly spanked by many soldiers and historians familiar with his work in August 1914.
German aviation and cavalry were doing hard work; HKK 2 was (as noted in the citation above) feeling out the BEF's positions along the canal near Mons (HKK 1 was still slogging around the besieged fortress of Namur). 2. Feldarmee's flying sections picked up the French counterattacks early and reported French movements and strengths in detail throughout the day.
Per Showalter (2019) Kluck at 1. Feldarmee was still worried about Brits popping up on his right:
"Focusing on the Lille expectation, all of the aviation assets of First Army were sent in that direction...(except) the flying section of Ninth Army Corps...(t)hat...was assigned to the area around Mons. All of these aviation elements reported negative contact with the BEF".
This absence of evidence should have been broken both by 9KD's contact along with a patrol from FFA 11 (the IX Armeekorps feldfliegerabteilung mentioned above) that reported encountering formed troops as well as vehicles - trucks and wagons - on the roads leading toward Mons and the nearby centers of Bavai and Binche.
It didn't. Bowdon (2017) doesn't mention this, but Showalter (2019) - whose thesis is that "reconnaissance failure" helped derail the German plans in 1914, remember - reports that this patrol report was somehow lost in transit and never reached Kluck's headquarters, reminding us that "...the intelligence sections officer (Ic) of the German army corps...were heavily overworked and didn't forward an estimated fifty percent of the aviation reports to First Army."
Showalter (2019) goes into some depth about disagreement at the feldarmee-and-above command level that made the 1.Feldarmee recon situation worse, but we'll get to that when the morning of the next day dawns.
Situation - 23 AUG 1914: The Battle of Mons and the final day of the Battle of Charleroi.
The maneuver elements of both sides - BEF and 5re Armee for the Allies, all three German right wing feldarmee - get stuck into each other, so the first order of business for the reconnaissance troopers is tactical support for their infantry and artillery spotting.
And that turns out to be difficult; for the aviators by bad weather (mostly heavy fog in the morning and clouds and bad weather all day), and the by-now-usual-1914-problem of fighting for intelligence against rifle, machinegun, and artillery fire for the cavalry...with what should have been some significant exceptions, as we'll discuss.
The German attacks were pretty straightforward. 2. Feldarmee pushed south, either out of it's 21-22 AUG bridgeheads (for the Guard and X. AK) or from the north bank of the Sambre (for VII AK and X RK). 3. Feldarmee across the Meuse against the refused right flank of 5re Armee, and 1. Feldarmee across the Mons canal against the British II Corps. HKK 2 was busy out on the far right end of the German line of advance.
The Allied defense was likewise fairly straightforward; using river lines wherever possible. The two main element commanders' differing tactical abilities complicated things a bit, though.
Lanrezac had reorganized his defenses overnight, shifting units to provide relief for outfits like X CA that had been mauled on 22 AUG as well as to take advantage of good defensive terrain such as that which dominated the west bank of the Meuse.
French, on the other hand, set up the BEF poorly because of his fear of encirclement; his right-hand I Corps was echeloned southeast, useful in case of a 5re Armee collapse but unable to support II Corps along the canal and barely engaged all day.
Much has been written about the actions of 23 AUG, and I'll trust that as a student of military history (or why are you still reading this far..?) you know most of them. Suffice to say that this time it was the German infantry's turn to experience the "World War 1 infantry attack" horrors of direct and indirect fire while struggling against terrain and man-made defenses such as wire and trenches.
The German attacks succeeded in taking the objectives on the ground at the expected cost in lives, and both 5re Armee and the BEF were forced back but in fairly good order; the elusive breakthrough-and-pursuit result of tactical victory (as all combatant armies would discover over the next four years or so) was unachievable given the constraints of distance, armaments, logistics, and casualties.
But the result was a problem for the Allies; both major commands had lost lives and equipment as well as the most promising defensive terrain as well as contact with each other. Both FM French and GEN Lanrezac concluded separately that it was time to grab a hat, and orders for a general withdrawal south were issued on 23 AUG to be effected overnight.
On the other side of the hill OHL yoicked the three feldarmee forward.
Reconnaissance activities, 23 AUG: The fliers on both sides were - when weather permitted - largely committed to tactical reconnaissance and maneuver unit support.
The British Cavalry Division was pulling left flank security for the BEF, Sordet's troops still out of contact, and HKK 1 still struggling through the jammed traffic in the 1. Feldarmee rear.
On the far right end of the German advance, though, reconnaissance, internal communications, and a failure of intelligence analysis were causing problems for the "right wing sweep".
During the day cavalry patrols of HKK 2 were ranging out west of the right wing of 1. Feldarmee. Despite their position, the German horse soldiers were under the control of Bulow's 2. Feldarmee rather then Kluck's HQ, and on 22 AUG Bulow had ordered patrolling to go northwest towards Courtrai to chase an air recon report of British cavalry there.
Kluck and Bulow fought over this; Kluck's troops, in contact, were confident that the aerial reports were wrong, and that HKK 2 was wide of the British left with mostly open country to the south.
Ground recon reports supported this; forward HKK 2 cavalry patrols as well was infantry contacts along the far right of the 1. Feldarmee advance were finding not British regulars but French reservists, "territorials" between Conde' and Lille, and few of them at best.
Kluck insisted that HKK 2 push south and west to fight through this thin screen and envelop the BEF left. Bulow and OHL resisted well into the day on 23 AUG before relenting and passing opcon of HKK 2 over to 1. Feldarmee.
By then it was too late. Had the German riders any chance to cut off the retreat from Mons if they'd been moving south on 23 AUG it was gone that evening as the "Great Retreat" had already begun.
"Had HKK 2 swung around into the rear area of the BEF near Mons, World War I might very well have taken a completely different course. Indeed, that result might have been certain."
I'm very much skeptical.
HKK 2, like all the German cavalry, had been marching and fighting for three weeks. The guys were tired, the horses even moreso. The British cavalry, holding down the BEF left, was relatively fresh and unblooded. The likelihood of HKK 2 smashing through into the British rear in strength seems unlikely, the probability of the British regular infantry coming apart in response seems improbable.
I think that had OHL passed control over the German cavalry sooner the fighting on 23 AUG, and the retreat on 24 AUG, might have been much nearer-run things. But changing the course of the war entirely?
Sorry. I don't buy it.
Situation - 24 AUG 1914: The first day of what would become known as "The Great Retreat".
Now that the Allies were trying to break contact good recon - figuring out how and where the British and French defenders were retreating to cut them off if possible - was essential, and the reconnaissance burden was almost entirely on the German aviation units, the German strategic cavalry being either too far west (HKK 2) or to close to their own infantry (HKK 1).
Here again it seems like the German fliers did a lot of good fieldwork, finding the routes and direction of both the BEF and 5re Armee but, critically, that poor staff work in interpretation and analysis of reporting, screwed up the response on the ground.
On the German right 1. Feldarmee staff reacted to a single FFA 7 report received at 0200 on 24 AUG - which was in direct conflict with observations of all the other aerial patrols during the previous day - and altered the line of advance under the mistaken presumption that the BEF was falling back into the fortress lines around the city of Maubeuge rather than south towards Le Cateau.
Meanwhile similarly good aviation scouting had given GEN Hauser and 3. Feldarmee a picture of the situation along 5re Armee's right that suggested a drive from the Meuse crossings southwest might bag a big portion of the French defenders.
But Bulow wasn't convinced. Instead, worried about the potential for disaster if a French counterattack hammered 2. Feldarmee, he ordered 3. Feldarmee to attack directly west.
There they found nothing but the debris of retreat and the silence of empty fields and woods.
The Allied left - badly beaten and decimated as it was - had escaped.
Situation - 25-26 AUG 1914: The Great Retreat continued, while OHL and the right wing feldarmees made the right moves too late.
As we discussed above, both Kluck at 1. Feldarmee and Bulow with 2. Feldarmee had made poor choices - and they were choices, not the direct result of misinformation; the aerial reconnaissance was solid overall, but the combination of overwhelmed corps intelligence staff and both army commanders' fixed ideas led them to either ignore the intel or seize on anomalous reports that supported their preconceived ideas - meant that the German armies moved in the wrong directions and the bulk of the French and British units evaded the German moves.
For a day or so; once reports came in from the feldfliegerabteilungen that had located the Allied lines of retreat the German armies came on with a rush.
The French left-flank armies, 5re and 4eme, fell back some 7 to 9 kilometers southwest in decent order.
The British were a fucking shitshow, and FM French seems to have had either little or no understanding of that and/or little skill to change it had he known.
II Corps, beat up along Mons canal, had staggered south and west towards Le Cateau through the wooded roads of the Forêt de Mormal. The Cavalry Division moved alongside and west of the infantry and artillery.
I Corps was straggling south along the roads south of the Sambre, several miles east of II Corps because of a combination of the BEF commander's failure to force his subordinates to coordinate their movement and GHQ's perception (not entirely unjustified) that the roads through the forest were too narrow to allow passage for both corps.
25 AUG, the I Corps rearguard was attacked near Landrecies. This force, mostly British foot guard infantry, fought a tough, and successful, little holding action before sloping off south on the morning of 26 AUG.
The fight seems to have shaken I Corps commander, GEN Haig, who fired off a message to GEN Lanrezac so dire that it put the wind up 5re Armee's command and staff.
Whether or not Haig "panicked" (and historians differ on what happened with I Corps at and after Landrecies) his orders directing I Corps to retreat towards Guise to the south rather than join up with II Corps to the southwest meant that the BEF remained a patchwork shambles through 25 and into 26 AUG, when the other British corps, II, was attacked at Le Cateau.
26 AUG: Clusterfuck at Le Cateau
The commander of II Corps, GEN Smith-Dorrien, seems to have had no intention of fighting there, but his outfit arrived late on 25 AUG and on seeing how exhausted his troops were when their sergeants kicked them out of their blankets on the morning of 26 AUG Smith-Dorrien chose to remain in place around Le Cateau.
The disposition of the II Corps bivouac sites was a hot mess. Infantry were sprawled out on forward slopes, outside of supporting distance of each other, without field fortifications or other obstacles in place. Dead ground was left uncovered and unobserved. Royal Artillery batteries had dropped trails in open ground and often within several hundred meters of their infantry, making both arms big fat targets for the German gunners.
Neither II Corps or the Cavalry Division, or their opposite numbers in 1. Feldarmee, IV Armeekorps, seem to have expected the other to be where they were at Le Cateau, so neither FFA 9 (the IV.AK feldfliegerabteilung) nor the RFC outdid themselves there.
The respective French and German cavalries put in a good day's work, however; the three divisions of HKK 2 formed a large portion of 1. Feldarmee's attacking strength and were effective in dismounted attacks on the left side of the II Corps defense, while the tired troopers of Sordet's 1er Corps d'Cavalrie were rushed southwest to shore up the British left and is credited for ensuring that, when the British resistance eroded, II Corps withdrawal from Le Cateau was effectively covered.
Once the fighting at Le Cateau was underway, and until bad weather - heavy rain and thunderstorms - shut down aerial reconnaissance the German aviators did much better than they had in the leadup to Le Cateau; Bowdon (2017) notes that 1. Feldarmee's fliers were effective in finding and detailing movement and direction of both British infantry corps, allowing Kluck's army to continue pursuit the following day.
Situation - 27-28 AUG 1914: More Great Retreat and the Battle of Guise/St. Quentin.
So far as I can tell the two sides had few issues with reconnaissance or intelligence-collection during the two days following the engagements as Le Cateau/Landrecies, largely because the German forward elements - presumably both cavalry and infantry scouts - maintained contact with the British and French rearguards. The fliegertruppe were still busy, and per Bowdon (2017) continued to provide useful information when the weather permitted - storms grounded the fliegerabteilungen several times on 27 and 28 AUG.
But...what did happen was that the three right wing feldarmees followed different axes of advance, the weather sucked as often as not, and German army staff intelligence analyses had some of the problems we've seen.
On the far right 1. and 2. Feldarmee pursued 5re Armee and the BEF to the southwest.
3. Feldarmee, however, was torn between that and pursuing the retreating French 4eme Armee to the southeast, opening (as you can see above) a considerable - 15-20 kilometer - gap between the 2. Feldarmee left and 3. Feldarmee right. 2. Feldarmee itself had an almost 12-klick internal break in contact, between the Gardekorps and X. AK on the left and VII. AK and X. RK on the right.
This spooked Bulow. A lot. He kept bugging Hauser over at 3. Feldarmee to skootch right to protect their open flanks. Hauser kept trying, but at the same time 4. Feldarmee was having a tough time with the fantassins of 4eme Armee and was screaming for help, too. On 28 AUG Hauser gave up and shifted to the left to link up with his pal Albrecht and 4. Feldarmee.
What between the weather problems and the general fog of war produced a German intelligence failure during this period was missing the 5re Armee's preparations between 27-28 AUG for a local counterattack on 29 AUG.
This attack was ordered by GQG to 1) take pressure off the BEF, which had been badly mishandled, and 2) buy time for Joffre to pull together the tag-ends of active and reserve units out beyond 1. Feldarmee's right that would become 6eme Armee.
It worked, at the usual gruesome cost.
Situation - 29-30 AUG 1914: The Great Retreat continued past the end of the Battle of Frontiers.
The fight at Guise/St. Quentin had bought GQG some time, but had also killed and wounded more of 5re Armee's infantrymen, contributed to the disorganization within the army, and had continued the erosion of trust and confidence between Field Marshal French of the BEF, Joffre at GQG, and 5re Armee's GEN Lanrezac.
(Joffre ended up relieving Lanrezac on 3 SEP 1914).
The Allied forces continued their withdrawal to the eventual positions where what would become known as the First Battle of the Marne began two days later, and the German right wing armies pursued, while failing to close the open country between 1. and 2. Feldarmee, providing a weakened "hinge" for the Marne offensive to target and create panic at OHL.
This led directly to the resignation of Moltke as Chief of the General Staff, the appointment of Falkenhayn, and from there to the eventual charnel house of Verdun.
But for the purposes of our inquiry, this ended the "maneuver" fighting that had dominated the beginning of World War 1 and began the brutal grind of positional trench war that we've come to think of as "World War 1".
Bowdon (2017) says:
"...the German War Plan was predicated upon a quick and decisive victory featuring the destruction of a significant portion of the allied armies in the field. Thus, the continuation of the allied withdrawal in the aftermath of the battle was effectively a defeat by postponing another general engagement."
This is specific to Guise/St. Quentin but much the same can be said for the Flanders portion of the Battle of the Frontiers in general, and to an extent to the entire Western Front in August, 1914.
To win the war Germany needed to largely, or completely, destroy the British and French field armies as they had the French in 1870 and as they did the allied armeis in 1940. That didn't happen in August 1914, and some of the reasons for that can be laid to, as our initial hypothesis suggested, problems with the tactics and techniques of reconnaissance gathering.
But only some, and that's what we're going to discuss in the final post in this series.
Last: The Battle of the Frontiers and the Failures of August 1914
No comments:
Post a Comment