How many battles of marne were there

Germany's grand Schlieffen Plan to conquer France entailed a wheeling movement of the northern wing of its armies through central Belgium to enter France near Lille. It would turn west near the English Channel and then south to cut off the French retreat. If the plan succeeded, Germany's armies would simultaneously encircle the French Army from the north and capture Paris.

A French offensive in Lorraine prompted German counter-attacks that threw the French back onto a fortified barrier. Their defence strengthened, they could send troops to reinforce their left flank - a redistribution of strength that would prove vital in the Battle of the Marne. The German northern wing was weakened further by the removal of 11 divisions to fight in Belgium and East Prussia.

The German 1st Army, under Kluck, then swung north of Paris, rather than south west, as intended. This required them to pass into the valley of the River Marne across the Paris defences, exposing them to a flank attack and a possible counter-envelopment. On 3 September, Joffre ordered a halt to the French retreat and three days later his reinforced left flank began a general offensive. Kluck was forced to halt his advance prematurely in order to support his flank: he was still no further up the Marne Valley than Meaux.

The battles of the Marne were two battles during the First World War. The first took place in September , and the second in the summer of Both battles were key moments in the First World War, which resulted in German defeats.

But these battles also illustrate the evolution to modern warfare, i. This entry also addresses the shifted memories of the battles.

The first and second battles of the Marne have much in common. Firstly, these battles were two culminating points of the First World War, which resulted in clear German defeats. Each time, the battlefields were wide areas not necessarily located around the Marne river.

The two events are clearly different in terms of military and diplomatic plans, not to mention the memory culture around them. The First Battle of the Marne took place from 6 to 11 September After having retreated for weeks after the Battle of the Frontiers, the French armies and the British Expeditionary Force counter-attacked on a kilometer-long front.

The Second Battle of the Marne took place nearly four years later, from 18 July to the middle of August ; from the allied point of view, a very critical moment in the war. After years of trench warfare, German forces had broken through allied defenses and regained an open battlefield, forcing allied troops to a harsh retreat. While the French government had moved to Bordeaux in , Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau had chosen to remain in the capital.

In both battles, German regiments were very close to Paris, with some located only around seventy kilometers away, but they failed to win the final victory. It has often been said that German losses in both the first and second battles of the Marne resulted from their advance into French territory.

It is true that both events underlined some of the permanent difficulties of open warfare, especially from a logistical point of view. Exhausted by weeks of marches, Germans troops suffered from lack of supplies, especially of food , ammunition and, in , fuel.

However, it would be imprecise to state that only the Second Battle of the Marne illustrates the quality of modern warfare. Of course, in , all the armies on the battlefield were much more mechanical than in Tanks , machine guns , gas , heavy artillery and air power ruled the battleground. In fact, the firepower of a infantry platoon was far more significant than it had been in But the First Battle of the Marne also revealed a true learning curve in the French army.

The 47 th infantry regiment, for example, no longer fought in September as it had done two weeks before, during the Battle of Charleroi , charging like Napoleonian grognards. The German line could not be broken and after the close of the battle the Front Lines on this peak remained static, and only a few yards apart in places, for the rest of the war.

In the autumn of the French and British Armies carried out a second large-scale, two-pronged offensive against the German positions, which were by this time well-consolidated and proving increasingly more difficult to break into. This would compel the German Second and Seventh Armies caught between the two attacks to pull back to the Belgian border in order to protect their road and rail routes in their Lines of Communication on the Douai plain.

The Champagne offensive gained a few miles of ground and captured some 25, German prisoners, but with German reinforcements brought into the sector from the Eastern Front, the French could not withstand repeated German counter-attacks. French losses were over , casualties by the time the Champagne offensive drew to a close. The French managed to get onto the Vimy Ridge but did not succeed in pushing the Germans off this dominating ridge.

The British attack achieved some success north of Loos and by the end of the first day they had passed through Loos village and reached the outskirts of the industrial, built-up town of Lens. Crucial time lost by the delayed arrival of the reserve divisions added to problems of command and control of the troops on the ground east of Loos, who had inadvertently headed south instead of east in the confusion of battle and the confusion created by similar pit-head landscape features in this mining area.

The pause in the attack gave the German Fourth Army time to bring in reserves to the area overnight who reinforced a new German Second Position located on higher ground with good views across the British attack area. The British did not succeed in making any headway against this Second Position and suffered heavy casualties on 26 September.

A second British advance against the German Second Position failed with heavy casualties in early October as bad weather closed in. This is the term for a tactic whereby the defenders man the Front Line lightly, the attacker is initially allowed to gain some ground beyond his own artillery cover in the opening phase of an attack, and then he is counter-attacked by groups of well-placed defenders in second and third positions constructed behind the Front Line.

The year witnessed two of the most notorious battles of attrition in the Great War, resulting in thousands of casualties for both the Allied and German Armies on the Western Front. The battle took place in the sector of the fortified town of Verdun on the river Meuse.

Lying in the middle of a salient Verdun had a citadel fort at its heart and was surrounded by a ring of forts on the high ground of the northern and eastern banks of the Meuse. The town had been saved from German occupation in the Battles of the Frontiers in autumn The German Chief of Staff, General von Falkenhayn, decided to attack Verdun, which had become a symbol of defiance and national pride to the French people.

Falkenhayn's intention was to launch a long drawn-out, large-scale offensive against the sector in order to draw the French to defend it at all costs, and which would ultimately bleed the French Army of all of its strength. The opening bombardment began on 21 February and lasted for 21 hours. The infantry offensive was launched by the German Fifth Army with one million men against a French force of about , men. Within three days the Germans had advanced almost four miles, had captured Fort Douaumont and the French-held Woeuvre plain to the east of the Verdun salient.

The stand made by the French over the following months into the autumn and winter of became legendary. The road from Verdun to Bar le Duc was the only road from the Verdun sector into the French rear areas. Every day this road was filled with lorries passing each other every few seconds taking supplies up to the battlefront and taking wounded out of it. Casualties at the close of the battle amounted to over , German casualties and over , French casualties, many thousands of whom were killed.

A proposal for the joint offensive was put forward by the French Commander-in-Chief, General Joffre, on 30 December Just one week later the German Army had attacked at Verdun. By late May the Second German Army commander in the Somme sector was given agreement to prepare for a two-phased offensive against the British Front Line north of the Somme river. Initially the French Army was to carry the main force of the attack, but as the Battle of Verdun continued and began to claim heavy French casualties, the Battle of the Somme became mainly a British offensive to take German-held ground and also to draw off German reserves from Verdun.

The battle began in the early morning of 1 July after an artillery bombardment lasting several days, and such as had never been witnessed on the Western Front or any other battlefield before. The first day of the battle claimed over 58, British casualties of whom more than 19, were killed. This was the largest loss on a single day in the history of the British Army.

Over a period of four and a half months the battle continued in several phases, with the British Army making limited advances by capturing key villages and ridges, but advancing only a few miles by the close of the battle and the wintry weather in November.

The Battle of the Somme in witnessed the first use of tanks in combat at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette 15 - 22 September The Battle of Fromelles 19 - 20 July was a combined action by British and Australian troops intended not only to divert German attention away from the Battles of the Somme taking place just to the south, but was also an operation to retake the ground just north of Fromelles.

After they took over German Supreme Command they made a decision to construct a heavily fortified line of defence behind the current German Front Line on the central and northern Western Front, to which they would make a planned withdrawal.

Some of the sectors already had fortifications and the plan was to build on them. Other sectors were still being constructed as late as It was named in several sections or positions:. From 21 February the German Army began a planned withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line from Artois Arras to the Aisne Soissons , a manoeuvre which was named Operation Alberich and which took about five weeks to complete.

During the withdrawal the Germans deliberately destroyed buildings, damaged wells and watercourses, roads and railway tracks to prevent the pursuing Allies from taking over the abandoned ground in a good state.

Nivelle proposed a major Allied offensive in Artois and Champagne for the spring of It was to be similar to the two-pronged offensive carried out by General Joffre two years before. The British Expeditionary Force was to carry out diversionary attacks as part of an Artois offensive at Arras. Some disruption to the battle planning was caused by the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line between Arras and Soissons, but also reservations were expressed by the French government about Nivelle's optimistic forecast of a surprise attack and a victory for the offensive.

A vote of confidence in Nivelle's plan resulted in the collapse of the French governement. The British attacks began a week before the French offensive, with the Battle of Arras 9 April - 4 May comprising 8 battle phases:.

The British attacks achieved some limited success, but the French offensive further south was a failure with , casualties. Mutiny in the French units became widespread and morale was very low.

On 7 June the British Commander-in-Chief, General Haig, launched the first phase of an offensive which had the objective to break out of the Ypres Salient and also to relieve the pressure on the weakened French Army after the Nivelle Offensive.

This was the Battle of Messines 7 - 14 June The launch of the infantry assault was preceded by the explosion of 19 huge mines under the German Front Line along the ridge of high ground, the Wyteschaete Ridge, south of Ypres. Preparations for an attack on the ridge had been carried out since early in German senior commanders did not heed warnings by some commanders in the field that the British might be carrying out significant mining operations, and, fortunately for the British, the German Front Line was not withdrawn to the eastern part of the ridge.

Bouyed up by the success of the Battle of Messines, the British Commander-in-Chief, General Haig, was of the belief that the German Army was weak and would not withstand an attempted breakthrough in the north-east of the Ypres Salient.

Once a breakthough of the German Front Line had been achieved, the British would be able to possess the dominant views of the high ground of the Passchendaele Ridge. They would then be in a good position to continue to the German-held ports of Ostend and Zeebrugge on the Belgian coast. Not only were both ports being used by the Germans for light shipping traffic, but Zeebrugge was the location of pens for German submarines, which were attacking Allied shipping. The preliminary bombardment before the battle lasted for 10 days, during which time 3, guns fired 4.

Along an 11 mile front the infantry attack comprised a corps of the French First Army on the left, the British Fifth Army in the centre and a corps of the British Second Army on the right of the attack. The German Fourth Army held off the attackers in most places. Within hours of the start of the battle rain began to fall and crucially did not stop, carrying on into the following weeks. The constant rain produced conditions completely unsuitable for the continued movement of men, animals and heavy equipment, such as artillery pieces and tanks.

The battle, however, continued to grind on in short phases for several weeks throughout the late summer, the autumn and into the winter until the eventual capture of the crest of the Passchendaele Ridge and Passchendaele village on 6 th November. The final phase of the battle, called The Battle of Passchendaele , was a name which became synonymous to the British nation with the mud, blood, horror and terrible human loss that was the trench warfare of the Great War of The British Expeditionary Force sustained over , casualties.

The Third Battle of Ypres comprised 8 phases:. Battles in the Ypres Salient The first use of the new tank weapon in a large-scale attack was launched at the Batle of Cambrai 20 November - 7 December with over tanks against the German Front Line at the Cambrai salient. There was no preliminary bombardment before the attack and the assault on the German lines was a surprise. According to Field Marshal Prince Rupprecht, it was the only time the Allies achieved a complete surprise attack.

The Germans lost ground on the first day of the battle. Fighting continued over the next few days and on 30 November a German counter-attack of 20 divisions began to push the British back across the ground they had captured. By 7 December the battle had ended and the British had lost almost all the ground taken in the first few days of the attack.

In the spring and summer of the German Supreme Command committed thousands of troops, tons of equipment and hundreds of guns as part of a plan to make a series of large-scale surprise offensives and diversions against the Allied lines held by French, British, Belgian and Portuguese troops.

This was an attempt to break the deadlock on the Western Front before the U. Army was ready to take to the French battlefields in full force. The Germans hoped to punch through the Allied defensive line, cut off the British forces from the French, push the British forces to the French and Belgian coast and trap them there.

Planning and secret preparations were carried out between January and 21 March for attacks to take place in a given sequence on almost every sector of the Allied Front Line. After initial successes and some significant ground gained the German offensives ran into difficulties one by one, not only where the Allied forces were able to put up a stubborn defence, but as a result of problems incurred by overstretching the limits of the German ability to resupply their troops with sufficient food, equipment, fresh horsepower and reinforcements.

In the original plan the French forces were to be held and kept busy with their own defence so they would be less likely to move reinforcements to support the British further north.

A massive artillery bombardment preceded the surprise attack on 21 March. The German assault was made against the British-held Front Line for a distance of 50 miles. The defenders of the British Third and Fifth Armies were up against a superiority in troop numbers of three to one; 26 British divisions were up against 62 German divisions, with an accompanying strength of 6, German artillery pieces compared to 2, British guns.

The attack divisions were trained in the techniques of aggressive assault as storm troopers and there had been training in the co-ordination of command between the infantry and artillery. The German advance made significant gains on the first day in the British Fifth Army sector. South of the Somme river the German advance did continue to within 10 miles of the Allied rail centre of Amiens.

Despite the large amount of Allied ground captured in the first few days of the offensive, the German advance faltered because the troops became exhausted, there was difficulty keeping the troops at the front of the advance supplied with food and equipment by having to cover long distances over destroyed ground.

Some of the destruction of the roads, railway lines and villages had, ironically, been carried out deliberately by the Germans during their withdrawal in Operation Alberich February-March to the Hindenburg Line exactly one year before. Phases of the Allied defence of the line during the German Kaiserschlacht: Operation Michael comprised:.

The offensive was launched against the Allied line in the low-lying, British-held sector on both sides of the Lys river in French Flanders. The German objective was the important Allied rail centre of Hazebrouck. If the town could be captured there would be an opportunity to push the German advance further west to reach the French coast and, in so doing, cut off the British, French and Belgian forces holding the Ypres Salient in Belgium. The Portuguese could not withstand the force of the attack and the Germans captured almost four miles of ground.

The British were pushed back beyond the villages of Messines and Wyteschaete, which they had captured in the successful Battle of Messines 7 - 14 June almost exactly one year before. The situation for the British was very serious by 12 April, which compelled them, under the leadership of General Plumer, to make tortuous decisions about making tactical withdrawals to positions which could be more easily defended.

Passchendaele, the village on the crest of the ridge which had eventually been captured after weeks of terrible fighting in the summer and autumn of , was one of the areas of ground reluctantly given up to the tactical withdrawal.

The German attacks continued against the British line and also against the Belgian Army holding the line north of Ypres but no ground was gained. French reinforcements arrived to support the British defence on the high ground of Mount Kemmel. The Germans attacked these newly arrived French troops on 25 April. By 29 April the German offensive had been blocked and no further attacks were made. The Germans had not captured any of their objectives as the Allies had held onto Hazebrouck and the Channel ports.