BEF Campaign on the Aisne 1914 Page 2
But although we should be wary of censure, the wording of GHQ orders cannot be ignored. The executive order ‘pursuit’ had an immediate effect upon the military formation adopted by units; pursuit implied marching in column while ‘attack’ demanded a different and broader formation. Thus on 13 and 14 September units began the day’s pursuit in column of route covered by advance guards, which goes some way to providing an explanation as to why the attack north of the river was conducted in such a piecemeal manner – one example being the advance of 6 Brigade on 14 September up the Braye valley. Here the 1st Battalion Royal Berkshire Regiment (1/Royal Berks) acting as vanguard, marched up the valley with the 1st Battalion King’s Royal Rifle Corps (1/KRRC) on each flank. Lieutenant Alan Hanbury-Sparrow’s account describes the battalion’s reaction to the unexpected response from the enemy as they passed La Metz Farm, which together with that of Lieutenant William Synge, commanding a platoon of the King’s Liverpool Regiment, illustrates the confusion which overtook the brigade as it struggled to respond to an entrenched enemy.
As the BEF crossed the Aisne and began its advance it committed all of its divisions to the fight leaving no reserves available except 19 Brigade, which, after 14 September, came under the temporary command of Brigadier General Haldane on the left flank. Thus at the crucial moment on the I Corps front when reserves were required, none were forthcoming. In this respect more use could have been made of the cavalry brigades; they appear not to have been given a definite role in the battle and apart from sporadic interventions such as supporting the left of Haig’s 2nd Division on 14 September and coming to the aid of the West Yorkshires on 20 September, they could have been used far more effectively. In this respect Second Lieutenant Jock Marden’s diary provides us with a very different picture of the Aisne campaign than Lieutenant Jack Needham’s account. Needham was an officer with the Northamptonshire Regiment and fought on the Chemin des Dames with his battalion where he was involved in one of the ‘white flag’ incidents which so infuriated British troops. Marden, an officer with the 9/Lancers, spent much of his time in reserve and, apart from short periods of action in the front line, was able to find time on 15 September to sleep all day at Soupir Château and bathe in its fountain.
As British units became engaged all along the BEF front on 13 and 14 September, so the casualties mounted. German shell fire proved to be remarkably accurate and powerful and it was some time before the British gunners could begin to mount an effective reply. The Battle of the Aisne marked the beginning of the ascendancy of artillery as the major weapon of warfare but initially on the British side it was simply not up to the job. Handicapped by the geography of the Aisne valley and confined to some extent by an outdated tactical manual, British artillery was unable to provide the infantry with the firepower it required to take the Chemin des Dames or indeed fully support infantry attacks elsewhere along the valley. Major John Mowbray, the brigade major of the 2nd Division Artillery, shares his frustration in the pages of his diary at not being able to support the infantry effectively; a frustration undoubtedly felt by Cecil Brereton, a subaltern with 68/Battery when he and his gunners suffered badly at the hands of their German counterparts above Bucy-le-Long.
But with the advent of aerial observation carried out by Royal Flying Corps (RFC) pilots the balance began to swing in favour of the British. The work of Lieutenants Lewis and James in developing the use of wireless transmissions from the air to artillery batteries on the ground was the start of an ‘air to ground’ partnership which continued to develop through the war. This growing partnership is evident in the diaries of Lieutenants William Read and Kenlis Atkinson, from whom we get a first-hand account of flying above the valley under fire whilst directing artillery fire onto enemy batteries.
The lack of support from the guns of the artillery had profound effects on the infantry advance, particularly on the units which had been engaged at Mons and Le Cateau. At Vailly the 3rd Division’s attack was doomed to failure as the much depleted battalions of Hubert Hamilton’s division attempted to storm the heights of the Jouy spur. 8 Brigade, which had fought so doggedly at Mons on 23 August in the Nimy salient, had not a single machine gun between them on 14 September and had to rely solely on rifle fire. On the Chivres spur the 5th Division was still in possession of some of their machine guns but had left a significant proportion of their artillery behind at Le Cateau. Their attack, which went ahead in a rather piecemeal fashion and without supporting fire from the gunners, had the commanding officer of the East Surreys, Lieutenant Colonel John Longley, tearing his hair out in frustration at being ordered to withdraw.
However, there were some commanders who seized the initiative and took opportunities presented to them to forge ahead once they had crossed the river. Sadly these audacious moves were unsupported and thus made little difference to the outcome of the battle. The crossing of the bridge at Vénizel by 11 Brigade and their march across the water meadows to Bucy-le-Long was a masterful stroke which might have taken the brigade onto the Chemin des Dames early on 13 September. But 11 Brigade was far in advance of the remainder of the BEF and at dawn on the 13th was the only full brigade across the river. Once on the heights they were considerably isolated and in the circumstances one has to accept Brigadier General Hunter-Weston’s decision that halting the brigade at this point was the best course of action. Isolation and poor communication was probably at the core of the judgement by Brigadier General Richard Haking to withdraw his units of 5 Brigade after they had reached the Chemin des Dames ridge late in the evening of 14 September without encountering any serious opposition. Haking argued that he was in great danger of being cut off by the enemy – and he may well have been correct – but was it really necessary to retire all the way back to Verneuil and would a more daring commander have taken more of a risk?
There was a further bold action on the right flank taken by the Connaught Rangers. By the early hours of 14 September the battalion, under the command of Major William Sarsfield, was over halfway to the brigade objective, in occupation of La Cour de Soupir Farm and in position on the high point of Croix sans Tete, albeit several hours before the Grenadier Guards arrived; yet this advance was not exploited. Ultimately all of these isolated movements only served to draw attention to the lack of effective command and control which dogged the British on the Aisne in those crucial early hours of the battle.
The unsung heroes of the Aisne Campaign were undoubtedly the men of the Royal Engineers and the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). The crossing of the river was in itself a feat of arms which is rarely afforded due credit. The bridges the sappers constructed – often under infantry rifle fire and shell fire from German batteries – were indeed ‘bridges over troubled waters’. The diary entries of Second Lieutenant Kenneth Godsell and Lieutenant Bernard Young give us some idea of the effort required to transport troops across the Aisne on temporary pontoon bridges and improvised rafts. Not only did the engineers repair the two bridges which had been partially destroyed at Vénizel and Vailly, but they enabled I Corps to cross over the hastily repaired aqueduct at Bourg. Had the Bourg aqueduct been destroyed completely it is unlikely I Corps would have been in a position to attack the Chemin des Dames on 14 September. It is a fitting tribute to the bravery and tenacity of the sappers that one of their number was awarded the Victoria Cross for his work on the river.
A Victoria Cross was also awarded to Captain Harry Ranken, the medical officer attached to 1/KRRC who sacrificed his own life while attending to the wounded. On the Aisne, as there had been at Mons and Le Cateau, battalion medical officers in the finest traditions of the profession were conspicuous by their devotion to the wounded and dying and the number of medical officers who were tragically killed attending the wounded is a tribute to their gallantry and sacrifice. Whereas it was the battalion medical officer who provided the wounded with initial treatment in the front line, it was the RAMC staff in the forward dressing stations which dealt with the bulk of the wounded and dying after they ha
d been evacuated. We are fortunate that Lieutenant Henry Robinson, a doctor working with 8/Field Ambulance, kept a detailed account of the time he spent at Vailly. Robinson’s diary is harrowing in its detail and description and his rationalization of the moral dilemma confronting the medical staff over hastening the death of a fatally injured soldier is thought provoking to say the least. The Aisne also saw the long overdue introduction of motor ambulances which eased the suffering of the wounded and speeded up the evacuation to field hospitals south of the river, an evacuation which had to be carried out under the cover of darkness and usually under the constant threat of German shell fire which searched the approach roads.
Despite the lack of progress and the hoped for continuation of the advance, the BEF and its Allies did frustrate any intentions the Germans may have had in launching a new offensive from the Aisne in 1914. Despite the German superiority in fire power the men of the BEF were steadfast in defence and an even match for the German infantryman, yet there is no doubt that the Battle of the Aisne in 1914 was an opportunity missed for both the British and the French. As early as dawn on 13 September, General Louis Conneau’s French cavalry corps was opposite a 10-mile gap in the German line and after crossing the river they rode some 12 miles north to Sissone. Incredibly the French cavalry were at this point 15 miles north of the German Second Army and some 40 miles behind the line of the German Third Army! One hesitates to imagine what the outcome of a move to the east across enemy lines of communication may have been. As it was the French were ordered to retire to the river to avoid being cut off!
For the British the prospects of breaking through and taking the Chemin des Dames was never greater than on the morning of 13 September. Thanks to the Royal Engineers and the initiative of some brigade and battalion commanders, the passage of the Aisne had been achieved on both flanks and information supplied to Douglas Haig still indicated that the gap between von Kluck and von Bülow was susceptible. The opportunity was lost owing to the failure of GHQ to fully appreciate the situation ahead of them as far back as 10 September, a situation which by the evening of 13 September had changed completely. German reinforcements were known to have arrived and were entrenching on the Chemin des Dames, yet there was no further directive from GHQ other than to continue the pursuit. As a result divisions blundered into the battle piecemeal and without adequate artillery support and out of their failure to make progress grew the trench lines of what became known as the Western Front.
The fighting on the Aisne was going to be very different from anything experienced by the BEF up to that point. All five of its infantry divisions would be engaged along a wide front against a formidable opponent which held the advantages of position and superior artillery. This was not going to be an encounter such as those which had unfolded at Mons or Le Cateau but a sustained campaign that would see lengthy casualty lists and great swathes slashed through the ranks of some of Britain’s finest regiments. Moreover, as a situation of ‘stalemate’ began to set in, the landscape of the Aisne would witness the digging of trench lines which would all too soon run from the North Sea coast of Belgium all the way to the German/Swiss border. Britain was not prepared for a war in Europe in 1914 and the price for failing to do so became more and more evident on the Aisne battlefields. It is a failure which has been captured poignantly in the diary accounts and letters of the men who fought on the slopes of the Chemin des Dames where the bloody concept of the Western Front was born in the autumn of 1914.
Chapter 1
The Marne
I’m afraid that our nation in its headlong careering towards victory will scarcely be able to bear this misfortune.
Helmuth von Moltke – writing on the German retirement from the Marne.
For Major Tom Bridges and the officers and men of the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards their first encounter with their German adversaries, in what was to become known as the First Battle of the Marne, came on 6 September at the small hilltop village of Pécy, northwest of Provins. Having been in retreat since 23 August after the BEF’s clash with the German First Army at Mons, the regiment was now south of the Marne River and under orders to move north as advance guard for the 2nd Cavalry Brigade. After an opening skirmish with units of Alexander von Linsingen’s II Corps, during which 24-year-old Sergeant Evelyn Whiteman and Lance Corporal William Ticehurst, both of B Squadron, were killed by shell fire, Bridges and his men were astonished to see ‘the enemy column wheel round in the road and retire to the north.’2 Bridges admits that their own response to this unexpected enemy retirement took the form of a rather ‘impotent sniping’, and by nightfall they had lost the opportunity to strike back at an enemy who had been pursuing them for two weeks.3 As the regiment moved north towards Coulommiers they were completely unaware that Allied forces were now embroiled in the Battle of the Marne and that the wider strategic plan would conclude with the German retreat to the heights of the Chemin des Dames which ran along the northern edge of the Aisne River valley.
The First Battle of the Marne was fought between 5 and 11 September 1914. It was, in the opinion of Holger Herwig, ‘the most significant land battle of the twentieth century,’ and the most decisive since Waterloo.4 Why? Because the Marne was the final stroke which brought the German operational strategy – masterminded in 1905 by the Chief of the German General Staff, Count Alfred von Schlieffen – to an end and changed the course of European history. Schlieffen’s master plan was for a war on two fronts but not at the same time: a rapid forty day advance through Belgium and Northern France to encircle the French armies concluding in a victorious entry into Paris before unwieldy Russian forces in the east were able to mobilize effectively against them. Although more recently some historians have argued that there was in fact no ‘Schlieffen Plan’, the balance of evidence does not support this rather blinkered view of German military aspirations in the years preceding 1914. That there was a German war plan for 1914 is not in dispute, the original Schlieffen blueprint for war was inherited by Helmuth von Moltke when he was appointed Chief of the General Staff in 1906 and it was a version of this plan which the German OHL used in its preparations for war in Europe. Unquestionably the Schlieffen Plan had been modified by von Moltke – who admittedly had reservations about some of its aspects – but the fundamental goals were similar: the French armies would be ruthlessly and rapidly crushed in a battle of encirclement or Kesselschlacht.
German military planners were confident that the strike against France would be concluded before Russian forces could mobilize effectively against them and with France defeated, German divisions could be transferred quickly to the Eastern Front by rail. The essence of the plan was speed and therein lay its Achilles heel, there was no real alternative plan to fall back upon and success depended almost entirely on maintaining the timetable of advance. The great fear was the prospect of fighting a war on two fronts resulting in the division of resources.
However, despite the initial success in the opening weeks of the war, by the end of August it was becoming increasingly clear that the plan was slipping behind schedule. Contrary to expectations, Belgian forces had vigorously resisted the invasion of their country and the First Army, under the command of General Alexander von Kluck, had unexpectedly encountered the BEF at Mons on 23 August and again three days later at Le Cateau. The German Second Army, under the command of General Klaus von Bülow, had been held up by the French Fifth Army on the Sambre during the Battle of Charleroi, and in the east the Russian Army had mobilized in just ten days which had the immediate effect of drawing off two whole army corps which were transferred to the Eastern Front. Moreover, the German Second Army had been stopped in its tracks again for some thirty-six hours by the French Fifth Army at Guise on 29 August when General Charles Lanrezac had launched his counter attack.
The first indications of a crack in the carapace of German fortune can be detected after the Guise encounter. Alarmed by his situation at Guise, the ever cautious von Bülow sent out urgent – and as it turned out unne
cessary – appeals to the First and Third Armies for support. It was von Bülow’s appeal for help, which many felt ultimately changed the course of history. The result was a spur-or-the-moment decision by Von Kluck to abandon his sweep west of Paris and change course to confront the French Fifth Army’s flank. However, recent evidence cited by Herwig suggests that von Kluck’s change of direction had been anticipated by OHL and was not only carried out with the full backing of German high command, but had been built into the modified Schlieffen plan as an alternative strategy.5 Von Moltke’s General Directive of 2 September to the First and Second Armies would appear to support this view – it not only stressed the necessity of driving ‘the French away from the capital in a south easterly direction,’ but ordered the First Army to follow the Second Army in echelon as it bypassed the French capital to the east.
While the change of direction may well have been built into the overall plan, von Kluck’s reply to Moltke’s directive was not. In no uncertain terms von Kluck and his chief of staff, the 58-year-old Herman von Kuhl, made it clear that they were unable to follow behind the Second Army if they were to attack the flank of Lanrezac’s Fifth Army. To put it simply, von Kluck did not do ‘in echelon’ with anyone. Indeed, by the morning of 30 August von Kluck and his chief of staff had already come to the decision that the march round Paris was impractical and given the severe wear and tear on his resources and with the French Fifth Army looking vulnerable after its retreat from Guise, he saw the opportunity to strike Charles Lanrezac’s army in its exposed flank. Thus, without consultation or approval from OHL, he turned towards the River Oise, a course of action – according to Herwig – which was finally communicated to Moltke on 4 September.6 Rather than von Bülow’s appeal for assistance, it was perhaps von Kluck’s refusal to comply with OHL directives which precipitated the Battle of the Marne and changed the course of history.