Pershing Lecture Series - The Marne 1914: The Battle of the Generals
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- čas přidán 19. 06. 2024
- Award-winning historians Shawn Faulkner and Scott Stephenson of the U.S Army Command and General Staff College examine how the French and German high commands envisioned “the next great war,” and how their plans and assumptions clashed with the realities of modern industrial warfare. This lecture will also explore how planning, personalities and military structure in the early battles of 1914 influenced the outcome of the war.
For more information about the National WWI Museum and Memorial visit theworldwar.org
I love this style of presentation, with each talking about one side. It gives the lecture an interesting dynamic. Both did wonderfully and I wish more presentations were like this.
This is the best lecture I have ever seen on the Marne, kudos on a magnificent presentation.
Nice, double whammy with Faulkner AND Stephenson
Camille does an amazing job giving the intro speech and is so charming. I was fortunate enough to hear her in person when I attended the screening of “Frantz” in that same auditorium back in April.
Although I’ll be out of town on September 14th, I may go ahead & buy a ticket to Night at The Tower and somehow try to make it back in time. Lastly, the content of tonight’s lecture was interesting.
Amazing and thorough presentation. I especially like the tag team style format. Excellent work!
Great presentation! Some of the best information came out in response to excellent questions from the audience.
Very Interesting perspective, I also really liked how the two presenters presented the two opposing sides perspective.
I typically read the British or Canadian perspective, where we tend to forge, to the German and French perspective the BEF was very small, portion of the overall picture.
The question I would have asked, the two presenters.
Why the difference in perspective between Bullow and Kluck, Was Bullow more realistic and better informed about the situation.
Kluck had already reported he had destroyed the BEF, yet his own Army had taken severe losses from thier encounters, more so than Bullow and his Army.
Both had very little information coming in from thier cavalry or air reconnaissance.
So was the Lt Cornel correctly assessing the situation and calling the operation off,
Thank you for your service.
Excellent. Real depth
Very well done, thank you.
Your lecture is awesome!
Thank you.
Could listen to those two all day. They’re channeling Winston Churchill’s take on Moltke snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Churchill in “The World Crisis” Vol 5:
"So we come to the Marne. This will ever remain the Mystery Battle of all time. We can see more clearly across the mists of time how Hannibal conquered at Cannea, than why Joffre won at the Marne. No great acquisition of strength to either side - except that usually invaders outrun their supplies and defenders fall back upon their reserves - important, but not decisive. Not much real fighting, comparatively few casualties, no decisive episode in any part of the immense field; fifty explanations, all well documented, five hundred volumes of narrative and comment - but the mystery remains.
What was the cause which turned retreat into victory and gave the world time to come to the succor of France? Where vast issues are so nicely balanced, every single fact or factor may be called decisive. Some say it was the generous onslaught of Russia and the withdrawal by an inadequate German Staff decision of two Army Corps from their wheeling flank; some say Gallieni and his leopard-spring from Paris, or Joffre and his phlegm and steadfast spirit. We British naturally dwell on the part played by Sir John French and his five divisions; and there are several other important claims.
But if under all reserves I am to choose the agate point on which the balance turned, I select the visits of Colonel Hentsch of the German General Staff on the night of the 8th and the morning of the 9th of September to the Army Headquarters of von Bulow and Kluck, either ordering by an excess of authority, or lending the sanction of supreme authority to, the retirement of these armies. There was no need of such a retreat. (my italics) Speaking broadly, the Germans could have dug themselves in where they stood, or even in places continued to advance. It was only a continued effort of will that was needed then and a readiness to risk all, where all had already been risked."
Dang every time I read Winston Churchill I'm struck by how beautiful his language is and how little substance there is behind it
did the schlieffen plan have railroad track laying aspect to follow the advance to rapidly keep the artillery available at the front and amunition and stores to the advancing troops i believe railroad engineers could have been the key to have broken the stalemate in 1914 possibly preventing the stalemate if there would have been large formation of them deployed immediatly behind the advance just a thought
no they gambled on capturing the belgian and french rail intact, which was part of the logistics problem leading up the the marne
that end was epic! Thanks!
Don't understand how the BEF had lost contact with the Germans during the retreat. Both Corps lost contact with each other because of the forest of Mormal with Smith Dorrien turning to take on the Germans at Le Cateau. In fact contact was so constant that Haig (commander of I corps) drew his revolver when the Germans arrived at Valanciennes,he was quickly put in a car and driven away.
I knew this will be good when there is a beavis and butthead reference at the beginning.
Seems the source material was primarily Tuchman
👍😀💯
École Polytechnique is the elite (kind of military) engineering school, alma mater of 4 of the 8 french Marshall's of WWI. St Cyr is purely military.
Starts at 4:52
It's annoying how much they interrupt that first guy's question!
The problem of the First Marne in history is that there are so many competing versions of it. I'm not sure about this one - especially the characterisation of Joffre (and, just to be a snob for a second, a mispronunciation of Auftragstaktik so bad I had to listen again to check). The most accurate version, I suspect, remains Liddell-Harts; with the idea that the threat (Galieni from the west) and the breakthrough (the BEF, for the most part) conspired quite accidentally to make a very Napoleonic manoeuvre possible.
Schlieffen stressed that, to make his plan a success it would be essential to keep the right wing STRONG.
Which is exactly what Von Moltke did not...
But Schlieffen made his plan with well trained Prussian professsional infantrymen marching in his mind, instead of conscripts, who seldomly walked any further than 5 miles a day in their entire life.
Excellent Q&A at end. But I'm not buying the "mere force of will" of Joffre. Another big-man-controls-history perspective. Ugh.
It was Huntley, not Humphrey, and Brinkley. You're not old enough, either.
Conservative historian frequently bristle at the war being characterized as lion led by donkeys. Yet, military leaders consistently make the mistake of fighting the last war. There was a nearly total failure to use imagination to assess how advances in weaponry and possible new weapon systems will influence the fight. Military leadership should realized from the start that metal helmets would be necessary and charging into battle while wearing red trousers was a really bad idea. If military leaders had real courage, they would have confessed that the war was a stupid idea and sought armistace at the close of the first battle of Ypres.
Couldn't agree more.
There's a problem with the last thing you've suggested. It doggie be very easy for you to work out what that problem is. The same problem is happening right now everyone someone from a Western country stupidly suggests Ukraine should simply agree to make peace with Russia.
To you last point, what happens when it’s not the military leaders call? In every country involved it was the politicians who had the power to stop the war, yet they kept the generals going.
No one hates war more than the soldier or the general. Yet they all had political masters and those political master voters and citizens demanded victory. So the war continued.
I would caution against such broad blame laying at the feet of generals without first looking in a mirror.
@gls600: One small point. It's all very well saying the leadership needed to see the benefits of tin hats, but the rank and file resisted their imposition. In fact it had to be ORDERED and ENFORCED with suitable punishment to actually get the troops to wear them!
@gls600 This is wrong on multiple points.
First and easiest is that the phrase “lions lead by donkeys” was coined/popularised by Alan Clark, a Tory minister part of the Thatcher government, i.e. a conservative.
Second is the various powers had actually all paid attention to developments in armaments and also in the various wars that had taken place since the turn of the century, leading to various different responses. The French focus on elan and offensive action was based off of the Japanese actions during the Russo Japanese war, that had shown that through committed attacks entrenched positions could be taken and the enemy dislodged. The Germans formulated the Schlieffen plan in (part) response to Bloch’s work on modern warfare, that the protracted warfare and ensuring societal collapse that Bloch had envisioned could be sidestepped through clever planning, aiming to end the war as quickly as possible at the outset before it could become bogged down. The Boer War(s), the Russo-Japanese war and the Balkan Wars, all from this side of the 1900s were all looked upon and studied to divine some edge against one another.
Third is that helmets were a response to trench warfare, not modern contemporary warfare. The HE fragmentation shells that were common during the war didn’t care if you were wearing a helmet above ground seeing as everything from the crown down (98% of the body) was still highly vulnerable unlike in a trench. Similarly, the questionable manufacture of fuses for these shells meant that getting them to explode before they hit the ground was quite unreliable.
Fourth is that this ignores realpolitik that underpins the outset of the war. After the casualties of 1914 and the war furore of the general public that rode off the back of this, it would have been political suicide for any politician to go to the peace tables. The two major powers in the west, France and Germany, would never accept a peace deal. The French were already enraged about Alsace Lorraine prior to the war and the further occupation of France during 1914 only stoked the revanchist fires, meekly accepting peace would have been quickly met with revolt. For Germany riding high off of territorial gains, any peace from them would have been at too high a cost for the entente powers to accept, especially with the various colonial territories that had already been seized. This situation only gets worse following the defeat of Serbia where the peace dictated (to say nothing of the actions committed there) is exceedingly harsh, further driving belief from the entente that any peace offered would be a victor’s peace.
Since you're already watching these lectures, see for reference:
- Peter Faulkner - 1915 - An ecstasy of fumbling
- Peter Faulkner - Pre-World War I French Military Doctrine and its Consequences
- Peter Faulkner - Crossing No Man’s Land: The Birth of Combined Arms
- Nicholas Lambert - The Short War Assumption
It misses the fact that german comms were terrible, and the cause of much problems.
Too much "added" rubbish color.
Great talk - thank you. But - objection, your honors - the conflict ‚came‘ not out of thin air, but was initiated, by a 'revanche' seeking France and a bellizist Imperial Russia. Germany's role of the main culprit s not convincing. Even undeniably Germany acted aggressive, read Fritz Fischer - 'Griff nach der Weltmacht', it was not the only aggressive party and the others were not remaining passive until a sabre rattling Kaiser attacked them. France, in denying Germany a place at the table in both Moroccan crisis's, while coming to terms with every other power, Russia, GB, Italy, Spain, successfully ostracized Imperial Germany. The French were following their strong motive for a revenge for 1870/71 and Russia with its overdue aristocratic system, was seeking internal stabilization by external war after the bitter defeat against Japan. All these fators are established motives for war - see the Falkland war in 1982. Means and motive added together - Russia's imperialist aggression, backed up by a revenge seeking France - both used the Sarajevo incident for reestablishing their former hegemony over central Europe (read Graham Allison - Thucidides Trap); so Russia came to backing up a Serbian government, which had engaged in a Balkan war 1912, both denied Austria-Hungary an active role in the investigation of the Sarajevo murders. Transfer this situation to September 2001 and imagine a blockade of US-investigations by a foreign power - unimaginable, and surely a reason for a military conflict. But in the 1914 case of state sponsored terror by Serbia, that killed an unpopular - not belligerent!!! - heir apparent, such demands are unjust? France and Russia succeeded in converting a diplomatic crisis, maybe a small war between two neighboring states, into a European conflagration. Read Christopher Clark - Sleepwalkers, or his lecture about France and its role in regarding die Origins of the Great war - czcams.com/video/dx_V4NAUuW8/video.html .
Germany backed up his ally Austria-Hungary, the famous 'blanc cheque' and this is part - the only - of it's ‚guilt‘. In 1914 there was no active search for an engagement by Germany until it became unavoidable - but this was not the case for France as well as Russia. The first engagement led to the second war, this time undeniably with Germany as the bad guy. But what most people are reluctant to admit, the main reason for Hitler and his right-wing socialists grabbing power was the unjust war and the even more unjust guilt attribution in Art. 221 of the Treaty of Versailles. And - without the Wilson administration intervening in a conflict, which would have come to an end by exhaustion 1917, would have given the Kerensky government in Russia a realistic chance against the Bolsheviks, and by prevented against the ascent of the monsters Hitler and Lenin/ Stalin - and there comes a deep but undeniable responsibility of France, Great Britain and the US for WW2 ... czcams.com/video/jERpm8H5yaQ/video.html
Filled with counterfactuals(If X then Y and everything would be good. Absolutely no way to know.) and completely disregarding Germany's own fear of a Russia industrializing on French loans, nor German antagonisation of Britain, nor German invasion of neutral Belgium. Not the rape of said belgium. Nor what we know of the Tsar and his ministers and their meetings and treatment of the mobilization trap. Nor of accounts detailing the desire of the german high command and select politicians for a a war.
The key matter of World War I was that everyone thought it was going to be a short war. That it'd end in mere months like the Franco-Prussian. That casualties would be heavy due to size of formations involved and technology of offense, but that the initial bursts of fighting will be decisive for the c This thinking infected the French. It infected the Germans. It infected Europe. It was going to be a short deadly war, we are going to win. That is how it was considered by many. And it was a major tragic motivation for the war.
The blame on Germany had to be attributed so that the treaty could punish Germany. Without the blame it'd be hard to act out any sanction. Why punish Germany? Well, it had punished France , Belgium and Russia. Shelled and looted and burned major industrial and agricultural heartlands. It was nothing but recognizing a war whose outcome has been decided that stopped the war before same could be said about the German heartland in the Rhine. So, some reparations and punishment of germany to make up for the civilian damages they inflicted but were spared is merely just. Even German delegates agreed to that. And thus why you need the war guilt clause. And as for Versailes, it was a compromise treaty made by allies with diverging views and interests. Treat it as such. It wasn't allies as an amorphous blob dictating terms. It was men representing rapidly diverging national interests. If you asked Clemencau, he'd say the treaty was too mild, if you asked Wilson, he'd say too harsh. Neither are necessarily wrong since we are dealing with counter-factuals, but i will present a defense of the french calls for a harsher treaty. It was based on the perception that there is no imperial russia anymore. France only survived in 1914 because of it. Would it survive the next german attack alone? The Supreme allied commander didn't think so. Foch famously noted Versailles is an armstice for twenty years. He was right. He said so because he knew that Germany would seek revenge, it would seek to reclaim it's honour. In twenty years the next generation of german soldiers is ready. And when it came, in Foch's own estimate, they'd break through the french and reach the channel. So germany needs to be punished hard enough that France and Germany are evenly matched enough that Germany can't invade. Namely that all of germany west of teh rhine is separated from Germany permanently as a buffer state. Fault the thinking as you will. It was founded. Versailles was an armstice for twenty years and during that may of 1940 the germans did break through the french and drove to the channel.
Lastly you cannot blame WW 2 on France, UK or US. Even if Versailes is flawed, every measure was taken by the US to alleviate the pain on germany. Britain turned towards reconstruction swiftly and France after 1924 changed it's tune. What was Locarno, what was Briand-Strasserman's work, what was the Davies plan if nto attempts to help Germany?
And what was Brest-Litovsk but a much harsher treaty than Versailles? Germans were much much crueler in victory than the Allies ended up being.
Finally, what was Neville Chamberlain. What talk of being responsible for a war can be made, in front of his tomb? The man who ruined his reputation and much of europe in a naive attempt to prevent world war two at nearly any cost.
Rather find your comment reminiscent of words coming out said Nazi Germany and Soviet Union. Speeches, declarations and print. Whenever they ivnaded a country in the interwar they'd turn around and claim they stand for peace and the allies are at fault if europe is plunged into war. With but a bit of editing it'd be an official german proclamation in 1940. From what i read and heard of them.
Could listen to those two all day. They’re channeling Winston Churchill’s take on Moltke snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Churchill in “The World Crisis” Vol 5:
"So we come to the Marne. This will ever remain the Mystery Battle of all time. We can see more clearly across the mists of time how Hannibal conquered at Cannea, than why Joffre won at the Marne. No great acquisition of strength to either side - except that usually invaders outrun their supplies and defenders fall back upon their reserves - important, but not decisive. Not much real fighting, comparatively few casualties, no decisive episode in any part of the immense field; fifty explanations, all well documented, five hundred volumes of narrative and comment - but the mystery remains.
What was the cause which turned retreat into victory and gave the world time to come to the succor of France? Where vast issues are so nicely balanced, every single fact or factor may be called decisive. Some say it was the generous onslaught of Russia and the withdrawal by an inadequate German Staff decision of two Army Corps from their wheeling flank; some say Gallieni and his leopard-spring from Paris, or Joffre and his phlegm and steadfast spirit. We British naturally dwell on the part played by Sir John French and his five divisions; and there are several other important claims.
But if under all reserves I am to choose the agate point on which the balance turned, I select the visits of Colonel Hentsch of the German General Staff on the night of the 8th and the morning of the 9th of September to the Army Headquarters of von Bulow and Kluck, either ordering by an excess of authority, or lending the sanction of supreme authority to, the retirement of these armies. There was no need of such a retreat. (my italics) Speaking broadly, the Germans could have dug themselves in where they stood, or even in places continued to advance. It was only a continued effort of will that was needed then and a readiness to risk all, where all had already been risked."
Of course ! And to add insult to injury, it also because of the French (plus the Russian, the Brits and whoever….) that the Germans firmly believed that they were the master race, the superior race whose destiny was to dominate all the others, that sort of things. Damned French!... And poor Germans, poor victims!
Your lecture is awesome!