Marne, battle of; Sept 1915

The advance that had begun on 4 August when the Schlieffen Plan had been activated, had taken German forces to within 25 miles of Paris and south of the River Marne. Although French and British casualties had been heavy, the Germans had not taken large numbers of prisoners and the French in particular had been able to use the rail system to withdraw troops and reallocate them to other sectors. The German army, however, had had to cover most of their advance on foot, as bridges, roads and railway lines were destroyed by the retreating armies ahead of them.

The French and British counter attack started south of the River Marne on 5 September. Over the following days almost 2,500,000 million troops from Germany, France and Britain were engaged in the battle, in which the German advance was halted and turned into a retreat: they were pushed back across the Marne on September 9, and across the Aisne on 13th, some sixty miles from their most advanced positions. The Schlieffen Plan, which was meant to cause the rapid defeat of France, was no longer operable and the first phase of WW1 was effectively over with Germany facing the position it most wanted to avoid - a general war on western and eastern fronts. After the battle attention turned northwards as the French and British forces sought to prevent the Germans from outflanking their positions in northern France and the defensive trenches of both sides were extended to the North Sea coast.

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