Military Review English Edition November-December 2015 | Page 37
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Figure 3. The Allied Advance into the Gap between the
German First and Second Armies (as of 9 September 1914)
widely and clearly understood. He also managed to
gain the cooperation of the British commander, the
truculent Field Marshal Sir John French, who only
followed Joffre’s general concept because of Joffre’s
personal power of persuasion.
As German forces began to pull back to defensive
positions, Joffre planned to counterattack as soon as
he had assembled sufficient troops. The first reinforcements were organized as the new Sixth Army and were
deployed in front of Paris. The French forces were a
combination of reserve and a ctive-duty forces. These
were the troops who attacked Kluck’s right flank and
caused him to open a gap in German lines by turning
his force to face them.
Meanwhile, on the Marne front, Joffre created
a new army, the Ninth, out of reinforcements that
MILITARY REVIEW November-December 2015
he placed to the right of the French Fifth Army
(the command that had lost the battles of Charleroi
and Guise). Joffre instructed these troops, with the
British on their left, to attack into the gap between
the German First and Second armies across the
Marne (see figure 3). Joffre’s concept was for the
Sixth Army on the left to attack into the flank of the
Germans, which would be frontally assaulted by the
BEF and French Fifth Army simultaneously. Joffre
hoped to make a swift advance into the German
gap, allowing him to isolate and defeat the separate
German forces.
However, Kluck reinforced his units before the
French attacked. They wore down and defeated the Sixth
Army flanking force, while the German cavalry screening forces—particularly the elite light infantry Jäger
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