Military Review English Edition November-December 2015 | Page 48

adheres to time-honored principles of war that need to be
followed, especially when situational awareness is incomplete or the enemy responds in an unexpected manner.

Epilogue
At the highest levels—despite his faith in them—
the Kaiser’s professionals failed him in this campaign,
ultimately resulting in the loss of the war together with
the loss of his crown. With the loss of the war, the severe
peace terms imposed on Germany played a key role
in causing World War II. Thus, the mostly forgotten
German defeat of a century ago not only played a major
role in the shaping of the modern world but also holds
lessons of importance for military professionals today.
Though the First Battle of the Marne was more than
one hundred years ago, a reflection of the battle was recently invoked indirectly in the news when French police conducted a massive manhunt for two murderous
terrorists across the villages and rivers that marked the
1914 battlefield. The town of Dammartin, where the
manhunt ended, was, in fact, directly behind the Ourcq
battlefield that was almost captured by the Germans in
1914—right before they retreated. Where it is remembered at all in the public consciousness today, the
battle is mostly recollected for a legendary convoy of
Paris civilian taxicabs that took troops to the front to

reputedly swing the battle to Allied victory—and the
appearance of a gap in the German lines subsequently
filled by Allied troops. In fact, the taxicabs played only
a minor role in the campaign, as the troops they transported did not even fight until the next day, and the
German gap was opposite an equally big gap in Allied
lines, which the Germans were unable to exploit.
Nevertheless, such mythical lore—however accurate
as a matter of historical fact—metaphorically highlights
the decisive role that psychology played in the actual
Marne campaign. This now-ancient campaign raises
many questions for analysis, which may yield timeless
lessons that transcend mere antiquarian interest. If the
Germans were so successful, why did they ultimately
fail? And, how did the French, initially operationally
inept, manage to turn events around?
It is useful to note that the Germans won every battle
at the tactical level—but strategically and operationally
they lost the campaign. This appears to be mainly from the
uncertainties of warfare that crept into the psychology of
the German leadership, resulting in hesitancy and missed
opportunities. Ultimately, the threat of the gap between
the German units, because of communications failures,
was mostly in the minds of the German commanders.
Ironically, this mental gap was more decisive to the
campaign than was the literal gap between the units.

John J. McGrath is an Army historian at the Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He is the
author or editor for eleven Army historical publications and a contributor to several more. He holds a BA from
Boston College and an MA from the University of Massachusetts at Boston. He is a PhD candidate at Kansas State
University. His most recent work on the First Battle of the Marne is expected to be published in 2015.

Notes
1. Army Doctrine Publication 6-0, Mission Command (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2012), 2.
2. Martin Sonnenberger, “Mission Command During the War
of Movement in World War I—Initiative and Synchronization of the
German Right Wing in August and Early September 1914,” (monograph, U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies, 2014), 41-43.
3. Mark Osborne Humphreys and John Maker, eds., Germany’s
Western Front: Translations from the German Official History of the
Great War. 1914: Part 1 The Battle of the Frontiers and Pursuit to the
Marne (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2013),
Kindle loc. 2877.
4. Ibid.; Bradley John Meyer, “Operational Art and the German

42

Command System in World War I” (PhD diss., Ohio State University,
1988), 133-137.
5. Paul Evans, “Strategic Signal Communications—A Study of
Signal Communications as Applied to Large Field Forces, Based on
the Operations of the German Signal Corps During the March on
Paris in 1914,” Signal Bulletin 82 ( January-February 1935), 24-58.
6. Ibid., 46-47.
7. Dennis E. Showalter, “The Retaming of Bellona: Prussia and the
Institutionalization of the Napoleonic Legacy, 1815-1876,” Military
Affairs 44 (April 1980): 57-63; Antulio J. Echevarria II, After Clausewitz: German Military Thinkers before the Great War (Lawrence, KS:
Kansas University Press, 2002), 13-14.

November-December 2015  MILITARY REVIEW