The defending French forces, along with the British were on the retreat and on the brink of exhaustion as they had been fleeing German forces for 10 to 12 days. Under the command of Joseph Joffre, the French Commander-in-Chief, the French and British troops reached the south of the River Marne.
The Germans, sensing a near victory, encircled Paris from the East, so the French government, fled from Paris and traveled to Bordeaux. However, a French counter attack on the German forces invading France was called for by Joseph Joffre, under the recommendation of the military governor of Paris, Gallieni and the support of Sir John French, the British commander, providing his own military forces, who in turn had been given permission to do so by Lord Kitchener, the British war minister. This was the start of the First Battle of Marne.
Joseph Joffre sent General Maunoury’s 150,000 man Sixth Army, to attack the German First army on September 6th 1914, so that in moving to defend themselves, the Germans would leave a 30mile wide gap between their First and Second Army. The German Second army, led by General Karl von Bulow, was consequently attacked by the French Fifth army, whilst the BEF (British Expeditionary Force), as well as the French Fifth army pured through the gap in the German lines of defence.
Despite this French advantage, the Germans nearly overcame Maunoury’s forces between the 6th and 8th of September, but not for the aid of 6,000 French infantry troops who had been ferried from Paris by 600 taxi cabs, an event later known as “the taxis of the Marne.”
On September 8th, General Lanrezac’s replacement, the more offensively spirited General Franchet d’Esperey’s French Fifth army launched a surprise attack on the German second army, further widening the breach in Germany’s defensive lines.
On September 9th the German Chief of Staff, Helmuth von Moltke, order a German retreat as he feared an allied breakthrough due to poor German communications at the Marne. The allies subsequently chased the Germans, albeit at a slow pace, covering a mere 12 miles a day, until the Germans were driven 40 miles away to a point north of the River Aisne, where the German First and Second armies prepared trenches. This signaled a French strategic victory on September 10th, as, assisted by the British, the French forces had broken German hopes of swiftly defeating the West.
German and French casualties in the First Battle of the Marne were approximately 250,000 soldiers each, with British casualties totaling 12,733 casualties.
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