The Course of the First World War (1914)

From August 2, 1914 the VIII German Army Corps occupied Luxembourg. On August 3–4 German troops crossed the Belgian border. Liège was shelled and captured. Following the defeats of the small Belgian army, in the second half of August the Germans won victories over the French in Lorraine. Namur was captured.

The French withdrew in the face of the German offensive; the British Expeditionary Force was defeated at Mons (August 23–24) and fell back to the Channel coast.

This was followed by the Battle of the Meuse (August 24–29). Longwy and Montmédy were captured by the Germans, and on September 5, 1914 the German 3rd Army crossed the Marne.

In the Battle of the Marne the French, with newly formed armies, tried to prevent the German envelopment. Under the overall command of General Joffre the French retreat turned into a counteroffensive.

During the rapid German advance a gap had opened between the 1st and 2nd German Armies, which was then threatened by flanking enemy forces. To prevent a breakthrough the 2nd Army fell back first, and then the remaining German armies also withdrew and took up positions between Compiègne and Clermont and Verdun along the Aisne.

In the foreword to the work "The Miracle on the Marne" by Sebastian Haffner and Wolfgang Venohr (Bergisch-Gladbach, 1982) it says: "It is indisputable that with the withdrawal of the 1st and 2nd German Armies from the Marne (9 September 1914) — after an unprecedented rush of the German armies through Belgium and northern France — and the subsequent withdrawal of the entire northern wing of the German Western Army (11 September 1914), the German campaign plan against France, and thus the entire German war plan, failed; this plan had consisted of eliminating France in a lightning campaign while holding defensively in the east, in order then, once rear security had been won, to turn the full force against Russia. It is also indisputable that this withdrawal was not forced by the enemy but voluntary (and disputed among the German army commanders). The Battle of the Marne was not fought out to a final decision, but was broken off before its climax" (pp. 12/13).

This meant the strategic approach of the "Schlieffen Plan" (1905) had failed; the German army was placed on the defensive in the West. What followed was the race to the Channel coast, but neither the Germans nor the British and French managed to outflank the enemy front.

In October the Germans succeeded in capturing Lille, Ghent, Bruges and Ostend. The fortress of Antwerp also fell after a siege on October 9, 1914.

Fierce fighting followed in Flanders (for example in the Battle of Ypres until November 11).

West of Langemarck poorly trained German reserve regiments bled to death in British defensive fire. The "heroic death" of German volunteer students and schoolboys became a myth and was especially instrumentalized by the National Socialists, but the hastily assembled units were recruited only to a small extent from this group.

Now the fronts stretched from the North Sea to Alsace. The Western Front froze into trench warfare; repeated Allied attempts to break through in November and December 1914 failed.

While in the West the Germans ultimately achieved only a stalemate in 1914, they achieved significant military successes in the first year of the war against the Russians, namely over the Russian Narew Army at Tannenberg (23–31 Aug) and the Russian Neman Army at the Masurian Lakes (5–15 Sep). This knocked back the Russian offensive in East Prussia. These were complete German victories against failing Russian leadership and organization, which established the legendary fame of the military leadership duo Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff.

The Austrians also initially achieved early successes against the Serbs and Russians, but soon suffered setbacks (the battle for Lemberg, the loss of Galicia and Poland) and required massive German support. Przemysl was besieged by the Russians, relieved by the Germans and Austrians, and besieged again by the Russians in November. The Germans formed a 9th Army in Upper Silesia, and Hindenburg was appointed Supreme Commander East. Under Colonel-General August von Mackensen, the German 9th Army took part in the operations in Poland (3 Oct–17 Dec).

Fierce fighting followed in Poland and Galicia, with the combined German and Austrian forces advancing to the Vistula. Battles took place at Warsaw and at Lodz.

In November a major Russian offensive against Silesia and Posen began, but the Russian attacks were repulsed. In Serbia, Belgrade changed hands repeatedly. The fighting in the East and in the Balkans ended in positional warfare.

The naval war began with partial successes by the German East Asia Cruiser Squadron at Coronel (1 Nov), but the German overseas cruisers met their fate off the Falkland Islands on 8 Dec at the hands of British capital ships; only the Emden and the Dresden initially escaped the disaster.

The German Mediterranean Division dared a breakthrough to Constantinople and brought the German ships Goeben and Breslau to the allied Turks.

At the outbreak of the war the German Mediterranean Division was under Rear Admiral Wilhelm Souchon. Its mission was to disrupt French troop transports from North Africa to Europe. After bombarding Algerian ports, Souchon put in at Messina (in Italy) to take on coal. The British Mediterranean Fleet, which was numerically far superior to the Germans, tried to prevent the ships from breaking out into the Atlantic or the western Mediterranean.

Souchon deceived the British by feigning a course to the west, then abruptly turned east. The British command wrongly suspected that the German ships intended to join the Austro-Hungarian fleet in the Adriatic.

A smaller British cruiser force did sight the ships but did not attack, as the British admiral had orders to avoid engagements with superior forces (the Goeben was faster and more heavily armed than most British ships on the scene). On 10 Aug 1914 the Goeben and the Breslau safely reached the Dardanelles.

To formally preserve Ottoman neutrality, the ships were officially handed over to the Ottoman navy on 16 Aug. The Goeben was renamed Yavuz Sultan Selim, but the German crew retained their posts and Souchon was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Ottoman fleet.

The German fleet suffered an early setback in the North Sea during the British push into the Heligoland Bight and the loss of some cruisers and torpedo boats (28 Aug); however, U-9 succeeded on 22 Sep in sinking three British armored cruisers.

By the end of 1914 the Germans could not force a decisive outcome on any front, but the same was true for their opponents.

However, German plans had failed to end the two-front war quickly on at least one front.

Posterity considered, in particular, the outcome of the Battle of the Marne to be decisive for the eventual German defeat.