The March on Paris The Memoirs of Alexander von Kluck, 1914-1918

185 Pages·2012·7.58 MB·English

by  Alexander von Kluck

Alexander von Kluck.
The March on Paris
The Memoirs of Alexander von Kluck, 1914
Alexander Von Kluck
This third impression first published as The March on Paris and the Battle of the
Marne, 1914 in 1923 by Edward Arnold, London
This edition published in 2012 by Frontline Books,
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Introduction copyright © Mark Pottle, 2012
9781783469970

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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Introduction ‘A fighting soldier of the old school’: General Alexander von
Kluck and The March on Paris, by Mark Pottle
Author’s Preface
Note on Von Kluck’s Military Career
Introductory
Chapter One - Brussels–Antwerp
Chapter Two - Brussels–Somme
Chapter 3 - The Inward Wheel Against the Enemy’s Main Forces–Paris–
Crossing the Marne
Chapter 4 - The Battle on the Ourcq
Appendix - Order of Battle of the First Army, 1914
Bibliography
Introduction ‘A fighting soldier of
the old school’: General
Alexander von Kluck and The
March on Paris, by Mark Pottle
General Alexander von Kluck’s grandly titled The March on Paris and the
Battle of the Marne 1914 follows the progress of the German First Army, of
which Kluck was the commander, from its point of assembly at Grevenbroich
near Dusseldorf, at the beginning of August, to its resting place on high ground
above the Aisne in mid-September. Kluck’s army was at the extreme right of the
seven that advanced westwards from Germany in 1914, and it formed the fast
moving tip of what has been aptly described as a ‘great scythe-sweep’ through
Belgium and northern France.1 This ambitious manoeuvre, prefigured in the
Schlieffen plan of 1905, and central to the thinking of Moltke, the Commander-
in-Chief, in 1914, was meant to secure an early victory for Germany in the west,
freeing men and materials for what was expected to be a more prolonged war
against the Russian ‘steamroller’ in the east. The emphasis in the west was on
speed and manoeuvre, and during its rapid advance First Army covered more
than 300 miles in little more than thirty days, travelling a greater distance than
any of its more southerly counterparts. It fought major battles against the British
at Mons on 23 August, and at Le Cateau on the 26th, and by the 28th was
bearing down on Paris from the north-east. That afternoon Kluck’s headquarters
at Villers Fauçon received a triumphal wireless message from the Kaiser:
The First Army is today approaching the heart of France in its
victorious march, after winning rapid and decisive victories against
the Belgians, the British, and the French. I congratulate the Army on
its brilliant successes, and wish to express my imperial gratitude.2
Although Kluck’s army was subsequently diverted east of Paris, and did not
travel to the west, as might have been expected, its advance guards made rapid
progress, crossing the Marne on the evening of 2 September. By the 5th they had
crossed the Grand Morin, and were effectively south of Paris. This, however,
proved to be the furthest extent of their advance. On 9 September First Army
began to retreat northwards in the face of Marshal Joffre’s decisive counter-
offensive. Kluck marched his exhausted troops towards the Aisne, and on 12
September they began entrenching on the plateau on the far side of the river.
There, during the ensuing first battle of the Aisne, First Army helped bring to a
standstill Joffre’s pursuit, laying, in Kluck’s own words, ‘the foundation stone
for the eventual establishment of the German western front from the Aisne to the
Yser’.3
The March on Paris thus concludes with a description of First Army’s march
away from the French capital–an irony that eluded Kluck, but which is
nevertheless central to his work. The failure to deliver a knockout blow in the
west condemned Germany to what it most feared, war on two fronts, and while
all was not lost after the Marne–Kluck himself reported the strategic situation
‘by no means unfavourable’4–the campaign in the west had assumed an
attritional aspect that lengthened appreciably the odds on a German victory. It
was inevitable, therefore, that the conduct of the German armies in the west
would be closely scrutinized, and particularly those on the right wing where
Joffre had successfully counter-attacked. Kluck wrote The March on Paris with
an eye to future controversy, and with a view to defending his reputation, as well
as that of the army that he had been proud to lead.
The book began life as a memorandum drafted by Kluck’s highly-rated chief
of staff, General-Major von Kuhl, during the winter of 1914/15, when events
were still fresh in the memory. It was a factual account, written with the express
intention of setting the record straight, and once its historical accuracy had been
checked with the senior commanders involved it was circulated:
… to certain of the higher leaders for their comments, so that any
doubts or contradictory reports as to the work and leading of the
First Army might be finally disposed of, and the great achievements
of all its corps, its cavalry corps, and their commanders placed
definitively in their true light.5
The memorandum might have been given no wider circulation had not Kluck’s
career been effectively ended by shrapnel wounds he received in March 1915.
He was placed on half pay, and although there were rumours in March 1917 of a
return to active service this did not happen.6 At some point during his enforced
retirement Kluck took up the memorandum drafted by Kuhl and began the
process of amplifying it, completing his work in February 1918. The March on
Paris was thus conceived and completed while the war was still in progress, and
although Kluck made use of published works, such as The Despatches of Sir
John French (London, 1914) and Walther von Kolbe’s Die Marneschlacht
(Bielefeld, 1917), he did not attempt to write a synthesizing, still less a personal,
history. Rather, he gave the view from First Army Headquarters, drawing
heavily on official records, most notably his own Army Orders, from which he
quotes extensively.
The March on Paris is not a descriptive war memoir in the style of so many
that appeared after the war. It reveals very little of what Kluck felt and thought:
rather, it is a record of what he did–or, more accurately, what he commanded
First Army to do. The text marches briskly along, from order to order, and from
advance to advance, with scarcely a backwards look. The landscapes through
which First Army travelled, and the civilian populations that it encountered
along the way, are almost invisible. But this very narrowness of focus imparts a
sense of the drama surrounding the advance, while a clear impression of Kluck’s
dominant personality also emerges from the pages. He displays throughout a
boundless self-confidence, married to a total incapacity to accept defeat. Ground
that he was forced to cede in the field he was evidently determined to win back
in print.
The book was first published early in 1920 as Der Marsch auf Paris und die
Marneschlacht 1914 by Ernst Siegfried Mittler of Berlin, and on Thursday 20
May an English language edition appeared, published by Edward Arnold, and
annotated by the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence. It
was advertised in The Times alongside Sir Ian Hamilton’s Gallipoli Diary, itself
destined to become a war classic: they were described as ‘contributions of first
class importance to the history of the war’, and within a few years Kluck’s had
become recommended reading for officer examinations in the British army.7 The
March on Paris appeared in Britain at a time of growing interest in the military
history of the war, which was not confined to the works of British authors: 1920
also saw the advent of the military journal The Army Quarterly, every issue of
which carried an extensive section of ‘Notes on Foreign War Books’, many of
them German. Doubtless because Britain had won the war there was keen
interest in the battle experiences of the vanquished enemy, and, as a result of
Mons, Le Cateau, and the Marne, Kluck’s name was ‘probably known to more
Englishmen than that of any other German General’.8 The Times capitalised on
this familiarity by serialising extracts from The March on Paris in three issues
just before its publication day.9
The most serious charges levelled against Kluck, and from which he sought to
defend himself, were, first, that during the advance he travelled east of Paris
rather than west, in defiance of the Schlieffen plan, thus exposing his flank to
attack on the Marne; and, secondly, that he compounded this error by pushing
his forces across the river, 2–4 September, in direct disobedience of the orders of
the supreme command (OHL), which wanted him to provide flank protection
against Paris. If these charges are accepted, then Kluck bears a heavy
responsibility for the eventual German defeat on the Marne.
The German armies had travelled east of Paris at the end of August in an
attempt to exploit the hitherto obvious weakness of the French left. The
manoeuvre is commonly referred to as ‘Kluck’s turn’, and the impression is
sometimes given that it was virtually a whim on his part, the implication being
that he had a free choice as to whether he went east of the capital or west–as
Schlieffen had apparently intended. Quite apart from the fact that Schlieffen’s
plans were more complex and conditional than this simplification allows–he saw
a march west of Paris as a means to an end, and not the end itself–this
interpretation places a heavier burden of responsibility on Kluck than is
justifiable.10 As The March on Paris makes clear, he had limited freedom of
manoeuvre during the advance. Until 27 August he was under Bülow’s direct
command, and the next evening he received fresh orders from OHL in the form
of ‘General Directions for the Further Conduct of Operations’. These in fact
called for ‘an immediate advance of the German Armies on Paris’. First Army
was ordered to:
… march west of the Oise towards the lower Seine. It must be
prepared to cooperate in the fighting of the Second Army. It will
also be responsible for the protection of the right flank of the
Armies, and will take steps to prevent any new enemy concentration
in its zone of operations.11
Throughout the advance Kluck faced a dilemma that was encapsulated in these