Ever since the Franco-Prussian
War in 1870 to 1871, the Germans recognized
that they were likely to face another
war with France. That was the war that
allowed Germany to unify. They humiliated France. They were able to capture
some very valuable territory from France, in particular
Alsace and Lorraine, which is very mineral rich. And so the Germans were
plotting too, well, what are we going to do if we
get into another war with them? At the same time, once France
and Russia had this alliance, Germany fully recognized if
there is a war with France, it's likely to not
be just with France. It's likely to be
a two front war. On the Western Front, they'll
be in conflict with France. And on the Eastern
Front, they'll be in conflict with Russia. And so to deal with
this eventuality-- this is all the
scheming that Germany did in the decades
going up to World War I-- they came up with
the Schlieffen Plan. And I'm sure I'm
mispronouncing it. Named for Alfred
von Schlieffen, he was chief of the German
Empire's general staff from 1891 to 1905. And it was based on how do
you deal with a two front war? And the general ides
here were that Russia had a large and almost
inexhaustible army. But because it was so large it
would take a long time for it to mobilize. And the Germans are actually
able to approximate it correctly because
this is how long it did take the
Russians to mobilize at the beginning of World War
I. They estimated that it would take them about six weeks. So the Schlieffen Plan called
for enough German troops on the Eastern Front,
initially, in order to keep the Russians at bay. But then the main fighting
force of the Germans, while the Russians
are mobilizing, is to go after France and try
to essentially knock France out of commission, so that
they're not facing a two front war anymore. And then have those
troops go back to fight against the Russians. And the way that
they wanted to do it is by rolling through Belgium in
a wheel like pattern like this. And the reason why they wanted
to do this wheel like pattern is that they correctly
predicted that the French were very eager to get this
territory right over here. And the French
actually had a plan-- they called it
Plan 17- for going after Alsace and Lorraine. It was an offensive plan. And the view is if
the French army is going in that direction,
if the German army rolls through Belgium and is
able to get them from the rear, they could put the French
army out of commission. So in early August
1914, the Germans, once they declared war
on France and on Russia, the Germans tried to put the
Schlieffen Plan into action. And they frankly,
almost succeeded. So through August
and early September, the Germans were able
to essentially roll through Belgium and keep the
combined, mainly French forces, but there was also some
assistance from British, to keep them on their heels. And this happened all the
way until early September when they get near the
Marne, or a little bit past the Marne River in France. And it was here that
the Sixth French Army-- and when we talk
about armies we're talking about huge
numbers of troops. The Sixth French Army had
over 200,000 troops in it. When we're talking about
the Battle of the Marne-- which I'm about to talk to you. We're talking about the
first Battle of the Marne. We're talking
about a battle that involves two million troops. So these are battles that are
occurring on an epic scale. Just each of these
armies-- this army or this one, or even the
German armies-- we're talking about tens to hundreds
of thousands of troops. In general, an army
characterize you're talking about over
50,000, 60,000 troops. So what happens as you go to
early September, especially September 5, 1914,
the Sixth French Army recognizes a mistake that
the First German Army made. By trying to roll
around like this, they exposed their right flank. So right over here would be the
right flank of the German army. And just as most
mammals, our flanks are our weak spot, that
area between your ribs and your hips, the same
thing is true for armies. The front of the
army tends to be where you have the
strongest forces. And then you have your
supply routes going back. So if you can outflank
an army-- and that's what a lot of military
strategy is designed around-- you can hit an army
in its weaker points. So by September 5, the First
German Army recognized this, but it was too late. By September 6, they
were essentially being confronted by
the Sixth French Army. And by essentially
turning to meet them they created an opening between
them and the Second German Army. And that opening was able--
the French and the British were able to take advantage
of that to essentially put the Germans on their heels
after a month of advancing. And so right over here, you
have the various French armies. And they were assisted by the
British expeditionary force. And so from the Battle
of the Marne, which was essentially, most historians
would say, between September 6, or September 5, September
6 and September 12, they were able to put the
Germans on the retreat. The Germans retreated
past the Aisne River. And then once you
get into November and the end of the year of
1914, the Germans essentially entrenched themselves. They were literally
building deep trenches in northern France and a
little bit of western Belgium. And what I have
right over here-- let me see if I can draw it. What I have right over here,
what the boundaries are eventually happened
after the Germans suffered, essentially,
their first big defeat. They had to retreat and they
had to literally retrench. And this is what the
borders would then be like. And these were literally
trenches getting dug here. This first stage of the
war was hugely dynamic. You had armies
moving fairly rapidly over a period of
weeks and months. But then once the
Germans retrenched, you have roughly this position
being static for the next three years and the famous trench
warfare of the Western front that you might have
seen movies on. And I want to emphasize
this was a big deal. The first Battle of
the Marne-- sometimes it's called the
Miracle of the Marne-- if the French,
with British help, were not able to push
the Germans back, they might have accomplished
the Schlieffen Plan and actually maybe would
have won World War I, or at least been able to win the
Western front fairly quickly. And then been able to
deal with the Russians a little bit better. But because of the
Miracle at the Marne-- which was hugely bloody. We're talking about 500,000
casualties on both sides. We're talking 100,000 to
200,000 dead on both sides. But because of that, that was
able to hold off the Germans. But it got the Western front
into this ugly three year long trench warfare.