Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War by Max Hastings

Author:Max Hastings
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Ebook Club, Chart, Special
ISBN: 9780307597052
Publisher: Knopf
Published: 2013-09-23T23:00:00+00:00

3 SEEDS OF HOPE

On 1 September in the French capital, even as L Battery and the Guards brigade were fighting their little battles at Néry and Villers-Cotteret, a momentous meeting took place at the British embassy, Pauline Borghese’s former palace in the Rue Saint-Honoré. Kitchener, hotfoot from London, chose this rendezvous with Sir John French, summoned from Compiègne. The C-in-C later professed disgust, first at having to leave his headquarters to meet Kitchener at all, and second that his fellow field marshal, now a mere civilian war minister, attended in uniform. French denounced the visit as an unwonted political interference with his own ‘executive command and authority’, and summarily rejected Kitchener’s proposal to see for himself the BEF in the field. In truth, the C-in-C must have felt sorely inadequate in the company of a much cleverer soldier than himself, who wore the French commemorative medal for the campaign of 1870–71, belatedly presented to Kitchener the previous year. Following a tense and indeed acrimonious meeting, an uneasy compromise about operational plans was agreed: Sir John should continue the BEF’s withdrawal, but was ordered to act in close conformity with Joffre’s plans, while taking care to secure his flanks.

In the four days that followed, French’s determination to exploit to the limit the escape clause about flanks drove Joffre and his comrades towards despair. The British C-in-C interpreted these orders as empowering him to reject repeated pleas to participate in an allied counter-offensive. French’s overriding purpose was to keep his men marching until the Seine was interposed between them and the Germans. John Terraine has written: ‘Uncertainty about British intentions, their apparent determination to do nothing but retreat while the Germans over-ran the greater part of northern France, added enormously to Joffre’s difficulties.’ These were very great. Gallieni later described the condition of the nation’s armies – admittedly with a strong partisan interest in promoting a vision of chaos until he himself took a grip – in a fashion that nonetheless carries conviction. He wrote of meeting generals behind the front who had lost their troops; troops who had lost their officers; commanders who had no idea where they were, or where they were supposed to be going. On 2 September, Paris’s governor spoke by telephone to Joffre, who expressed his fears for the left wing of Fifth Army ‘because of the inertia of the British who don’t want to march’.

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