Western Civilization - History Of European Society

Imperialism, War, and Revolution, 1881–1920 543

ern Allies), Turkey (on the side of Germany and the
Central Powers), and many smaller states supporting
the western Allies. For example, the governments of
Siam, Liberia, and Peru all found reasons to declare war
on Germany.
Fighting in the west nearly resulted in a German
victory in 1914. The Schlieffen Plan led to the German
occupation of Brussels on the sixteenth day of the war,
and a German army of 1.5 million men pushed far into
France by the thirty-fifth day (see map 27.4). Simulta-
neously, the French invasion of Alsace and Lorraine
(the battle of the Frontiers) failed and the French were
driven back with heavy losses. In early September, the
German army stood within a few miles of Paris. Victory
seemed imminent, and the chief of staff, General Hel-
muth von Moltke (nephew of the Moltke of the 1860s),
sent part of the army to the eastern front to protect

Prussia. In a week of desperate fighting along the

Marne River, in which the military governor of Paris

(General Joseph Gallieni) gambled the city’s garrison,

which he shuttled to the front in Parisian taxicabs, the

French stopped the German advance and forced the in-

vaders to retreat to more defensible positions. Victory

at the Marne saved France at a horrifying price. Of 1.3

million French field troops at the start of the war, more

than 600,000 were killed, wounded, or taken prisoner

in one month of fighting. The casualty rate among in-

fantry officers reached two-thirds. The aftermath of the

battle of the Marne was a different war: After a “race to

the sea” stretched the opposing armies from the English

Channel to Switzerland, they fought a defensive war in

which massive battles hardly budged the opposing

army. By late 1914 both armies had dug into fixed posi-

tions and faced each other from a system of earthen

Sei

ne

R.

Mar

ne

R.

Aisne

R.

Som

me

R.

Ois

e

R.

North

Sea

En

gli

sh

Ch

an

ne

l

NETHERLANDS

GREAT

BRITAIN

BELGIUM GERMANY

FRANCE

LUXEMBOURG

Antwerp

London

Amiens

Le Havre

Versailles

Paris

Chateau Thierry

Arras Cambrai

Mons

Brussels

Cologne

Coblenz

Frankfurt

Luxembourg

Nancy

St.

Mihiel

Sedan

Calais

Verdun

Ypres

Farthest German advance, September 1914

German offensive, March – July 1918

German advances

Winter, 1914 – 1915

Armistice line

Allied advances

0 200 400 Miles

0 200 400 600 Kilometers

MAP 27.4

The Western Front in World War I