48.9°N 3.4°E Western Front First Battle of the Marne
Briefing
In early September 1914 French and British armies halted the sweeping German advance on Paris along the Marne, then drove it back to the Aisne. The 'Miracle of the Marne' ended Germany's hope of a swift victory in the west and began the race to the sea that would freeze the Western Front into 400 miles of trenches for the next four years.
Books Covering This Event (3)
Popular History
A day-by-day narrative of the war's first month, from the funeral of Edward VII to the Marne.
A single-volume military history of the entire war by the most influential military historian of the 20th century.
A global history of the war that ranges far beyond the Western Front to Africa, the Middle East, and the seas.
The War in Books: The Marne
The battle that ended the short war, and the books that stand at its edge.
The First Battle of the Marne is the hinge of 1914, and also one of the less crowded subjects on this shelf. That says something about how the war is remembered: the static horror of the trenches has drawn far more writers than the weeks of movement that came first. Yet the trenches exist because of what happened here. Had the German advance on Paris succeeded, the long war might never have been fought in the form we know.
Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August is the natural way in. Her whole book leans towards the Marne, following the war’s first month through plans that came apart on contact with reality, and it ends as that battle begins to decide the campaign. John Keegan’s The First World War supplies what she leaves out: the military mechanics of the battle, and the race to the sea that followed. Read Tuchman for the mounting dread of the retreat to Paris, then Keegan for a clear account of how the front settled into the line it would hold, with little change, for most of four years.