The Greater War pp 7-25 | Cite as
The Battle of the Ardennes, August 1914: France’s Lost Opportunity
Chapter
Abstract
On 3 August 1914 France and Germany declared war on each other. It was an event for which both nations’ armies had prepared for decades, France since her catastrophic defeat in 1870–1871, Germany on a continuous basis since the time of Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Clausewitz. Preparation consisted of building, training and equipping ever-larger conscript armies, and of planning. Germany had her Schlief fen Plan, France had Plan XVII. History has dealt more kindly with Schlief fen and his successors than it has with J offre, the owner and executor of the latest and last French plan.
Keywords
Army Corps Northern Group Intelligence Gathering German Corps German Army
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
- 1.Among the voluminous bibliography on this subject, see in particular: Gerhard Ritter, The Schlieffen Plan: Critique of a Myth (London: Wolff, 1958)Google Scholar
- Terence Zuber, Inventing the Schlieffen Plan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Terence Zuber, ‘Terence Holmes Reinvents the Schlieffen Plan’, War in History, Vol. 8, No. 4, (2001) pp. 468–476Google Scholar
- Robert T. Foley, ‘The Origins of the Schlieffen Plan’, War in History, Vol. 10, No. 2, (2003) pp. 222–232CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- 2.See: Holger H. Herwig, The Marne, 1914 (New York: Random House, 2009), pp. 266–306Google Scholar
- 3.B.H. Iiddell Hart, History of the First World War (London: Cassell and Company Ltd, 1970 edition), pp. 71–72.Google Scholar
- 4.Cyril Falls, The First World War (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1960), pp. 15–16.Google Scholar
- 8.Simon J. House, The Battle of the Ardennes 22 August 1914, Unpublished thesis (London: Kings College, 2012), pp. 46–48.Google Scholar
- 25.General J. Paloque, 1914,Bertrix (Paris: Charles-Lavauzelle & Cie., 1932).Google Scholar
- 27.The following description of the Battle of Rossignol is an abridged version of that in: Simon J House, The Battle of the Ardennes 22 August 1914, Unpublished thesis (London: Kings College, 2012), pp. 222–239Google Scholar
- 28.A full description of this action can be found in: Simon J House, The Battle of the Ardennes 22 August 1914, Unpublished thesis (London: Kings College, 2012), pp. 124–131Google Scholar
- 33.General V. D’Urbal, Souvenirs et Anecdotes de Guerre 1914–1916 (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1939), p. 25.Google Scholar
- 38.Holger H. Herwig, TheMarne, 1914 (New York: Random House, 2009), p. 161.Google Scholar
Copyright information
© Simon House 2014