Race to the Sea

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The Race to the Sea is the term commonly used for a series of battles and maneuvers that unfolded on the Western Front in World War I, from mid-September to mid-October 1914. It directly followed the First Battle of the Marne, in which the British and French armies checked the invasion of France by the armies of Imperial Germany. Over the following month, each side attempted to gain or re-gain the initiative by maneuvering northwards in order to turn the other's flank in that direction and force a retreat. None of these flank attacks resulted in a decisive victory, however; instead, each side extended its fortified lines farther and farther, making such a maneuver progressively more difficult to achieve, as the stretch of open ground between those lines and the North Sea steadily diminished. The entrenchments were finally extended to the North Sea coast around October 19, bringing the "race" to an end.

Though the term "Race to the Sea" is something of a misnomer, as the combatants were not actually striving to be the first to reach the coast, this phase of the fighting was still significant, as it marked the last attempt to quickly win the war in the West through rapid movements and decisive battles. Following the termination of the race, the front line was so extensive that only frontal assaults against fortified positions were still a tactical option. This marked the beginning of the famous trench warfare that would characterize the Western Front until 1918.

Background[edit]

With the outbreak of hostilities at the beginning of August, 1914, most of the combatants planned on a quick, decisive victory. The German military, under the overall command of General Helmuth von Moltke, mobilized in adherence to the Schlieffen Plan formed some years previously, by which the bulk of their armies would invade France via neutral Belgium, capturing Paris and encircling the French armies within six weeks; France's capacity to carry on the war would immediately be destroyed. For their part, the French armed forces planned on an eastward offensive into Alsace-Lorraine, recapturing the German-occupied province and gaining a strong natural position from which to defeat the Germans in battle.

As the fighting on the Western Front unfolded, though, both of these plans miscarried. The French armies, under the overall command of General Joseph Joffre, did indeed attack eastward into Alsace-Lorraine, but were held in check by the German Sixth and Seventh Armies around Metz and Nancy, while being outflanked further north by the German offensive. At the same time, the Schlieffen Plan gradually went awry during August and early September, as the unexpectedly stiff resistance of the Belgian army, and the early arrival of the British Expeditionary Force under Sir John French, endangered its progress. By late August, Joffre had realized his forces were in a strategically dangerous position, and shifted most of them to a new front northeast of Paris in order to meet the German flanking maneuver head-on. Indeed, this realignment of forces provided the Franco-British alliance an opportunity to carry out their own flank attack on the Germans, and on September 4 Joffre decided to go over to the offensive against the First Army of Alexander von Kluck, holding the Germans' right flank along the Marne River.

The result of this decision was the First Battle of the Marne, which opened on September 6 and carried on for the next several days, featuring bitter but often inconclusive fighting along the Marne and its tributaries, on a front of more than 80 miles. By September 9, though the Allies were in danger of having their left (western) flank broken once again, they had made some progress in the center against the German Second and Third Armies, but not enough to achieve a total breakthrough. That same day, however, one of Moltke's staffers, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hentsch, visited the front lines, and authorized General Karl von Bülow, commander of Second Army, to retreat after Bülow had reported his formations were in danger of being broken. This at once compelled the First and Third Armies, on either flank, to withdraw as well.

Moltke himself visited the front on September 10 and reached the same decision as Hentsch, issuing orders the following day for a general withdrawal (including the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Armies, positioned farther east) from the Marne River to the Aisne, some 25 miles to the north. "The lines so reached," his orders read, "will be fortified and defended."^[1] Suffering a nervous breakdown on account of the Schlieffen Plan's failure--he is supposed to have informed Kaiser Wilhelm II, "Your Majesty, we have lost the war!"--Moltke was relieved of command on September 14 and replaced as Chief of the General Staff, and therefore as German military commander, by General Erich von Falkenhayn.

Prelude: First Battle of the Aisne[edit]

On September 10, the day after the Germans began their retreat, the French and British armies advanced northward, though at first not very aggressively, covering only about 12 miles a day; the march of the BEF was particularly slow. Joffre ordered flanking attempts by the French 5th and 6th Armies on his left, in order to roll up the German right; but the Germans had already gained too great a head start, and by the 14th, most of their units had reached the far bank of the Aisne and begun entrenching. The north bank of the Aisne is significantly higher in elevation, overlooking the country to the south through which the Allied armies were marching, and most bridges over the river had already been destroyed or heavily damaged, making it difficult even to get into position for a frontal assault on the German lines.

British and French troops began crossing the Aisne on September 13 to the north and northeast of Soissons and attacked German positions the nest day along one of the strongest portions of their new defensive line, a steep ridge known as the Chemin des Dames. Though the French 4th, 5th, and 9th Armies made slight progress to the east, they were unable to dislodge the Germans, and the BEF troops in particular suffered very heavy casualties. Inferior British artillery and a lack of proper entrenching equipment only aggravated the difficult position of the attackers.

Although the "First Battle of the Aisne," as a distinct military operation, would continue until late September, the failure on September 14 marked the end of its most significant phase, as well as that of the Allied "pursuit" from the Marne. On the 14th, Sir John French ordered his troops to start entrenching as the Germans had already done, freezing the Aisne front more or less in place until 1918 and marking the first appearance of the famous "trench warfare". With the lines likewise stabilizing further east, Joffre looked northwest to the comparatively open country between Compiègne, where the Aisne emptied into the Oise, and the North Sea for a new opportunity for a flanking maneuver, and ordered his 6th Army to cross to the west bank of the Oise on September 17 and march northeast to turn the German right. Simultaneously, at German headquarters, General von Falkenhayn had ordered his own Sixth Army west from Alsace-Lorraine to extend his right and, if possible, envelop the Allied left. These orders are generally considered to inaugurate the "Race to the Sea."

Phase I: Compiègne to Arras[edit]

Battle of Picardy[edit]

The French 6th Army began advancing northeastward along the Oise from Compiègne on the 17th, towards the city of Noyon. It was stopped well short of that point, though, by the German First Army under von Kluck, which had just been reinforced by reserve units from Belgium. Though supporting attacks north of Soissons gained some ground, by nightfall on September 18 the advance had ground down, and the 6th Army was forced to entrench along a line extending from Soissons northwest through Carlepont to a point just south of Noyon. At this date, both Joffre and Falkenhayn were still scrambling to obtain reinforcements from quiet sectors of the front; Joffre broke up the 2nd Army in Alsace-Lorraine and brought many of its units west, combining them with other units south of Amiens to create a new 2nd Army under General Noël de Castelnau. Thus reconstituted, the 2nd was ordered to attack eastward, from a point north-northwest of the halted 6th, in a new effort to turn the German right.

Castelnau began his advance on September 22, crossing the Avre river between Lassigny to the south and Roye to the north. However, with German fortifications along the Aisne solidifying, Falkenhayn was able to detach a corps to extend Kluck's flank northward and block Castelnau's path; thus, once again the French attack was halted, though the northernmost units of the 2nd Army were able to establish a bridgehead on the east bank of the Somme (into which the Avre fed) at Péronne.

With the Sixth Army now on hand, Falkenhayn decided to launch his own planned flank attack against the Allied left. Assaults near Roye on September 24 and Noyon on the 25th drove the French armies back towards the Avre and Compiègne, while part of the Sixth Army crossed north of the Somme and pushed the 2nd out of Péronne. With both sides now adopting a policy of entrenching against frontal attacks, though, Falkenhayn's offensive had as much trouble making progress as Joffre's before it, and already by the 26th it was sputtering to a halt. Intense fighting on the Picardy front would continue into early October, but with Castelnau's and Kluck's armies both exhausted, and fresh units continuing to arrive from the east, the center of action would now shift north of the Somme.

Battle of Albert[edit]

By September 26, a significant portion of the German Sixth Army (mostly troops from Bavaria; the army commander was Bavarian Crown Prince Rupprecht) was in position north of the Somme, just east of the town of Albert, with the intent of attacking westward to reach the English Channel coast and roll up the Allied left. Damage to French railways slowed the German preparations, though, and in the meantime Joffre had begun assembling a provisional sub-army force under General Louis de Maud'huy to meet the threat and yet again attempt a flanking maneuver of its own.

Attacks by German cavalry on the 25th and 26th drove back the handful of French units around Albert, to clear the path for Rupprecht's advance. Maud'huy brought down two corps from the vicinity of Arras, however, and the 27th and 28th saw intense fighting immediately east and northeast of Albert, with a cavalry battle farther north near Arras preventing a German breakthrough in that sector. Much of the combat was uncoordinated and involving relatively small units, due to the frantic attempts on each side to piece a solid line together. By nightfall on September 29, the result was once more a stalemate and the extension of the line northward to Arras. Maud'huy's provisional force was at this time formalized as the French 10th Army.

Phase II: Arras to Ypres[edit]

Battle of Arras[edit]

With the stabilization of the line around Albert, the remaining corridor of territory available for maneuver had shrunk significantly, to a span of some 60 miles between Arras and the North Sea. To exploit it as quickly as possible, Falkenhayn ordered Rupprecht on September 28 to secure the city of Arras and its northern outskirts, and from there attempt another turning of the French left. At the same time, Joffre, keeping Castelnau and the Second Army on the defensive, shifted Maud'huy and the 10th Army to the north, ordering him to advance to Arras and attack eastward towards Douai, through what he believed was a virtually unoccupied region.

As a result, the two flanking units, neither really aware of the other's existence, collided with each other on October 1. The 10th Army initially made significant progress, pressing to and a short distance east of Douai and repulsing units of the I Bavarian Reserve Corps, but the following day, as more units arrived, the Germans regained the initiative and were able to capture Douai and a number of French prisoners, along with the high ground east and northeast of Arras. Over the next two days, the fighting shifted ever farther to the northwest, as the Sixth Army advanced into the Arras suburbs and seized both the city of Lens and the prominent Vimy Ridge to the north, but suffered heavy casualties in the process and were unable to break through to Arras itself.

The dwindling of the action around Arras, from October 4 onward, was immediately followed by back-and-forth combat around the major industrial city of Lille farther north, which the French occupied on the 4th (using mostly Territorial soldiers from their overseas colonies), but were eventually pushed out by the Germans after a week of close-quarters fighting in which Lille suffered significant damage. The loss of the city, which finally fell on October 12, was a significant but not a fatal blow to the French war economy.

Battle of La Bassée[edit]

As the front extended northward beyond the Arras-Lens sector, the opposing armies entered the historical region of Flanders in northeastern France and western Belgium, characterized by a flat, low-lying plain composed of heavy clay soils, cut by a number of streams and canals. On the one hand, the topography made flanking maneuvers and even (given the relative lack of high ground) frontal attacks significantly easier; on the other, the boggy ground often rendered large-scale movements impossible except along the roads.

At the beginning of October, the only Allied force available to defend Flanders against German attacks was the Belgian army, falling back westward after having been forced to evacuate the port of Antwerp. Doubting whether it would be enough to prevent a sustained assault, Joffre secured Sir John French's agreement to move the BEF into the region, creating a new line extending from the left flank of Maud'huy's 10th Army north to the Belgian city of Ypres. The British began arriving on October 8 and over the next two days reached positions immediately east and north of the city of Béthune. By this time, the Germans had organized some of their reserve units and the detachments which had taken Antwerp into a new formation, the Fourth Army, and Falkenhayn sent it into Flanders to match the Allied move.

Beginning on October 9, some of the Fourth Army troops began clashing with French cavalry around the town of La Bassée and the adjoining canal of the same name. The Germans were eventually driven off, and as the BEF arrived, it succeeded in advancing to a point some 10 miles east of Béthune, both north and south of the La Bassée canal. The British began digging in along this line on the 12th, but for the next several days endured repeated German attacks, especially around Givenchy-lès-la-Bassée, which was lost and then recaptured. This was followed by an assault on the BEF's northern flank around Ypres itself, but eventually its own reinforcements (in this case arriving from India) were able to stem the tide. Fighting in the La Bassée sector continued into early November, eventually segueing into the First Battle of Ypres.

End of the Race[edit]

The failure of either side to achieve a breakthrough around Ypres effectively marked the end of any real chance for the Allies or the Germans to outflank each other before running out of room to maneuver. The remaining strip of territory was a narrow coastal belt along the North Sea in westernmost Belgium, prone to flooding and thus not very passable. By October 19, the Belgian army, completing its westward withdrawal from Antwerp, had reached this ground and began to entrench, its flanks resting on the North Sea to its left and the BEF line to its right. This brought the "Race to the Sea" to an end.

Outcome[edit]

In a narrow tactical sense, the Race to the Sea proved something of a failure for both sides, as neither was able to achieve its original aim: a successful breakthrough into open country that would flank its opponent out of its defensive lines and force a decisive battle. Though neither the Allies nor the Germans would completely accept the prospect of a long-term stalemate on the Western Front until after the First Battle of Ypres that directly followed the end of the Race, it was already clear that stalemate could only be broken by costly frontal attacks.

Strategically, though, the outcome of the Race could be judged a victory for the Allies. By maintaining control of the rail network of northern France (as opposed to the Germans, who were forced to rely on the damaged Belgian facilities), they had been able to prevent any very serious breakthroughs. Though some important industrial facilities had been lost, such as at Lille, most of the productive capacity of France remained behind the Allied lines, and in the later stages of the Race, by managing to extend the line almost due northwards, the Allies had denied the Germans access to the ports along the English Channel (such as Calais and Dunkirk), rendering them unable to directly threaten Britain.

Most visibly, the conclusion of the Race marked the onset of the trench warfare that would characterize the Western Front from that point until 1918. By November 1914, there was a continuous front line, extending from the North Sea southeast to the Swiss border, with no further room for maneuver; in response, the armies developed increasingly elaborate systems of trenches and other fortifications that were excellent against defense, making offensives by either side (though they nonetheless continued to take place) unlikely to succeed and ensuring a high rate of casualties regardless of the outcome. This grim and grisly stalemate has become the most common image of World War I.

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