Talk:First Battle of the Marne

message: The article refers to a French garrison besieged at Metz among other places. But at the time Metz was part of Germany, with a German garrison. A French garrison was besieged at Metz in The Franco-Prussian War but not in 1914.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.136.239.82 (talk) 04:41, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Error about Metz?

message: In the German article, it says that the famous Marne taxis were mainly a propagandistic success but in fact rather insignificant for the actual fighting, because they only managed to take a total of about 6,000 troops to the front, while 50,000 troops were killed every day and many more were wounded.
6000 men would he half a division delivered to a critical spot to 6th French Army at a critical time. Three regiments can make a difference in a close run thing.    — Preceding unsigned comment added by Missaeagle (talk • contribs) 06:36, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Marne Taxis "critical"? 

message: Are there any more than that horse one? Its kind of pathetic as is.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.104.229.66 (talk) 01:51, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The Crawfords tale is a very nice yarn but, alas, unsubstantiated. A much more likely explanation of the statue (which depicts a single horse and a single artillery driver) is found here To the east of the massive Australian national memorial north of Villers-Bretonneux, twelve kilometres to the east of the city of Amiens, is the small village of le Hamel with its recently built hilltop memorial to the Australian victory there on the 4th of July 1918. Eastwards lies flat country which was ideal for charging heavy and light tanks, with the armoured cars raiding the fourteen kilometres to Proyart and Framerville-Rainecourt. Above the valley, on the other side of the river Somme, is the Chipilly Spur. At its base commemorating the 58th (London) Division's capture of the Spur is the emotive staue of an artilleryman comforting his wounded horse. . . Besides this statue and the Australian memorials, there is little to show of those four days in August 1918. (Note the date discrepancy here.) Moreover, there seems to be no available text of a plaque to identify the statue as a specific memorial. I have to agree with the above unsigned IP that the section is insubstantial enough to be deleted, at least for the time being, until a better collection of properly cited items can be produced. On the other hand, there is already a perfectly good article on War memorial. Cheers Bjenks (talk) 06:16, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Memorials

message: Ipage. Plus if you have anymore info on this subject or any other WWI battle, could you please add to Spawn Man 00:57, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discussion. 

message: Maybe the Republican politician (and Vietnam era draft dodger), Roy Blunt, should apologize for the ignorant joke that he made concerning the French, "Do you know how many Frenchmen it takes to defend Paris? It's not known. It's never been tried".  Apparently in September, 1914 80,000 Frenchmen died SUCCESSFULLY defending Paris! Jay Gregg
The German armies had wheeled to the east of Paris before the battle of the Marne.  The point of the Schlieffen plan was to try and outflank the French and then outflank their right flank and encircle the whole French army around the positions of the French right wing. Paris was never the objective of the Germans, destruction of the French Army in the field outside of Paris was the purpose. The statement still makes sense in this case, if you wanted to be more correct, you should go back to the Franco-Prussian War and the siege of Paris. --24.202.1.112 (talk) 03:18, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  French Military 

message: Surely a battle as significant as this one deserves a longer article... =\ – ugen64 03:46, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes a battle as important as this one deserves to have far more coverage. For some reason I haven't gotten around to expanding this article. I hope someone beats me to it.UberCryxic 03:54, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Short article

message: I think special mention should be made of the quality of the BEF troops. AllStarZ 23:59, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Germans continued the offensive after la Cateau. The BEF forced marched away out of contact for 48 straight hours. There's something seriously wrong with the Terraine narrative.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.82.213.241 (talk) 05:47, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: BEF

message: The Germans only turned in 85,000 dead on the Western Front, for the whole of 1914. It's reasonable to assume they had wounded comparable to the 3.25:1 they suffered through the course of the war, or about 275,000, for a total for all of 1914 in the West of 360,000. Were there only 110,000 German casualties in all the battles at the Belgian forts, Antwerp, Lille, "the Race to the Sea", action in the Verdun area, and the border battles? I don't think so. My guess is that they suffered casualties about half that of the Allies. After all, they had entrenched first, they had the heavy guns and mortars that the Allies did not, and they followed a cohesive withdrawal plan, unlike the disjointed Allied effort. The Allles turned in 330,000 dead in 1914, and their dead:wounded ratio was worse, too (i.e. fewer wounded survived). Again, this may well be a matter of obfuscation by later British propaganda.Marhault 05:25, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you want to argue numbers then you should back up your argument with a reputable source. Atrian 16:26, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

text: If the German figures are from 1935, don't you think they might be subject to propaganda as well? The Germans of that era were somewhat known for doing things like that. Atrian 13:39, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

text: The 250,000 figure is very well established. Almost every single work I've come across on the subject gives that number. Whether that is correct or not is not for Wikipedia to decide; the only thing that matter is that it is the dominant view among the historical community, so that is the number that will be placed in the infobox.UberCryxic 01:46, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  250,000 German casualties at First Marne? 

message: I'm not sure what this line is supposed to mean: "Von Kluck, happily met the French women on his right leg, opened up a 50 bottles of wiskey and made a wide gap in the German lines between his First Army and the German Second Army,"
It appears in the first line of the "Battle" section of the article.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12.6.247.146 (talk • contribs) 16:00, 20 December 2006  (UTC)
:That was vandalism, and it was fixed yesterday. You may be looking at an older version of the page. - Eron Talk 00:11, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  'Von Kluck, happily met the French women on his right leg...' ??? 

message: I added in this section, "By September 3, Joffre recognized the German armies' tactical error..." that it was (according to Barbara Tuchman in The Guns of August), General Gallieni who recognized the Von Kluk's error and forced Joffre to support his request to attack the German flank. This is the widely accepted version of the event and should have been left in.
--192.43.161.1 19:02, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why was Info about General Gallieni removed? 

message: The Campaignbox Western Front (World War I) is lacking and this page is part of it. Can someone add it? 200.222.3.3 (talk) 16:17, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Rod. Rcbutcher (talk) 16:29, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Western front box 

message: The image does not clearly mark the French 6th Army, even if it is obvious from the text that they are the formation marked in blue facing the German 1st Army. AadaamS (talk) 11:03, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map image incomplete. 

message: See here for a review of The Marne, 1914: The opening of World War I and the battle that changed the world (2009, Holger H. Herwig), Random House; 391 pp. Looks like it would be a good source to add to this article. Carcharoth (talk) 00:13, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  New book published 

message: I made an edit that removed a one-sentence "anecdote" section about a celebrity death tied to the battle into the section on casualties.  The celebrity's page also makes note of it.  I was not able to find exactly what that death "one day before the start of battle" had to do with the battle.  Was he a soldier scouting?  Innocent civilian? Car crash two countries away?  The user who made the edit claimed to be a French literature student, so I'll trust there's some significance there. --Joshrulzz (talk) 14:00, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Celebrity Death (Peguy) 

message: The German strength are very misleading. Here are the initial strengths of the four participating armies from three reputable sources: 
Holger Herwig, The Marne 1914,  has two figures: 1st 320,000, 2nd 260,000, 3rd 180,000, 4th 180,000, (5th 200,000, 6th 220,000 and 7th 120,000) according to the US Military academy quoted in the illustration in p 38 and 39. The entire Western army is listed as 1.6 million on p 48.
Sewell Tyng, The campaign of the Marne,  only has numbers of divisions totals(of which cavalry): 1st 15(3), 2nd 14(2), 3rd 8, 4th 10, 5th 13(2), 6th 17(3), and 7th 8 pp 355 and 356.
John Ellis & Michael Cox, The World War I Databook, , 1914-08-18: 1st 15(3), 2nd 14(2), 3rd 8, 4th 10, 5th 12(2), 6th 13(3), 7th 6, p 171.
From those 2 German active corps and 1 Cavalry division were sent east to reinforce the 8th army and 4(?) reserve divisions were left behind to watch Antwerp. All of those infantry divisions were taken from armies 1-3.
At the battle Tyng says the Germans had 1st 13(3), 2nd 9.5(2), 3rd 6, 4th 8, 5th 14(2) [and the 6th 17(2), 7th 8], pp 380. Possibly 2 reserve divisions from 2nd army were watching Maubeuge.
Tyng and Herwig doesn't list the Landwehr brigades, while Ellis & Cox includes them. The former are IMHO correct since the Landwehr were mostly guarding LoC and/or besieging fortifications.
Tyng states allied divisions at the battle of Marne as 6th 12(3.5), BEF 7.5(2), 5th 16(3), 9th 9(1), 4th 10, 3rd 11.5(1), [2nd 10(1), and 1st 13(1.5)], pp 376-378. The vital allied left flank had 43.5(8.5) while the opposing German right flank had 25.5(5). The centres are given as allied 21.5(1) and 25(2). I specify the number of cavalry divisions because they had 50% or less the men and about 25% or less of the guns.
A problem is that none of these sources state manpower. However divisions were in theory more or less equally strong on both sides. It's more than probable that actual strenghts were more favourable for the French since they had been given replacements.
I suggest that strenghts are given as allied 43.5(8.5) and German 25.5(5), or simpler 35 vs 20.5, alternatively 65 allied vs 45.5.
Johan Arve  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.82.213.241 (talk) 07:30, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Strengths are misleading 

message: Added material for context and continuity.Keith-264 (talk) 19:07, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Additions 

message: Tidied citations which had red on themKeith-264 (talk) 11:51, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  CE 

message: Ops, my mistake here. Cryfe (talk) 17:22, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: What mistake?Keith-264 (talk) 17:38, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Aircraft

message: I don't understand why the brief text on the role of the Paris taxicabs in transporting troops was taken out and turned into a footnote,  and instead the event is described, without a description, as a "legend" and insignificant.  While militarily it was only a small part of the battle, it had an enormous impact on morale, and,  as is mentioned  later in the article,  it was the the first use of motorized infantry in war. Every school student in France learns about it, and the Museum of the Army in Paris has one of the taxicabs as a centerpiece of its exhibit on the battle.  It may be a legend, but in this case the legend is quite true.  If no one objects I would like to put back in the brief text and citation about the role of the taxicabs. SiefkinDR (talk) 11:38, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Taxis of the Marne 

message: The German strength in this tabulary are very misleading.
|strength2=1,485,000 (on 2 August)27 German divisions
How can it be ???
On 2 August the German strengh on western Force was 68 Divisions (1st, 2n, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th Army) with 1,485,000 men (This can be right).
VII. Korps, Garde-Reserve-Korps and IX. Reservekorps was on 5 September in Antwerp and Maubeuge . 
 
In first Battle of the Marne fight only german 1st, 2n, 3rd, and half 4th Army with togeter 32 Division Infantry and 8 Cavalry divisions. Together not more then 40 Divisions (direkt in fight only 27 Infantry division and 6 cavalry divisions) 
One division have 18.000 Men (cavalry only 11000), so  have on 6th September 1914 the german force on the marne only 780.000 men, it can not be more. I have not give the casaulties from Battles of Mons, Le cateau, and St. Quentin away ?? I have count the Divisions in the maps of Reichsarchiv Der Weltkrieg 1914-1915 volumme 4, too. Sorry by my horror english--Kleombrotos (talk) 07:15, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  German strengh ??? 

message: here (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Foch)WP says " My centre is giving way, my right is retreating, situation excellent, I am attacking.
Message to Marshal Joseph Joffre during the First Battle of the Marne (8 September 1914), as quoted in Foch : Le Vainqueur de la Guerre (1919) by Raymond Recouly, Ch. 6" 
which whether historical or just a personal memoire certainly suggests Foch's involvement with the battle (first) of marne. Therefore i am really disappointed that his name is not even mentioned in the article. Could this be perhaps mitigated by some of the editors knowledgeable enough to point out such an involvement? 89.134.199.32 (talk) 22:01, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: how comes ferdinand foch is not mentioned?

message: This battle was a major victory for the Franco-British as it saved France from ruin, and as such it should display their soldiers as well.
--193.92.90.33 (talk) 12:07, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox should also feature Franco-British soldiers 

message: Rectified some duplication and inconsistent chronology, restored paragraphs in the first section and some stylistic solecisms. Keith-264 (talk) 15:06, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  CE 

message: * 
:Echevarria demonstrated beyond dispute that between 1870 and 1914, no German military theorist thought that wars against similar states, which had had an industrial revolution, would be quick or bloodless. Echevarria's comparison with French, Russian, British and US theorists shows that they didn't either. It's probably a good idea to lean less heavily on older sources like Tuchman and more on Echevarria, Foley and Strachan.Keith-264 (talk) 15:51, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  The "Schlieffen Plan" 

message: The Dates show the start on the 5th, but the citation says Sep 6.  Who changed it and why? Xcerptshow (talk) 04:53, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Date Changes? 

message: The article now says that French deaths on the Marne came to approximately 31,000. Just over a year ago, it said 80,000 French deaths. French casualties, meanwhile, declined by 23,000. Somehow, though, the German figures haven't shifted at all: 67,000 dead from 250,000 casualties.
I'm not saying this is impossible; I haven't read enough sources about it. I do think the discussion of casualties, though, should better explain the discrepancy. Lots of numbers are thrown around, and yet I don't see an 80,000- or 81,000-deaths figure anywhere. If the French death toll has been cut by almost two-thirds due to recent scholarship, that debate should be presented clearly. This is doubly so given that many other Internet sources still quote the 81,000 figure. Maybe it is outdated, and maybe they were all webpages written from the old figure on Wikipedia, but it deserves more explanation (but a tidier one) than is given. Sacxpert (talk) 03:45, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree--and I've changed French deaths back to 80,000 which is the oft-cited estimate. I added a reference which gives 80,000 as the French dead.  I think the lower estimate of 31,000 French deaths doesn't take into account the tens of thousands of French missing -- many of them blown to bits and their bodies unidentifiable.Smallchief (talk) 22:22, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  French death toll 

message: Which needs to include the Order of battle of the french third and fourth army.And the german fourth and fifth army. Waylon1104 (talk) 11:36, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Order of battle of the First Battle of the Marne Smallchief (talk) 12:21, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can someone give the Order of battle for the battle of marne? 

message: The infobox says the battle happened between "7–14 September 1914", but the text says it happened "from 5 to 12 September" SRAbian (talk) 11:21, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Date doesn't seem to match