paragraph_text: At the beginning of World War I, East Prussia became a theatre of war when the Russian Empire invaded the country. The Russian Army encountered at first little resistance because the bulk of the German Army had been directed towards the Western Front according to the Schlieffen Plan. Despite early success and the capture of the towns of Rastenburg and Gumbinnen, in the Battle of Tannenberg in 1914 and the Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes in 1915, the Russians were decisively defeated and forced to retreat. The Russians were followed by the German Army advancing into Russian territory.

paragraph_text: All Quiet on the Western Front (German: Im Westen nichts Neues, lit. 'In the West Nothing New') is a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I. The book describes the German soldiers' extreme physical and mental stress during the war, and the detachment from civilian life felt by many of these soldiers upon returning home from the front.

paragraph_text: Herbert Ihlefeld (1 June 1914 – 8 August 1995) was a German "Luftwaffe" military aviator during the Spanish Civil War and World War II, a fighter ace listed with 130 enemy aircraft shot down in over 1,000 combat missions. He claimed seven victories in the Spanish Civil War, and during World War II, 67 on the Eastern Front and 56 on the Western Front, including 15 four-engined bombers and 26 Supermarine Spitfires. He survived being shot down eight times during his 1,000 combat missions.

paragraph_text: The Battle of Königsberg, also known as the Königsberg Offensive, was one of the last operations of the East Prussian Offensive during World War II. In four days of violent urban warfare, Soviet forces of the 1st Baltic Front and the 3rd Belorussian Front captured the city of Königsberg – now Kaliningrad, Russia. The siege started in late January 1945 when the Soviets initially surrounded the city. There was heavy fighting for the overland connection between Königsberg and the port of Pillau, but by March 1945 Königsberg was hundreds of kilometres behind the main front line. The battle finished when the German garrison surrendered to the Soviets on 9 April after a three-day assault made their position untenable.

paragraph_text: During World War I, the German Empire was one of the Central Powers that lost the war. It began participation in the conflict after the declaration of war against Serbia by its ally, Austria - Hungary. German forces fought the Allies on both the eastern and western fronts, although German territory itself remained relatively safe from widespread invasion for most of the war, except for a brief period in 1914 when East Prussia was invaded. A tight blockade imposed by the Royal Navy caused severe food shortages in the cities, especially in the winter of 1916 -- 17, known as the Turnip Winter. At the end of the war, Germany's defeat and widespread popular discontent triggered the German Revolution of 1918 -- 19 which overthrew the monarchy and established the Weimar Republic.

paragraph_text: The Hundred Days Offensive (8 August to 11 November 1918) was an Allied offensive which ended the First World War. Beginning with the Battle of Amiens (8–12 August) on the Western Front, the Allies pushed Central Powers back after their gains from the Spring Offensive. The Germans eventually retreated to the Hindenburg Line, culminating in the Armistice of 11 November 1918. The term "Hundred Days Offensive" does not refer to a battle or strategy, but rather the rapid series of Allied victories against which the German armies had no reply.

paragraph_text: The Schlieffen Plan (German: Schlieffen - Plan, pronounced (ʃliːfən plaːn)) was the name given after World War I to the thinking behind the German invasion of France and Belgium on 4 August 1914. Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen, the Chief of the Imperial Army German General Staff from 1891 to 1906, devised a deployment plan for a war - winning offensive, in a one - front war against the French Third Republic from 1905 -- 06. After the war, the German official historians of the Reichsarchiv and other writers, described the plan as a blueprint for victory. German historians claimed that the plan had been ruined by Generaloberst (Colonel - General) Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, the Commander - in - Chief of the German army after Schlieffen retired in 1906, who was dismissed after the First Battle of the Marne (5 -- 12 September 1914).

paragraph_text: Karl Sutter (10 May 1914 – 14 September 2003) was a German track and field athlete who competed in the pole vault.

paragraph_text: On 23 August 1944, with the Red Army penetrating German defenses during the Jassy -- Kishinev Offensive, King Michael I of Romania led a successful coup against the Axis with support from opposition politicians and most of the army. Michael I, who was initially considered to be not much more than a figurehead, was able to successfully depose the Antonescu dictatorship. The King then offered a non-confrontational retreat to German ambassador Manfred von Killinger. But the Germans considered the coup ``reversible ''and attempted to turn the situation around by military force. The Romanian First, Second (forming), and what little was left of the Third and the Fourth Armies (one corps) were under orders from the King to defend Romania against any German attacks. King Michael offered to put the Romanian Army, which at that point had a strength of nearly 1,000,000 men, on the side of the Allies. Surprisingly, with the Red Army occupying parts of Romania, Stalin immediately recognized the king and the restoration of the conservative Romanian monarchy. (Deutscher, Stalin. 1967, p. 519)

paragraph_text: Otto Sackur (28 September 1880 in Breslau, Germany – 17 December 1914 in Berlin, Germany) was a German physical chemist.

paragraph_text: Elwyn Roy King, DSO, DFC (13 May 1894 – 28 November 1941) was a fighter ace in the Australian Flying Corps (AFC) during World War I. He achieved twenty-six victories in aerial combat, making him the fourth highest-scoring Australian pilot of the war, and second only to Harry Cobby in the AFC. A civil pilot and engineer between the wars, he served in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) from 1939 until his death.

paragraph_text: The German Army came within 70 km (43 mi) of Paris but at the First Battle of the Marne (6 -- 12 September), French and British troops were able to force a German retreat by exploiting a gap which appeared between the 1st and 2nd Armies, ending the German advance into France. The German Army retreated north of the Aisne River and dug in there, establishing the beginnings of a static western front that was to last for the next three years. Following this German retirement, the opposing forces made reciprocal outflanking manoeuvres, known as the Race for the Sea and quickly extended their trench systems from the Swiss frontier to the North Sea. The territory occupied by Germany held 64 percent of French pig - iron production, 24 percent of its steel manufacturing and 40 percent of the coal industry -- dealing a serious blow to French industry.

paragraph_text: The 59th (2nd North Midland) Division was an infantry division of the British Army during World War I. It was formed in late 1914/early 1915 as a 2nd Line Territorial Force formation raised as a duplicate of the 46th (North Midland) Division. After training in the United Kingdom and saw service in the Easter Rising in April 1916, the division joined the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the Western Front in early 1917. It saw action at Ypres and Cambrai, and was almost destroyed during the German Army's Spring Offensive in March 1918. The reconstituted division took part in the final advances of the war.

paragraph_text: Theodor Weissenberger (21 December 1914 – 11 June 1950) was a German Luftwaffe military aviator during World War II and a fighter ace credited with 208 enemy aircraft shot down in 375 combat missions. The majority of his victories were claimed near the Arctic Ocean in the northern sector of the Eastern Front, but he also claimed 33 victories over the Western Front. He claimed eight of these victories over the Western Allies while flying the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter.

paragraph_text: Support for the conflict had never been strong in Britain, where many sympathized with the Americans, but now it reached a new low. King George III personally wanted to fight on, but his supporters lost control of Parliament and no further major land offensives were launched in the American Theater.

paragraph_text: Result Allied victory Western Allied offensive plans delayed by five or six weeks Disastrous offensive in the Ardennes exhausted the resources of Germany on the Western Front. The German collapse opened the way for the Allies to ultimately break the Siegfried Line Soviet offensive in Poland launched on 12 January 1945, eight days earlier than originally intended.

paragraph_text: By summer 1918, a million American soldiers, or "doughboys" as they were often called, of the American Expeditionary Forces were in Europe under the command of John J. Pershing, with 25,000 more arriving every week. The failure of Germany's spring offensive exhausted its reserves and they were unable to launch new offensives. The German Navy and home front then revolted and a new German government signed a conditional surrender, the Armistice, ending the war against the western front on November 11, 1918.

paragraph_text: The United States joined World War I in April 1917 on the side of the Triple Entente (British Empire, France, and Russia). Because of the necessary period of training before the units were moved overseas, the first elements of the American Expeditionary Forces arrived in June 1917. Their first actions of the Western Front came in October 1917. U.S. troops contributed to the offensive that finally broke through the German lines. With the armistice on 11 November 1918, the Army once again decreased its forces.

paragraph_text: The Battle of Transylvania was the first major operation of the Romanian forces Campaign during World War I, beginning on 27 August 1916. It started as an attempt by the Romanian Army to seize the disputed province of Transylvania, and potentially knock Austria-Hungary out of the war. Although initially successful, the offensive was brought to a halt after Bulgaria's attack on Dobruja. Coupled with a successful German and Austro-Hungarian counterattack which started in mid-September, the Romanian Army was eventually forced to retreat back to the Carpathians by mid-October. The Romanian armies however managed to escape the Central Powers' attempts to completely destroy them. The Battle of Transylvania also caused the replacement of the Chief of Staff of the German Army and the shifting of German attention to the region, causing German offensive operations at Verdun to cease.

paragraph_text: The Western Front was the main theatre of war during the First World War. Following the outbreak of war in August 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne. Following the Race to the Sea, both sides dug in along a meandering line of fortified trenches, stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier with France, which changed little except during early 1917 and in 1918.

Question: In September 1914, during the conflict in which Elwyn Roy King served, where was the initial German offensive on the Western Front stopped?
Answer: First Battle of the Marne