Abstract
Within a week of its arrival on the French left the BEF found itself caught up in a military disaster of unprecedented magnitude. Behind the front line and across the Channel those who had resisted the forward deployment of the BEF took solace in the fact that their apprehensions had proved well founded. Their priority now had to be to redeem the unfortunate situation in which the BEF found itself following the failure of the French strategic plan to which the BEF had been committed.
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Notes and References
Hobhouse diary (25 Aug. 1914), E. David (ed.), Inside Asquit’s Cabinet: From the Diaries of Charles Hobhouse (London, 1977), p. 184.
Note by Murray [of interview with Kitchener] (14 Aug. 1914), quoted in G.H. Cassar, Kitchener: Architect of Victory (London, 1977), p. 231.
Brig.-Gen. Sir J. Edmonds (ed.), Official History of the Great War: Military Operations, France and Belgium (14 vols, London, 1922–48), [hereafter cited Official History], 1914 (3rd edn, 1933), appendix 8, i 499–500.
General A. Huguet, Britain and the War: A French Indictment, trans. Captain H. Cotton Minchin (London, 1928), p. 44.
Brig.-Gen. E.L. Spears, Liaison, 1914: A Narrative of the Great Retreat (London, 1930), p. 42.
Spears, op. cit., pp. 136–7.
Ibid., pp. 91 and 123.
Lt.-Gen. E.J. Galet, Albert King of the Belgians in the Great War, trans. Maj.-Gen. Sir E. Swinton (London, 1931), pp. 147–8.
Joffre has been poorly served by biographers. Useful insight into his character can be found in D. Lloyd George, War Memoirs (2nd edn, 2 vols, London, 1938), i 868–72; Porch, The March to the Marne, pp. 172–3; Spears, Liaison, pp. 21–3.
Prete, op. cit., p. 12.
R.A. Prete, ‘Joffre and the Question of Allied Supreme Command’, Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Western Society for French History, XVI (1989), pp. 329–38: p. 329.
Galet journal, files 18, 19 and 21; Joffre to Collón, in Lt.-Gen. De Selliers de Moranville, Contribution à VHistoire de la Guerre Mondiale, 1914–18 (Brussels, 1933), pp. 230–1;
For Sir John French’s pre-war career and personality see R. Holmes, The Little Field Marshal: Sir John French (London, 1981); Philpott, ‘Strategic Ideas of French’.
G.H. Cassar, The Tragedy of Sir John French (London, 1985), pp. 93–5, 104–6 and 126; French, 1914, p. 36 passim-, R. Holmes, op. cit., pp. 208–18; Prete, op. cit., pp. 150–8 and 165–72; Spears, Liaison, p. 73 passim.
Cassar, op. cit., p. 113.
Prete, op. cit., pp. 178–9.
Prete, op. cit., p. 161 and 179.
Committee of Imperial Defence ‘minutes of the 114th meeting’ (23 Aug 1911), CAB 2/2.
Prete, op. cit., pp. 222–4.
French to Kitchener (25 and 31 Aug. 1914), Kitchener papers, PRO 30/57/49/8 and 13; French diary (26 Aug. 1914); Haig diary (26 and 27 Aug. 1914), Field-Marshal Earl Haig of Bemersyde papers (accession 3155), National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh: extensive extracts from Haig’s diaries have been published in R. Blake (éd.), The Private Papers of Sir Douglas Haig (London, 1952); Wilson diary (31 Aug. 1914).
Prete, op. cit., pp. 238–41.
Baird diary, op. cit.; Prete, op. cit., p. 227 passim.
Hobhouse diary (31 Aug. and 1 Sept. 1914), David, op. cit., pp. 185–7; Cassar, Tragedy of French, pp. 131–4; D. French, British Strategy and War Aims, 1914–1916 (London, 1986), pp. 26 and 35.
D. French, op. cit., pp. 23–4.
Cassar, op. cit., pp. 130–1.
Cassar, op. cit,. pp. 131–4.
Ibid., pp. 135–8; French, 1914, pp. 99–101; Prete, The War of Movement’, pp. 265–70.
Kitchener to Grey (1 Sept. 1914), quoted in Cassar, op. cit., p. 137.
Prete, op. cit., p. 308.
Millerand to Joffre (1 Sept. 1914), in Joffre, op. cit., i 229–30; Prete, op. cit., pp. 258–65 has exaggerated the effectiveness of Millerand’s intervention.
French to Joffre (3 Sept. 1914), in French, op. cit., pp. 98–9.
French diary (4 and 5 Sept. 1914); French to Kitchener (7 Sept. 1914), Kitchener papers, PRO 30/57/49/19; French, 1914, pp. 107–10; Cassar, Tragedy of French, pp. 141–2; Prete, op. cit., pp. 296–304.
French, op. cit., pp. 122–3, 131–2 and 135–6;
Cassar, op. cit., pp. 145–9.
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© 1996 William James Philpott
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Philpott, W.J. (1996). Differences in the Field: Mons and the Marne, August–September 1914. In: Anglo—French Relations and Strategy on the Western Front, 1914–18. Studies in Military and Strategic History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24511-6_2
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